I remember the time, it was in January or February 2008, when it came to my mind that I need a notebook. I started writing down a lot of notes, what I wanted to buy, what I wanted check out on the Internet and all actions I had to do for several projects.
But soon I realized that a regular notebook didn’t satisfy all my needs: I couldn’t develop an effective organizing-system, but the biggest disadvantage was the lack of a possibility to schedule actions and give them a due date.
I discovered Omni Focus and Things for Mac. Often I acquire new techniques by using new tools and that’s how I have discovered David Allen’s Getting Things Done. You don’t need to use these tools, you can just use any pen & paper or other system, but let’s have a look on GTD-basic rules:
- -Whatever comes to your mind, write it down into a Inbox.
- -If YOU don’t have to do it, trash it.
- -Try to keep your Inbox empty, otherwise you stop believing in your system.
- -Whenever the new task only needs 2 minutes to finish, do it now.
- -If it’s not important, put it into the Someday-Inbox.
- -Whenever you can split a thought or action into smaller actions, do it.
- -If you can group several actions to a big one, organize it into projects.
In the first few days you’ll fill your Inbox with many new actions, but that’s not sad. It only helps you to free your brain for new activities and thoughts. Then, soon you start to organize all these actions and recognize, that a lot of them you don’t have to do, some you want to do someday, and some you can organize after each other.
The positive aspects of the GTD-technique are:
- -You free your brain for other things, you do not always have to rethink of something. You’re able to forget it, because you have written it down.
- -Because you scan through your organized GTD-sytem, you always have an overview of what has to be done, you feel like having much more control of your future activities.
I already showed this technique to some friends of mine. It wasn’t useful for all, but maybe you can tryout for yourself. Give it a try : )
Some links:
http://culturedcode.com/things/screencast.html – Also great for general understanding