- Collecting is the act of gathering inputs (resources, knowledge, and tasks.) You’ll have a much easier time making use of your available inputs if they’re all in one place before you begin.
- Processing is the act of examining your inputs: what you can do with the resources at your disposal. This is where you start separating things according to what you’re planning to do next: tasks, projects, future plans, and reference information.
- Organizing means taking the results of your processing and putting it in a system you trust, so you don’t have to remember it all. Tasks go on your to-do list, projects go on a projects list, future plans go into a tracking system, and reference information goes into a file or database you can access easily.
- Doing means working through the tasks you can accomplish right now.
- Reviewing means examining the results of your work, revising your strategy, and improving your systems for better results.
Get Organized Using GTD Method If your daily life Is out of control, it’s almost impossible to think strategically or plan effectively. The Getting Things Done process/methodology is all about capturing and closing every single one of your “open loops” (the things you know you need to do but haven’t captured in a planning system you trust). Once you’ve done that, you’ve got a starting place to begin organizing and executing around every arena of your life.
Get Everything Out Of Your Head. “Feelings of being overwhelmed, stress and anxiety are caused by mental overload. There is a limit to how much “unresolved stuff” the mind can hold.” Many people try to keep track of everything they need to do in their mind, which is a big mistake! Our brains are optimized for fast decision-making, not storage. Trying to juggle too many things in your head at the same time is a major reason we get stressed out when there’s a lot going on: we’re using the wrong tool for the job. Projects And Tasks Are Two Different Things: Track Them Separately. “The real problem is a lack of clarity and definition about what a project really is, and what the associated next-action steps required are.” —David Allen, Getting Things Done One of the biggest mistakes people make when it comes to productivity is that they mesh together projects and tasks when they should be distinct and separate from one another. Most of your goals can’t be accomplished all in one sitting – and when that’s the case, what you’re dealing with are projects — not tasks.
Project = anything that takes more than one step to complete.
Task = anything that can be done in a single step and usually in a single sitting.
5 steps of GTD
