Book notes - Getting things done by David Allen

The Book in 3 Sentences

1. Getting Things Done (GTD) is a productivity method developed by David Allen that helps individuals and organizations manage their tasks and commitments.
2. GTD involves organizing tasks and commitments into specific lists, such as a "to-do" list, and regularly reviewing and updating these lists to ensure that tasks are completed efficiently.
3. GTD also emphasizes the importance of clear and focused thinking, as well as the need to identify and clarify one's goals and priorities.

My impressions

I read this book probably 5-6 years ago and that was really useful at the time. I was transitioning from being a software developer to managing more and more things in the business. I had more and more projects and tasks to deal with and I was really struggling to cope with that and this book helped me a lot at the time. I still use a similar system today, with a few additions that I've highlighted in the notes below.

Who should read it?

I would recommend to read this book when...

1. you're feeling overwelmed, you have too many projects to deal with
2. you're forgetting to do things: replyuing to emails, phone calls, forgetting actions agreed in meetings
3. you're waking up during the night and thinking about lots of things you need to do tomorrow

How the Book Changed Me?

This is the first book I read about time management and productivity and it helped me a lot at the time. Over the years I've added other techniques to my system such as time blocking. I also very much like scheduling the tasks for the day each morning. We'll touch on that when looking at other books later.

My Top 3 Quotes

1. “If you don’t pay appropriate attention to what has your attention, it will take more of your attention than it deserves.”
2. “The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small, manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one. —Mark Twain”
3. “Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them”

Summary + Notes

Introduction

New tasks can be very stressful when added on top of an already packed agenda. We need a sense of control. Getting Things Done (GTD) provides a system to free up the brain. It's about getting more done while reducing stress.

1 - Our brain is great at thinking but terrible at remembering things

Our days are full of interruptions: email, phone calls, social medias. It's easy to be distracted and lose focus. We have to deal with multiple tasks and projects. Most people try to keep that in their head. This distracts us and reduce our capacity to think because our brain is focused on solving stuff that we don't want to do now. The author call these "open loops", your brain wants to close them.

GTD Process:

1. Capture thoughts: paper or digital
2. Clarify
3. Organise
4. Reflect
5. Engage

2 - Capture all your tasks

You need to develop the habit of capturing everything you need to do. You store these tasks in an inbox where you can quickly capture any idea or thing you want/need to do in the future.

This approach allows you to stay focused on what you're doing when a distraction comes in. Ideally you should not have too many collection tools and you should have your collection tool with you most of the time (i.e. mobile phone these days)

3 - Clarify

TODO

5 - Use a project list and define clear next actions

• a project is defined in GTD as a set of actions to reach a goal
• you should maintain a list of all active projects
• review this list periodically and make sure to ask yourself what is the next action for this project?
• these actions should go on your calendar or next action lists
• defining the next action is a powerful habit

6 - Natural planning clarifies goals and next steps of your projects

The natural planning method allows to easily plan complex projects:

1. Purpose and principles: before engaging in a project make sure you’ve clearly identified its goals.
2. Outcome visioning: clearly define the position in which you will be once the project is completed. i.e. where do you want to be? Try to articulate that clearly.
3. Brainstorming: once you have a clear goal defined, take some time brainstorm ideas to get there. Go for quantity over quality.
4. Organising: identify the most important ideas and sort them. Generally you want to identify dependencies between them and organise accordingly.
5. Identifying next actions: define the next action you could take. Also consider if you should be handling this action yourself or if you should delegate (the action or even the entire project).

7 - Instead of a daily to-do list, maintain a calendar and next action list

Trying to schedule days and days in advance is generally doomed to failure. It’s difficult to predict how long a task will take and unplanned things happen. For this reason David Allens recommends to work with a calendar and a next actions list:

• The calendar should be used for time specific actions only (ex: appointment / meeting, day specific actions, day specific information)
• All the other tasks (which are longer than 2min) should go in a next actions list. If you have many items on the next actions list you may want to categorise it with contexts such as “on the phone”, “when at the supermarket”, “on the computer” so you can quickly identify which action you can take.

8 - waiting list

Projects are rarely executed in complete isolation. Instead some of the tasks need to be performed by other people (colleagues, clients, etc).

When you ask someone to perform a task / action, you should add that action to the waiting list with some agreed (or anticipated) deadline. When you review the waiting list, you may notice that the person hasn’t completed the task yet and this allow you to remember about nudging that person to keep the project moving forward.

9 - Someday / maybe list

The someday / maybe list should be used to store ideas of projects you’d like to do at some point in the future but can’t or don’t want to action right now. This may be a business idea, an idea for a trip, etc. Periodically you should review this list and decide if you want to pick up one of these projects and schedule it.

10 - Reflect (stop 4 of the process)

Your mind will be at ease only if you feel you can rely on the system. For that you need to review it periodically and make sure it contains all the required and up to date data.

Allen advise to have:

• a start of the day session: check you calendar to see how many meetings you have today and then go through your next actions list to figure out which tasks you plan for today.
• on a weekly basis you should undertake a larger review of the system:
  • capture any idea you may still have in your head
  • review the next actions list and mark off completed items
  • review your calendar, check if you need to prepare for upcoming meetings
  • review the waiting for list: anyone needs chasing?
  • review the project list: do you have actions on the next action list already? Or do you need to create them?
  • someday / maybe list: is it time to take one of these items and turn it into a project? Delete items which are no longer relevant

The weekly review can take up to a few hours weekly. You should build an habit of doing that. A good way to do it is to book time Friday afternoon as it allows you to finish the week with a clear head and sense of control.

11 - Engage

The final phase of the process is to actually do the work. To choose the next task he recommends to trust your gut. Here are some things to consider:

• what can you do in the current context? (i.e. at the office? at an airport? on the road?)
• what do you have time for? if you have 15min between meetings you should pick a task you can complete. if tou pick something too big just getting in context might take 15min..
• how much energy do you have? if you’re feeling tired maybe you want to pick something not too taxing
• which task is the highest priority?

to stay productive keep your list with you at all times.

12 - understand your priorities

To understand what’s important it’s often useful to think in terms of horizons:

• ground: current actions, follow ups, emails to answer, etc
• horizon 1: current projects on your projects list and they generate items on the ground
• horizon 2: areas of focus and accountabilities. These are things you need to get done but never have an end. For example looking after your health, finances, family at home or planning and market research at work.
• horizon 3: once to two years goals. Visualise where you’d like to be in a couple of years personally and professionally. These will influence your areas of focus and accountability.
• horizon 4: long term vision (3-5 years). What are your Personnal and professional aspirations longer term?
• horizon 5: life purpose. What is your purpose in life? What do you want to achieve? This will influence all the other horizons

It would seem practical to start from horizon 5 and go backward but the author suggest to do a bottom up approach.

You should review these horizons periodically (ex: annually for horizons 4-5).

Summary

GTD is about being able to tackle a large amount of tasks with minimal stress. It’s about having control over your work.

The 5 key steps ares:

1. Capture your thoughts
2. Clarify what each item is
3. Organise the outcomes into lists such as Calendar, Projects, Next actions, Someday/Maybe and Waiting for lists
4. Reflect on what matters to you
5. Engage your tasks