GTD Primer
March 27th, 2008
The first project that Jason and I felt that we wanted to do was to write a chapter-by-chapter primer for Getting Things Done. I re-read the book and wrote the GTD Primer series as my first foray into Blogging. I think that it is a good summary of GTD for those that have not read the book (which you really need to do), or those who need a refresher in some of the concepts presented in it.
Black Belt Productivity presents the GTD Primer:
- Chapter 1: A New Practice for a New Reality
- Chapter 2 and 2a: Getting Control of Your Life: The Five Stages of Workflow
- Chapter 3: Getting Projects Creatively Under Way: The Five Phases of Project Planning
- Chapter 4: Getting Started: Setting Up the Time, Space and Tools
- Chapter 5: Collection: Corralling Your “Stuff”
- Chapter 6: Processing: Getting “In” to Empty
- Chapter 7: Organizing: Setting Up the Right Buckets
- Chapter 8: Reviewing: Keeping Your System Functional
- Chapter 9: Doing: Making the Best Action Choices
- Chapter 10: Getting Projects Under Control
Just started trying to use the GTD System and a simple thing has changed the whole way I manage my tasks. Having a limited number of stores for my tasks that “I TRUST”. I use outlook, a helpdesk system, a CRM package, my organiser, the todo list on the fridge, bits of paper on my desk, the list goes on.
By consolidating them into 2 stores I feel so much more in control. A simple change but it is having a dramatic effect.
I never realised how much doubt having multiple task stores can generate. The list is still long but I now know its the full one and I control it
I h
Using as few Inboxes as possible is the key to GTD working. The fewer you have means the fewer that you have to check and the fewer that you have to remember to check when you are processing.
Hey Michael, can you edit the chapter listing on this page to include the title of each chapter? Thanks, and keep up the awesome work!
@Bryan
I will do that during this holiday weekend.
Sorry it has taken so long to get the Chapter Titles up on this page. My son was put in the hospital this past weekend and things have been focused on him for the last 5 days. I will try to get them up tonight.
OK, Bryan, I finally got the Chapter titles in for ya!
Congrats Michael! I’m using your model to implement GTD and I wanted to thank you!!! I also wanted to let you know that for me, the AntiFiling method together with a Cool-Time approach is making wonders in a Product Managent environment . Having all messages in one place categorized is easy to sort and search. “Cool-time” is completing “the system” helping me being more in control, confident, managing better my time, priorities, and people.
My Projects are Outlook Contact items.
FYI this “hybrid system” is based on:
http://cnxn.ca/NoFoldersTutorial.html#Sorting_Email
http://www.cool-time.com/display.asp?Page_ID=125
http://home.comcast.net/~whkratz/id3.htm
All the best!
Michael and Jason,
I’d like to join the many people congratulating you - this really is a great summary and I already feel inspired again. I have quite a complicated GTD-like system myself, using both MindManager and ResultsManager, together with ordinary Outlook and a PDA - those tools, tweaked to my preferences, give me great overview of my whole life; goals/ambitions, projects, tasks etc. It even provides a good way of communicating projects and similar (through MindManager) to my teams and superiors at work.
Unfortunately I don’t have the time (I know that sounds stupid in a productivity blog) to make either white paper or set up a personal web site to share my experiences - at least yet. But it’s on my list of intended projects…;-)
Simon