It's the evening of a long day at work, the clock says 11:20 p.m. I'm wearing an old Peanuts shirt and gray, oversized sweatpants, staring at the draft of this blog post. The TV is playing quietly in the background. My friend Garrett is only half watching. He's swiping through muted YouTube videos of Shinsuke Nakamura on his iPad.
How Getting Things Done changed my life
11:30 p.m.: Garrett stands up and walks over to me from the couch, absentmindedly. He looks away from the wrestling show he was watching, leans over my shoulder and looks at my notes on the article you're reading about " Getting Things Done ." He guides my mouse to a tab with a red logo in the upper right corner of my screen.
Click .
Todoist appears where my text was before . Garrett smiles when he sees my to-do list and kisses me on the cheek with a grin. He checks off my last task for the day: writing an article introduction.
"Looks like you're done. Let's go to sleep."
Like every night for the past six months, the Todoist window turns white and tells me to enjoy my evening. I feel relaxed, organized, productive and satisfied with my day.
Getting Things Done with Todoist
It's day 752, two years and 21 days since I started using David Allen's famous productivity method Getting Things Done (GTD). I've learned to manage my time and stress levels. I've figured out when I work best and when I need a break, which activities I can focus on effortlessly and which ones I need to make a conscious effort for.
Here I want to share the productivity method I've adopted: a modified version of GTD that has become not only the core of my productivity at work, but also part of my personal identity. I'll describe some of the background to GTD and what I've learned from it before showing you how you can use my method to improve your own productivity.
Why I need “Getting Things Done” in my life
What is “Getting Things Done” and how does it work?
A short disclaimer
1. There is no “work-life balance”.
2. Plan your plans.
3. Productivity and happiness are closely intertwined.
4. No productivity tool alone can fix a broken system.
5. Both people and methods have their limitations.
More lessons from Getting Things Done?
Why I need “Getting Things Done” in my life
When my friend Nick first tried to lend me David Allen's book , I did n't even bother to analyze how I was managing my time. Of course, I knew it was a disaster: my priorities fluctuated between "quitting smoking" and "reading 100 classics by the time I'm 30" and short-term goals like "writing articles on project management and parenting."
I knew (roughly) what I needed to do in a day, but I couldn't possibly keep track of any task schedule beyond the current week. Like someone half-heartedly trying a diet, I tried dozens of inefficient productivity "systems" only to give up after a week or two. For example, I left unread emails in my inbox as reminders, jotted down tasks and research results in five different notebooks (I could never have just one because I kept losing it), and often had 20 or 30 tabs open to "remind" me of everything I still had to do.
My productivity went up and down without ever being very efficient.
Next, I tried traditional organizational methods. I created online checklists and marked long-term goals on my calendar (so that I inevitably didn't come across them until the week I turned to when they were supposed to be done).
After seeing no significant change in my productivity or satisfaction, I tried more regimented productivity systems, such as " Don't Break the Chain " (where you mark the days you work toward a goal and compete with yourself to create the longest "chain"), " Eat the Frogs First " (where you do the most difficult tasks first thing in the morning and save the easy ones for later), or timeboxing (where you block off periods in your calendar to work only on certain tasks).
With each of these methods, I was productive for a few days, then I gave up on the system.
These failed attempts to increase productivity left me with the old problems:
Terribly chaotic rooms, an uncleaned kitchen and a cluttered desk
The constant self-deception that I would stop smoking “someday”, to the detriment of my teeth and my self-esteem
Constantly rescheduling appointments, from briefings to doctor's appointments
Missed deadlines for tax returns, phone bills, returning library books and important professional projects
An inbox with over 700 unread emails
Projects started that were never finished, even though others relied on me
Choosing ignorance of these issues instead of self-reflection caused me to take on more than I could handle
And I haven't even mentioned the psychological impact of this disorganization. When the mess was at its worst, I felt...
Depressed . Why was everyone else able to complete their to-do list but I couldn't?
Nervous . I never knew if I had forgotten something.
Under pressure . Before going to bed, I ran my mind through my day and tried hard to remember whether I had really done everything I needed to do.
Like a burden. I hated disappointing my coworkers – and myself – by constantly missing deadlines due to my absent-mindedness.
Rushed. When a task popped into my head, I felt like I had to do it right away so that it wouldn't disappear from my memory again.
Full of confusion. I never knew how to set my priorities. I wasn't clear about what I could realistically accomplish in a day, and that led to a vicious cycle of procrastination and overwhelm. Because I only had a vague idea of my priorities, my own stress levels seemed unpredictable and - worse - more or less severe but constant stress became the norm.
I became obsessed with finding the right productivity method and subscribed to websites like Inc. and the Harvard Business Review to somehow figure out what was causing my inefficiency.
I had previously turned down most of Nick's reading recommendations (I prefer reading novels to nonfiction, especially when it comes to reading longer works because many nonfiction books can be summarized in the length of an article), but Nick insisted that I read Getting Things Done. He even surprised me with the book when we met for coffee.
"Believe me, Rachel. This will change your life."
Skeptically, I took the book from his hands… and forgot it in the car.
Two months later (it was Saturday, April 25, 2015), Nick asked for the book back. I remembered that the forgotten book was probably under the driver's seat, so I rushed to get it out and read it, then return it to its owner.
By Sunday the 26th, I had finished reading David Allen's masterpiece and was determined to implement the Getting Things Done productivity method (for real this time ) .
What is “Getting Things Done” and how does it work?
Getting Things Done is a simple system for capturing ideas and planning tasks that is designed to help you become more productive and clear your mind at the same time. One blogger jokingly wrote that the system shouldn't actually be called "Getting Things Done" but rather "getting things done in a much better way than just letting them happen, which usually ends up not being very cool."
This is how it works:
First, write down absolutely everything you have to do. Whether it's work, family, or cutting your nails. The main thing is to take all the tasks you have to do, no matter where or why, and write them down. If new tasks come up, just write them down at the bottom of the list.
This unorganized list is called the inbox.
When you get to that point, ask yourself if each point is doable. If not, then cross it off. (For example, if you're 30 and wish you had learned Spanish as a child, that's obviously not a worthwhile task. Say goodbye to it and work on something doable like "Learn enough Spanish to be able to have simple conversations by the time you go on holiday to Costa Rica the year after next.")
If something is doable and can be done in less than two minutes, do it immediately!
If it is doable but needs to be planned, postponed or delegated, do that immediately too.
Create project folders for larger tasks that involve two or more steps. Break each task down into small, easily completed subtasks until the entire project consists of manageable tasks.
The graphic below illustrates the whole thing.
Take this blog post for example.
The idea of writing a blog post about my experience with Getting Things Done popped into new zealand telegram data my inbox. It's doable, but it would take more than two minutes to complete and the project would need to be broken down into small tasks.
Next, I created a folder and wrote down the following tasks:
Asking others on Quora about their experiences with “Getting Things Done” (for research and brainstorming for my own experiences)
Create a document for the draft
Use Google Analytics to research which keywords are best suited for this article
Find a title for the article and write down the keyword in the document so I don't forget it
Brainstorming to write down everything I learned through GTD
Select the five most important lessons and sort them by importance
Brainstorm important memories related to each lesson
Create an outline for the rest of the article
As I write this, I have completed the above tasks and still have many more steps to go.