The Basics of

Getting Things Done

Cyrill Stachniss
Getting Things Done
… or the art of stress-free productivity
http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Things-Done-Stress-Free-Productivity/dp/0142000280
Motivation for GTD
  The boundaries of today’s work are not
clearly defined anymore
  Traditional to-do list do not really
correspond to the way people work
today
  There are many more inputs today
(email, text msgs, mobile phones, …)
  The volume of input is higher and it
arrives faster than 20 years ago
Problems of Knowledge Workers
  Procrastination
  Avoiding things you should do
  There are items that always stay on your to-
do list
  Although you think you plan things well, they
sometimes get out of control
  Although you worked a lot, you have the
feeling of having nothing really accomplished
  You feel that there is too much stuff to do
  Things pop up to your mind in situations when
you cannot do anything about them
  You do not have a clear mind
GTD Aims
Providing strategies for how to
  be more relaxed and less stressed
  accomplish more
  be more creative
  keep track of relevant things
by supporting to
  define your work and priorities
  help to organize and structure your
work
Creativity Needs a Clear Mind

Image courtesy by Ming Gong; © by Ming Gong, 2009, minggongphotography.com

Why are Things on Your Mind?
  You have not clarified the indented
outcome
  You have not decided what the physical
next action towards the outcome is
  You have not put reminders of the
outcome and action in a system that
you truly trust
Transforming “Stuff”
  A lot in GTD is about the transformation
of “stuff” to clear your mind

  “Stuff” is everything in your physical

or psychological world that it is not
where it belongs to or for which you
have not defined a desired output
The Need of a Trusted System
  Our mind often reminds us about things
on which we cannot do anything at the
moment
  As soon as your brain knows that your
ideas, goals, and actions are stored in a
safe place, it will stop reminding you
  So capture everything an store it in a
trusted system
  GTD is about transforming stuff but also
about managing your trusted system
The Ideas of GTD on One Slide
  Identify all the stuff in your life that is not in
the right place
  Get rid of the stuff that is not yours or you do
not need right now
  Create a right place that you trust and that
supports your working style and values
  Put your stuff in the right place, consistently
  Do your stuff in a way that honors your time,
your energy, and the context of the
given moment
  Iterate and re-factor mercilessly
Five Key Steps of the (Daily)
GTD Process

  Capture/Collect
  Process
  Organize
  Review
  Do
Step 1 – Capture/Collect
  Capture every idea, to-do item, or
thought that is worth to remember
  Capturing it means to safely store that
information in an inbox/in-basket
  Have safely stored the thought is the
first step towards doing an action
  The thought is off your mind – your
mind does not need to remind you
anymore
  Empty the inbox regularly
Step 1 – Capture/Collect
Step 2 – Process
  Processing means to look at the
captured things and to decide what to
do with it
  Steps of processing stuff
  Remove it from the inbox
  Identify what it is
  Identify if it is actionable
  Identify the direct next action
  Decide what to do with that next action
Step 2 – Process
The Need of Contexts
  Most actions have a context – only in
this context you can do the action
  E.g., no need to remind you at work
that you have to fix a lap at home
  Grouping actions by context also allows
you to reduce context switches while
performing actions
Step 3 – Organize
  Organize the items and actions
  Project planning
  Waiting-for material
  Time planning/calendar
  Update project support material
  Not actionable items
  Trash
  Archive/reference material
  Someday/maybe items
Step 3 – Organize
Step 3 – Organize
The Archive
  A system to store non-actionable items
  Easy to add and retrieve material
  A good archive is essential for GTD
  You need to trust your archive
  Often, you will need two systems

Digital Paper-based
  Papers/Tutorials   Official documents
  Slides   Letters/bills
  Project material   Tax
  Emails   …
  …
The Paper-based Archive
  Typically a traditional folder system
  Own folders for larger projects/topics
(e.g., tax, credit card bills, …)
  A-Z filing systems for everything else
The Digital Archive
  Modern computer systems have quite good
search engines (e.g. spotlight)
  Many systems support tags for efficient
classifications
  I tend to separate email from the rest
(I simply receive too many emails)

