I finished reading Getting Things Done (GTD) by David Allen about a week ago and a half ago and I've been trying to apply this system since then. Before I read the book, I had been looking for electronic To-Do list managers for home, work, and my iPod Touch and was inundated with references to the book and GTD system. So I decided to read the book to see what the heck everybody was talking about.
Short form: I like it, but I don't know if it will change my life as some folks claim it did for them. The top three things I like about the system are:
When looking at software, most tried to describe the GTD system for people who hadn't read the book. I'll try to do the same because I got something different out of the book than most of them did. To summarize:
Write everything down. Make lists for where you are and the tools available, not lists by project. Process paper and email in batches and: do something about it (if it's quick), toss it, or file it. Once a week, make sure you're doing what you want to be doing.For me, the rest of the system is a refinement on that.
I have a spotty memory at best, and I already made a lot of lists and notes to myself, so that part of the system came very naturally to me. With this system, I'm writing down more things and on different lists. Some of the flexibility of this system is also a drawback: this is not a system you can plug in and turn on, you need to tune it to how you live your life. That tuning takes time, energy, and attention, which most people reading about this system are already short on.
For example, he recommends a few contexts for your lists, such as "Errands", "Home", "Computer", etc. I started with just one Home context, but that's not sufficient for me. There are some things that I can do before I go to the gym or before I go to work, and other things I can't. I can go look at the size of the furnace filter in the morning, but I can't clean the fridge in the morning, because I don't have enough time. So I really need at least two Home contexts: Morning and Evening. I could put a time estimate on everything, but with a paper system, it's difficult to sort by that.
The furnace filter is an example of how this system did work for me. When I was at home, I looked up the size of the furnace filter. A day later, I was at Target and walked by a display of furnace filters. Since I had the size written down and had the size with me, I could get the right filter. It seems trivial, but "buy furnace filter" had been on my to-do list for over a month before I started on this system. As a single task, I had to be at home first, then go to the store. That's a lot of overhead for just a furnace filter, and each step was easier on its own, with other tasks of the same type: it's easier to buy toothpaste, ant traps, and a furnace filter with one trip to the store than with three. If you've ever broken up your shopping list by store, you've already got the concept behind Context lists.
Anyone who is familiar with GTD will notice that "next actions" are conspicuously absent from my descriptions, even though it's considered a cornerstone of the methodology. The furnace filter is an example of breaking things down into their next actions: at Home, find the size of the furnace filter, and while running Errands, buy the furnace filter. I'm still having a hard time finding the right granularity for next actions. It seems that every time I try to break a task or project down to the next action, my brain kicks into pedantic mode and gives me a useless next action.
For example, I need to take our big comforter to a laundromat to wash it because it's too big for our washer. I kept putting "wash comforter" on my list because I'm not likely to decide, while I'm near a laundromat, that now is a good time to wash it. But, suppose I will be gripped by that urge, the next action is to put the comforter in the car. Or, is the next action to find the comforter? Or, is to stand up from my chair? Or, is it to decide to stand up from my chair? Since I already know where the comforter is, "put comforter in car" is probably the next action, but I'm still struggling with finding the right granularity here.
Something else I'm still tweaking is how much context I need to keep with items on the next action list. If I think through to the next action and write it down without further description, I'm likely to forget why I was doing that. For example, a project for moving furniture around in the house ended up with the next action of "move lunch snacks to a smaller box". Really. If I had seen "move lunch snacks to a smaller box", without also knowing that it was part of "clear space in the kitchen" that is part of "move furniture", I wouldn't know why I was moving snacks around. Again, this is probably easier with an electronic system, but with paper, I end up writing down a lot of repetitive text.
For me, batch processing was important because it's difficult for me to switch mental contexts. This is more applicable at work, so here's an example of how batch processing helps me there. We get a lot of email at work. Most of it requires skimming over for general idea and deleting. Doing all that skimming at once is much quicker and easier on my brain than being interrupted every time one of those messages arrives. Another example is filing bugs. I had three bugs to file that were intended for three different groups. Normally, I would have put them either on one big list, or on a list by the group responsible for fixing the bug. But when I grouped them together, I was able to file them very quickly, without much mental gear shifting.
Finally, I like the weekly review process. Informally, I already do something similar on Sunday night where I wind down, read the web, and think about the upcoming week. Having this review somewhat formalized gives me a chance to look at all my projects, re-prioritize, notice when progress has stagnated, and re-evaluate which projects I'm working on. I've only done this review once, but I have high hopes for it since it meshes very well with something I was doing already. And because of the book's encouragement, having a project called "Get better at meditating" is perfectly reasonable. Being the Type A personality that I am, having a to-do item for "do nothing" makes me more likely to do it.