Book cover photo: Getting Things Done by David Allen Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen

This book is well worth the read. While I usually shun away from self-help and productivity genre's there was worthwhile information in this read. The book centers around gettings things outside of your head and deals more with routine than implementation. This is what really makes the book worthwhile, as it accepts that each person will likely need a different set-up. If your falling behind or just looking for some tips to streamline things, give this book a read.

*****

Review by Ryan Eby, July 25, 2005

I've seen this start to crop up in Lib Blogs so I thought I'd chime in. I've seen it in both Open Stacks and now Tame the Web

About it

As I switched over to a more technical job I found that the amount of information I was receiving was handable but was definitely impacting the quality of my work. I felt that I needed to get things more organized soon or there would be some mental leakage. I've glanced at various organization information over the years and all left me wanting, as I could tell they would never fit in with the way I operate and think. That is until I came across GTD.

While I'm not sure who first mentioned it, I'm certain in was one of the many blogs I read. The site that was linked to was 43 folders. This site is what really turned me on to the idea as it really seemed more like "life-hacks" than some super-productivity method.

So I started reading more about it and what people were doing and found that the implementations were wide and varied. The most simple description I can give is that the idea is to get everything outside of your head and into something you trust. Your brain can't be trusted to remember everything when you need it to. Therefore you need someplace where you can put everything so you can see what needs to be done at a glance. This then goes to a process of defining what actually needs to be done. What this does is allow you to scan the little chunks of things you need to do so that you can accomplish things when the time arises. This comes in handy when you have 5-10 minutes to spare as you can just glance at the list and see what you can fit in.

Some people will likely think they are already doing this with to-do lists and the like. The book goes over some examples of how some to-do items are often undoable. The reason this concept is important for me is that I have very little attention, perhaps I'm even an undiagnosed ADHD. I can't work on the same project or item for more that a short period of time. As such I find myself shifting between projects constantly. As anyone can probably attest, starting work on a project each time can take effort and energy to get going as you have to figure out where things stand. With the process I have now I usually have a list of actions that need to be done so I can just move between projects at ease. This has really helped me keep active and prevent day-dreaming and the like.

My System, so far

Many people seem to start with a "tickler file", a set of folders that allow you to seperate things by day. I personally don't have one as it would never work for me. Right now my system consists of Gmail (for communication), Backpack (for project management) and iCal for everything date based. I find iCal with it's multiple calendars works well for me in place of the tickler file. I also have some filing cabinets for reference and record materials. Right now my Gmail and Backpack are starting to get fairly solid. My reference is still in the beginning stages as I have a lot of old junk to go through. My iCal implementation is also working well for me so far.

I should give the gist of my workload so you know where this is coming from. Pretty much all communication comes through email. I have almost no paper based communication in my office. Since Backpack allows editing via email I usually just kick over things to it that are relevant to certain projects or items. I have a page for each project and then have general pages for the various action lists. If it's something I need to do while off the computer then I either print it out or send an SMS to my phone. My calendar also syncs to my iPod. I find this works well for me as I work almost 100% on the computer. Other people will likely need a more paper-based system.

Well my description of the whole thing is terrible and probably confused you more than helped but I hope it gives you an idea of how flexible this whole thing is. There are some links below to posts written by better people than I that will hopefully give you a better idea.