Time management concept – GTD

GTD is abbreviations of Getting Things Done. It was from David Allen’s one of best-selling book “Getting Things Done”.

Basic methods of GTD:  The concrete methods of GTD can be divided into collection, arrangement, organization, review and action of five steps.

Collection:  list all matters which you think of and never done (called stuff in GTD), put them in inbox. This inbox can be a folder or basket which used to hold various objects. It also could be a paper or PDA used to record everything. The key point of collection is driving all things out of your brain, recording all work you need do.

Arrangement: after putting the stuff into inbox, you need to arrange it regularly or irregularly, and empty the inbox.  Arrange these stuffs by whether it could be acted. For the content of the action can’t be put into practice, it could be further divided into several categories (reference material, may need to addressed in the future and garbage).  For the content of the action could be done, consider it whether could be completed in two minutes. If so, finish it immediately. Otherwise, organize this next step.

Organization:  my personal opinion, organization is the most core step in GTD. It contains organization of reference material and organization of next step. Organization of reference material is mainly a document management system. And organization of next step is commonly can be divided into: the next step list, waiting list and future list.

Waiting list mainly records works assigned other people to do. Future list records work delayed or future plan with no specific completion date.  And next step list records next works. If a project related to the work of many steps, then it needs to be refined into concrete work.

The most different between processing of next step list of GTD and general to-do-list is that it was further refinement.  Such as, record action respectively by location (computer, office, telephone, home, supermarket). When you go to these places you will clearly know what work should to do.

Review: review also is an important step in GTD. Through review and check all of you lists and updates. It ensures that the GTD system is working well. Meanwhile, you may need to make the plan for next week.

Action: now you could do the action according to each list, in specific action, you may need to choose the list and an item of list to act according to their environment, time cost, energy cost and importance.