Black Belt Productivity

This is the last chapter of Part 2 of Getting Things Done^®. Part 2 was all about getting into the nuts and bolts of GTD^®. This chapter tackes projects and getting them situated into your GTD System.

- Michael

Chapter 10: Getting Projects Under Control

We have covered getting our day-to-day actions under control, so let’s look at getting our projects straightened out. Allen states that we all need to plan our or work and our lives so that we can ease the stress that we put on ourselves every day. He also states that a side effect of more planning would be the increase in “creative output with minimal effort.”

The first type of project that needs planning is those that need next action steps (which is probably almost all of them). He outlines the typical planning steps that we should go through:

1. Brainstorming
2. Organizing
3. Setting up meetings
4. Gathering Information

In any type of brainstorming session, the goal is not quality, but rather quantity. You want to toss out any and all ideas that come into your head reagarding the project at-hand. Once you have brainstormed your project, you need to go back and work through the ideas that you came up with. While going through these ideas, you will need to place them into your systems so you do not forget them. Put them in the relevant next action categories as Next Actions. You will want to set up meeting with people who are going to play a part in the project. After that meeting, you will go through any new ideas that came up and begin to gather the information that you need to move the project forward.

Allen then talks a little about the projects tools that you can have on hand to make organizing them better. If you are a LoFi kind of person, a favorite pen and some pads of paper may be what you need; if you are HiFi kind, then a PDA or a laptop will always be near. Some like to think big and use big dry erase boards so that they can draw big, and not be worried about running out of space. You should always create a folder for your projects so that you can keep all the relevant papers together in a place that you (hopefully) will not forget. If you use a computer, then you can use anything from the standard text editor all the way to specialized project tools like Microsoft Project or some thing similar.

If we would invest a little time in planning on the frontend, then we would alleviate a lot of frustrations in the middle and backend of the project. Keeping your projects up-to-date is just as important as keeping your Next Actions up to date.