Example:
Yep2
The Someday/Maybe List
  Things you want to do but not now
  “Parking lot” for ideas that should not
be lost but do not fit in your current
plans
  Examples
  Travels to make
  Learn Spanish
  Books I might want
  This list is not a second trash bin
  Needs to be reviewed frequently
Step 3 – Organize
The Waiting-for List
  Whenever you delegate a task, make
sure you track it
  Do forget things because your reminder
is the reply or input of someone else
  A waiting-for list is a very powerful tool
that helps to keep things under control
  Define deadline when to re-contact a
person if you received no reply
The Calendar
  Calendars are common and powerful
tools to organize dates ad deadlines
  The calendar should only host time- or
day-specific events or information
  Treat you calendar as a holy territory –
only add what is really relevant
  Do not plan what actions you intend to
do in your calendar – distractions will
mess up the schedule anyway in reality
The Next Actions Lists
  The lists that host all your next actions
  Formulate them as actions
(“Call Fred (#) about Lunch on 1.1.11”
instead of “Fred, Lunch”)
  Typically grouped by projects and/or
context
  Easy to maintain in a digital system
(different view on a database)
  Requires somewhat more organizational
efforts if implemented paper-based
Step 3 – Organize
How to Plan a Project
  In GTD, a project is something that
needs more than one action
  Small projects are defined straight-
forward, but planning larger projects
can be a challenge

  How to plan a larger project?

The Natural Planning Model
  A sequential, five-step process
1.  Define purpose and principles
2.  Outcome visioning
3.  Brainstorming
4.  Organizing
5.  Identifying the next actions

  Perform these steps sequentially, this

typically improves the project plan
1. Define Purpose
and Principles
  WHY?
  First, sketch the purpose. That is often
easy but triggers the following steps
  It defines success, decision-making
criteria, and clarifies the focus
  Principles are the boundaries of the plan
  Complete: “I would give other total free
rein to do this as long as they…”
  It helps you to define your “standards”
2. Vision and Outcome

  WHAT?
  What do you imagine about the project?
  Sketch the picture you have in mind
  Imagine the status of the project from
beyond the completion date
  Envision “wild success”
3. Brainstorming

  HOW?
  Capture the ideas on how to realize
what you imagined before in step 2
  Brainstorming keys
  Do not judge, evaluate, or criticize
  Go for quantity not quality
  Put analysis and organizational aspects to
the background
  Write things done on a piece of paper
  Mind maps are helpful for some people
4. Organizing

  Once you “emptied your head” in step 3

it is time to organize, judge, and
evaluate your ideas
  Identify components, subcomponents,
deadlines, milestones, dependencies
  Recursively refine the individual pieces
  Tools: Gantt charts, Pert diagrams
  Most people that talk about project
planning refer to this step (and often
do ignore the others)
5. Next Actions

  After identifying the components in step 4,

define the next physical actions that need
to be taken
  Add them to your lists

Question: Is all that really needed?

  It depends on
  the person and its experience and the
  similarity to previously realized projects
  Recommendation: Do it for some time with
this granularity and try it out!
Step 4 – Review
  Reviewing your projects, actions, lists
on a regular basis is essential
  The goal of the review is to ensure that
all projects/actions are up to date
  Update your lists
  Remove irrelevant/expired actions
  Review all your Waiting-for lists
  Are all actions in line with your goals
  Are there any uncollected items?
  Recommendation: a weekly review
Step 5 – Do
  Do the actions you specified before
  Models for choosing actions
  Four-criteria model for choosing actions at a
given moment
  Threefold model for evaluating daily work
  The six-level model for reviewing your own
work
  These models do not tell you what to
do but should support you to frame
your options in a smarter way
Four-Criteria Model for
Choosing Actions at Moment
  Apply the four simple criteria for
choosing actions to do
  Context
  Time available
  Energy available
  Priority
Threefold Model for
Evaluating Daily Work
  When working, one can do three
different kinds of activities
  Doing predefined work
(the actions defined in steps 1-4)
  Doing work as it shows up
(ad-hoc events or surprises may
require immediate actions)
  Defining your work
(doing GTD)
The Six-Level Model for
Reviewing Your Own Work
  Goal: Support to define your priorities
  This models uses 6 levels/perspective
  50,000 ft: Life
  40,000 ft: Three- to five-year vision
  30,000 ft: One- to two-year goals
  20,000 ft: Areas of responsibility
  10,000 ft: Current projects
  Runway: Current actions
  Defining your 6 levels helps to intuitively
come up with priorities for your actions
GTD Overview

