How to get stuff done fast! – Accelerated Productivity using GTD

In the 1st post for 2010 I hit it off with a wake up call for you to take control of your life and be a leader.

“Take control of your raft and steer your way forward, don’t let the current carry you in its own direction.” – Ernest Semerda

The message is clear – Take a hold of your life (raft) and steer it towards your goals, visions and aspirations. Don’t let the sinking feeling hit you mid year because you failed to focus on your goals. Or worse, that all the goals you have achieved are someone else’s. If you need help with creating a set of solid goals and making a lasting difference in your life then I recommend you re/visit my past post on this topic. If you have already read that post and are now looking for more strategies to get you moving at an ever quicker pace then read on.

Managing daily chaos effectively

It’s best written then said since I can share this with more then the few that have asked me this question – How do I handle the ever increasing vastness pool of both daily personal and business emails, requests, ideas, stuff to do et al and still get things done… fast!

You may or may not have heard of David Allen, the author of leading productivity books and his Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity (commonly abbreviated as GTD) method. I have had the pleasure of working through his material some time ago to gain insight and alter my habits to increase my productivity and become more results orientated in both my personal and business life.

GTD rests on the principle that a person needs to move tasks out of the mind by recording them externally.

The process explained to get stuff done fast

The main principle is to get everything that is nagging you out of your mind and into a trusted external memory (file system or electronic form), so that you can stay focused on what you actually have to do now, rather than on various ideas, plans and commitments for later.

This allows you to systematically move through your to-do one by one without loosing focus. I will share my multi-tasking experience in a future post because these 2 go hand in hand.

So, the GTD process is a method for using those tools systematically together. The process can be broken down as follows:

1. Collect basket:
   1. Collect everything (stuff) that catches your attention.
   2. “Stuff” is a catchall word, which can refer to an email, something at the back of your mind, a note, a voice-mail, a scrap from a newspaper, etc., i.e. any item that has been collected.
   3. Then get it out of your mind and into a trusted external memory, e.g. by writing it down on paper or in a computer file and placing it into an in-tray.

1. Process basket:
   1. To gain control over the collected material, you need to empty the in-tray regularly.
   2. Emptying means deciding what to do with— not actually doing— by processing and organizing the items one by one.
   3. Processing a basket is easy:
      

1. Start at the top of your ‘in-tray’.

2. Deal with one item at a time.

3. Never put anything back into ‘in-tray’.

4. If an item requires action:

- Do it (if it takes less than two minutes), OR
- Delegate it, OR
- Defer it.

5. If an item does not require action:
- File it for reference, OR
- Throw it away, OR
- Incubate it for possible action later.

An example: The to-do item “plane tickets for Sydney” was initially in the Project Plan “Travel to Sydney”, reminding you to order the tickets; now you are Waiting for them to arrive by post; if they don’t arrive, it will become a Next Action to call the company about the tickets; after you have used them, you may store the tickets as a Reference, so that later you could potentially use them as proof of expenses made.

Simple right? At first it may feel awkward because it is outside the norm. Change always feels different and sometimes scary. But with time and practice this will become a new habit of yours and you will wonder how you ever lived life without it.

Why you must change – your brain only stores 7-plus-or-minus-two items

Anxiety is linked to future thought patterns. Especially when those thought patterns get buried (forgotten) and you get that uncomfortable feeling you forgot something important. Stress & anxiety have a natural tendency to affect the conscious mind throwing logic and decision-making out the door. All this happens because short-term memory is of limited capacity, usually 5-9 items (“7-plus-or-minus-two“). Beyond this capacity, new information can “bump” out other items from short-term memory. This is one form of forgetting.

Therefore, getting everything out of your mind and into a trusted external memory is paramount.

Hence the benefit of this fantastic approach. You will feel much less stressed by the need to remember all that “stuff” and at the same time will know that it isnt lost, just filed for later processing.

Practical application to real life examples

So I hear you screaming for examples, your excited, and ready to apply this right now. Here are some ways you can do this right away:

• Change how your inbox is setup:
  

  	Here is a snap shot of my work Outlook Inbox.I have these folders closed for privacy reasons but you can already see a common pattern. All my emails arrive in the Inbox – standard. But it’s what I do next that’s more important! What I do is try to clear them out by applying the GTD rules outlined above. Some will be done instantly and others will be filed into my Next actions, Waiting For or one of the Archive folders. Simple right. If I get asked about an email which required my team members getting involved then that email will be in my “Waiting for” folder since I would have had to contact the other party/s and am now waiting for their reply. How about an active project to retrieve some material from few weeks back. No problem. It’s in the “Projects” folders filed under the name of the actual project.
  Each morning I review the “Next actions” and “Waiting for” folders to “create action” – stuff that will keep me busy moving forward. I may find that I need to chase someone up, send a reminder email, finish off a task or organise a meeting etc… it all just flows.

• But there’s more: Your computer folders can also be setup and managed as your inbox. Doing this helps you solidify this new habit sooner since all your organisation (inbox, folders etc) is done using the same process.
• Offline: Put an “in-tray” on your desk and always throw all notes into. It doesnt matter what type of note, whether it’s sticky notes with things to do, ideas you scribbled on paper, paperwork you were handed to do etc. Try to move away from sticky notes on your monitor – these now belong in your in-tray. Let’s face it, sticky notes are useless when stuck to your monitor and serve only to distract you and clutter your desk (and mind).

In conclusion

The strategy outlined above is simple, effective and anyone can start use it today. However what is required is a change in your habits, which takes time. People want instant change but unfortunately it takes time as I outlined in my post on developing new habits. Change requires effort and persistence, it also requires moving away from your comfort zone and accepting that the current habit may not be the best. And this is where it stops for the masses since humans are creatures of comfort and not many are willing to change unless something major happens in their life. Those that have learnt that the world is constantly changing and they should too will experience the power of accelerated productivity from the technique I outlined above.

If you are already following this new process please share it with other readers and tell us how it’s working for you in the comments section below. If you have further questions about the application and/or methods then please post a message in the comments section below and I will answer it immediately.

I love questions, so ask away!

Have a blast with this new approach and remember it’s here to help you to be more productive and get stuff done fast!

Ernest

Links mentioned in this post

• Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
• David Allen Books
• Get off your @$$ – be the leader of your life!
• The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two

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Tagged as: business, david allen, ernest semerda, filing systems, getting things done, google, gtd, human behavior, life rafts, management, mind, personal development, personal life, plane tickets, processes, Productivity, stuffing, time management