GTD – Getting Things Done!

GTD means : Getting Things Done

This is the title of a book written by David Allen. He describes effective Time management/ Priority management methods.

I have read several book on Time management in the past; but there is always room for improvement! It seems this is the most highly recommended book on this topic.

This is my own very positive experience with GTD!

From an Amazon.com review:

• ‘The essence of the process is that you write down a note about everything when you take on a new responsibility, make a new commitment, or have a useful thought. All of this ends up in some kind of “in” box.

• You then go through your “in” box and decide what needs to be done next for each item.

• For simple issues, this includes identifying the action you should take first and when to take it.

• For tougher issues, you schedule an appropriate time to work the problem in more detail.

• You organize the results of this thinking, and review your options for what you should be doing weekly.

Then you take what you choose to do, and act. Think of this process as the following five steps:

1. collect
2. process
3. organize
4. decide
5. act

From another summary:

After processing:

‘ Once everything is complied (the first time is is a one-to two day chore) you place it in a container:

1. Trash
2. Someday Maybe
3. Actionable

If it is ACTIONABLE. Decide which the next category:

1. Do it (if requires less than 2 minutes).
2. Delegate it.
3. Defer it (by calendar item or Next Action).
4. If it takes multi actions it goes into a Projects.

Recommendations:

• The authors of Manager-Tools.com think highly of this book.
• This is another post that summarizes GTD in a nice and simple way!

This is the website of the author David Allen. On this site (after registering), you can down some pretty good stuff, e.g.:

• additional articles on GTD
• mindmap giving an overview of GTD

This is a great video of David Allen at a Google conference explaining GTD! :

Video