& regular
reviews
Tools to Implement GTD
  I found it important to have good tools
to implement GTD
  The GTD book is from 2002 and a lot
has happened in terms of GTD software
  There are many people implementing it
with a paper-based notebook…
  … probably not the preferred solution
for geeks…
Important Features (for Me)
  Easy & quick to capture/collect stuff
  Import of & references to emails,
copied text, and any files
  Allows to define context, start and due
dates
  Predefined context-view
  Easy to re-organize actions and project
  Possibility to sync with my phone
  Sync between different computers
My Favorite Tool: OmniFocus
  OmniFocus from The OmniGroup
http://www.omnigroup.com/products/omnifocus/

Also has its disadvantages:

  OSX/iPhone only, no web interface,
not free (50$-80$)
OmniFocus Screenshot
Projects Actions Context Deadline

Action Groups

Overdue

Due soon
Find Your Own Tools/Setup
  Everyone has different needs
  Start with a simple text editor,
that works surprisingly well
  After some time, evaluate different
tools to see if this improves your
productivity and comfort
What are Typical Achievements
When Applying GTD
  Less things that block yourself from
being creative and productive
  Less procrastination
  Less things get lost
  More things get done in time
  Less stress
  More precisely planned projects
  Ability to quickly find archived
documents
Why GTD may not Work
  You track only a part of your “stuff”
  You do not trust your system
  You are not doing a regular review
  You are not familiar with the software
tools you use
  You “over-engineer” your system
(too many folders, special cases, etc)
  Your system is too complex or too easy
(“keep it as simple as possible and as
complex as needed”)
A few Remarks When Starting
  Setting everything up may take a few
days – but its worth investing that time
  You need silence to initially write down
everything which is on your mind
  It takes a while until your mind starts
trusting your system
  Keep your archive easily accessible
  Select a predefined date for a weekly
review (e.g., Fridays at noon)
  Read the GTD book
More About GTD
  Read David Allen’s GTD book
  “GTD for Geeks” on 43folders
  Inbox Zero of Merlin Mann
  Good podcasts of David Allen and Merlin
Mann

Some links
  http://43folders.com/
  http://inboxzero.com/
  http://www.davidco.com/
  http://workawesome.com/productivity/
GTD in Small Teams
  GTD itself is a one-man show, no
means for team work
  In most settings, however, GTD can be
applied very well if
  Everyone applies GTD personally
  You can rely on that if you send a task to
someone, it is captured, processed, etc.
appropriately
  Everyone knows that you track the task
assignments (e.g., waiting-for list)
GTD in Small Teams
  Nothing is allowed to be “lost” everyone
does GTD
  Creating minimal overheads
  Observation: there will be more
progress on the “important” projects
  How to make a project important?
  Important projects have
  One responsible person
  A clearly defined goal
  A deadline
  (A budget) - probably does not apply here
Inbox Zero

  A GTD-like system to
process your emails
by Merlin Mann
  Relevant if you think that you spend too
much time with your email
  Key ideas have been presented in a
Google Tech Talk, see
http://inboxzero.com/
Inbox Zero Essentials
  Never check your emails, process
your emails
  Process your inbox to zero
  Convert relevant emails into actions
  Do not use your inbox as a to-do list
(no one would allow anyone to add
useless stuff to the own to-do list)
  Open an email in your inbox only once
and decide directly what to do about it
Process Your Emails
Process Your Emails
Process Your Emails
Keeping Emails in Your Inbox
  requires you to repeatedly re-analyze
what to do with an email
  promotes procrastination
  requires to keep the email client open
all time which causes distractions
Reduce Distractions
  Creative and productive requires
distraction-free blocks of time
  Email clients frequently check emails
and will bother you with notifications

Inbox Zero Strategy:

  Process your email to zero
  Close your email client for at least
60 minutes (or longer)
  Work (do things!)
Summary
  This talk was intended to
sketch GTD
  To implement it, read the book
  Good tools are important to
really implement GTD
  Spent too much time on email:
Watch the inbox-zero (Google)