Time 8 - Getting things done

The getting things done method is a productivity system. The system was developed and explained in David Allen's book “Getting Things Done”. It is a time and productivity management system to help people de-stress their busy lives. It uses calendars and lists to implement the new method, making your life less stressful. 

The base idea is writing down your to-do list, which will help ensure you remember everything necessary. This list will reduce stress as you are not constantly trying to remember what you must do. 

The five steps in the system are: capture, clarify, organise, reflect and change. 

• Capture involves collecting all the tasks you need to complete and placing these in inboxes. These inboxes do not have to be physical; instead, they can be any organisational system that allows you to put things together in writing. 

• During clarifying step, you review and process everything you have collected in your inbox. So, you are asking yourself where things belong in the system. You should ask the questions; what kind of task is it? Is it actionable? What’s the following action? During this step, you should not place anything back in the inbox. If there is no action, put it on an in-future list, or archive it for reference. 

• For the organise section, assign every actionable task to be placed on a list and then processed. Only enter appointments into your calendar, and add functions to a subsequent actions list. For projects (these are tasks that need more than one action), add these to a project list, where you will define specific following steps and enter deadlines onto your calendar. 

• In reflection, you are gaining clarity by organising everything, but you need more than simply doing this once to give you longevity in your organisation. To reap the full benefits of the method, you must regularly review your lists. In the GTD method, you need to do a weekly review, emptying your head, look at your inboxes, make a to-do list, check on the project lists, update your calendar, and see what the in-the-future list looks like. 

• Finally, step five is to engage. You have created this fantastic schedule and process for becoming more productive tailored to you now; you simply have to engage with it.