Having a cluttered mental space may be what’s holding you back from achieving your goals. The GTD (Getting Things Done) method is an effective and structured approach to externalizing all your tasks and commitments, allowing you to tackle tasks with clarity.
What Is the GTD Method?
The Getting Things Done (GTD) method, developed by productivity expert David Allen, is a streamlined system designed to improve time management. At its core, the GTD method is all about achieving clarity and focus by storing all your tasks and ideas in a trusted external system, rather than trying to remember them.
This is vital because your energy, concentration, cognitive capacity, and time—the pillars of productivity—are all finite resources. With the GTD method, you can stop worrying about remembering every little detail in your never-ending to-do list. This helps eliminate mental clutter and stress, freeing your mind to focus on doing the actual work. In addition, its flexibility makes it suitable for managing all sorts of tasks, including personal, professional, or academic goals.
The GTD method consists of five core steps, including Capture, Clarify, Organize, Reflect, and Engage. These steps work together to help you manage your tasks and commitments effectively. Let’s take a closer look at each step.
Step 1: Capture Everything in a Trusted System
The first step in the Getting Things Done method is to capture everything—tasks, ideas, and commitments—from all areas of your life into an external trusted system. This means collecting anything that needs your attention or could be useful in the future as soon as it comes to mind. For example, this can be random ideas, reminders to pay bills, responding to a colleague’s email, or calling a friend.
Capturing isn’t about deciding whether something is actionable or organized right away; it’s about getting tasks off your mind. I’ve found that trying to remember all my to-dos is a recipe for burnout. Instead, I write everything without judgment, knowing I will review and organize later.
There are many tools you can rely on to capture your tasks, including email, task management software, or switching to paper to-do lists. However, you want an external trusted system that’s always within reach. Since I spend most of my time on my Mac, I capture and organize my to-do lists in Apple Reminders, which also syncs with my iPhone. This way, I can quickly capture tasks and ideas on the go, knowing they’ll be safely stored in my trusted system.
Step 2: Clarify Your Tasks
The next step in the GTD method is to process each captured item. This means taking a closer look at everything you’ve captured, defining what it is, and determining whether it’s actionable or not. I start processing each task by determining its desired outcome, as it helps me clarify what I need to do and why.
Next, I ask myself, is this item actionable? Asking this helps me quickly decide what needs my attention and what doesn’t. If the answer is no, that is, the task is non-actionable, I handle it in one of three ways:
- Trash if it’s no longer relevant or requires my attention. For example, canceling a meeting with a client if I’m no longer working on the project.
- Incubate if it’s a future task or idea I don’t need to work on right now. For example, planning a vacation next year.
- Reference if it’s something that I need to keep, such as quotes from an article.
If the answer is yes (i.e. the item is actionable), there are three possible outcomes after defining what I need to do:
- Do if the task can be completed within 2 minutes.
- Delegate if someone else can do the task.
- Defer the item if I’m the best person to do it, and it takes more than 2 minutes.
Step 3: Organize Tasks Effectively
When I started using the GTD method, I realized that organizing my tasks effectively meant more than just listing to-dos—it involved creating a structured system to keep track of every commitment, project, and idea.
One thing to note is that some captured tasks may require several steps to complete. In the GTD method, such items are called Projects. Projects are outcome-oriented and need several actions to be completed, for example, writing an article requires several steps such as research, writing, and editing.
So, the first thing to do is create relevant lists to organize actionable and non-actionable tasks. Here’s how to organize actionable items into relevant lists:
- Use Projects to group multiple related actions that need to be completed to achieve a specific outcome. For example, a social media campaign for a product launch.
- Use a Calendar for time-specific actions, like booking a meeting on Monday at 9 AM, and day-specific actions, like picking up the dry cleaning on Saturday.
- Use a Next Actions list for the remaining deferred tasks (that are non-delegatable and take more than two minutes) you can do as soon as possible. For example, drafting ideas for the meeting with the client or reviewing your budget for next month.
I use separate lists for non-actionable items. Here’s how to organize non-actionable items into relevant lists:
- Use a Someday/Maybe list to track tasks you want to do later but aren’t urgent now, such as learning a new language.
- Use a Waiting For list to track tasks you have delegated.
- Use a Reference list for storing non-actionable items such as articles, meeting notes, and receipts.
Step 4: Reflect Regularly
Reviewing tasks on a regular basis is a crucial step in the GTD method that ensures I stay on top of my to-do list and maintain a clear, organized mind. This practice helps me capture new tasks, assess existing tasks, see what I have accomplished, and re-prioritize tasks if needed. The GTD system recommends two types of reviews:
Daily Review
This is a quick review I do once a day, either in the evening or in the morning. This review helps me get a bird’s eye view of all my to-dos and allows me to add or remove tasks from my lists as needed.
Weekly Review
This is a more comprehensive review I do once a week. I set one to two hours aside for this review to capture tasks for the upcoming week and assess all my lists. I do my weekly review on Sundays, as it helps me start the week with a clear mind and focused goals.
Ultimately, the daily and weekly reviews help me maintain a clear mind and organized plan. By reflecting regularly, I keep my system aligned with my goals and ensure that I’m always prepared to tackle whatever comes next.
Step 5: Engage and Get Things Done
The final step in David Allen’s GTD method is to get things done. This is where all the preparation comes to fruition as I confidently take the appropriate action following my plan. However, to make the best decision about what to do at a given time, there are four essential criteria to consider:
Context
This is where I assess my environment to determine if it’s suitable for a specific action. Some tasks can only be done in specific contexts—like making phone calls when I’m at my desk or responding to emails when I have my laptop. I use Tags in Reminders to help me sort tasks by context, so it’s easier to determine what I can do at a given moment.
Priority
What’s the most important thing I can do right now? Some tasks are important but not urgent. In this case, it may be more beneficial for me to focus on the tasks that have both high importance and urgency.
Time Available
Before diving into a task, I consider how much time I have. If I have a meeting in 10 minutes, I’ll choose a quick task like responding to a short email rather than starting a deep-focus project.
Energy Available
My energy levels at a specific time help me determine if I have the mental and physical capacity for a particular task. Finding your sleep chronotype can help you determine your most productive times of the day and match your tasks accordingly. For instance, I’m a morning person (the Lion chronotype), so I schedule my most challenging tasks early in the day.
This structured approach allows me to stay engaged and productive throughout the day, ensuring that I’m consistently moving forward on the things that matter most.
The GTD method is a reliable system if you often deal with a high volume of tasks and need to define clear actions and priorities. Although it may seem overwhelming at first, implementing this method can help you stay focused and organized, ultimately leading to increased productivity.
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