My 5 takeaways from Getting Things Done (GTD) on my first read
NOTE: The following article is available in video form in YouTube (video embedded above), in case you prefer watching to reading.
Eight years ago, back when I was living in Germany, I ordered a book called Getting Things Done from Amazon. I was curious about productivity back then, but that drive didn't last long, and I never even started reading the book. Fast forward to this summer, where I was looking for something to read during my vacation, and I found this book in my closet. I decided it was time.
I started reading the book in a casual way. In the beginning the author (David Allen) made some pretty big promises to those who would follow his counsels, and honestly it felt like a sales pitch. However, as I started to read the contents, I soon realized that everything he advocated for either made a lot of sense already, or he reasoned in detail why the approach made sense to him. At some point I switched from casual to focus mood, and started to highlight stuff and take notes from the book. The more I read, the more eager I was.
It took me ~3 weeks to study the whole book cover to cover, and I felt very inspired and very excited to try out the Getting Things Done methodology (GTD for short). I had attempted to use task managers and being organized in the past, certainly, but that never held up for long. My impression was that armed with this new GTD knowledge, I could now succeed in staying consistent. And like a child during Christmas, I was super happy to find out that I could go as deep as I wanted with GTD: there are GTD podcasts, GTD forums (GTD Connect), GTD YouTube channels, GTD subreddits, GTD blogs... If you wanna soak yourself in productivity info and experiences you certainly can!
I will now indicate my 5 top learnings or takeaways from the GTD book after my initial read (coming from a complete GTD noob):
1. Capture everything
Writing down everything that you should potentially do something about sounded extremist in the beginning. Like, isn't that a fast ticket to burnout and induced stress? I first thought "oh well, I will just capture the important things to start out", but by the end of the book I was indeed convinced that capturing everything is actually good. The reason? You just want to stop thinking about the stuff that nags at you. By writing it down, no matter if it's "important" or not, you're telling your mind that it can now relax, that you're not gonna forget it anymore. Now that I have tried this, I think the key to making this work is processing all new inputs and captured information daily, so that your mind is trained to trust that you will indeed process what you write down and it can thus forget worrying about it.
2. Leverage BOTH paper and digital
Before reading this book, I had kinda given up on paper. If we can have it digital and sync it through all our devices, what purpose does paper have any more? But the author is a die-hard paper fan. He enumerates tons of reasons why you should consider plain old paper and pen. And he isn't dismissive of digital tools. I learned that it's not a paper vs digital debate. Paper and digital are companions, not rivals. Because of Allen, I now have started using paper again, and I have a physical in-tray for the first time. I still love my digital stuff, but I no longer seek to do everything in front of a screen, and it has felt amazingly good. Handling physical tools reminded me of some nice feelings from my school days too!
3. Envision the outcome and decide on the next action
Allen hit the nail on the head when he explained how most people dread opening their task manager or TO-DO lists because they have only written down something vague about something that should be done. It's not the same writing down "Gift" in your TO-DO list, than writing "Buy Zelda game for my brother's birthday". The first one saves you some seconds initially, but it will give you a ton of headaches later when you have many similarly ambiguous tasks in your list. I won't lie, thinking upfront about what the desired outcome should be (and what the next physical and granular action to move towards that outcome should be) was no easy feat! It took a lot of mental power for the initial dozens of tasks that I captured. But nowadays I have gotten better and faster at envisioning outcomes and defining next actions, so it doesn't feel that grindy anymore. And when I check a TO-DO list, I don't waste a second thinking what exactly the annotated task means.
4. Sort by context to prioritize correctly
Task prioritization has often driven me crazy. I know I might have a lot of things to do, but how do I decide what to do first? Allen's suggestion of sorting out tasks by context (i.e. the environment where you can complete the task) is actually genius. I can't organize my office desk if I'm working remotely from home today, so I shouldn't have to see that task in my TO-DO list. Instead, I should see a list of all tasks I can do while at home. And within a shorter list, it's much easier to find what is the priority right now. Also, priorities can shift often, so assigning a priority to a task while adding it to the list is not the best idea (you don't know what other tasks might come later, shifting that priority).
5. Review and keep your system up-to-date weekly
Last, but definitely not least, Allen's exhortation to hold a weekly review is so important. My previous task managers slowly eroded into outdated garbage after a few weeks, and I never found the time or energy to get them back to date, so I eventually stopped using them. Since forcing myself to hold a weekly review and keeping everything there fresh and up-to-date, I realized that what kept me from using those tools originally was indeed not dedicating regular time to review what I already had and cleaning house. It's much easier to clean the kitchen every day than doing it every 2 months! Besides, during weekly review I get to think about what worked and didn't work well that week, and iterate on and tweak my system to fit it better with my current situation and preferences. Which is exciting!
SUMMARY
My 5 key takeaways from my initial read of Getting Things Done:
- Capture everything
- Leverage BOTH paper and digital
- Envision the outcome and decide on the next action
- Sort by context to prioritize correctly
- Review and keep your system up-to-date weekly
Have you read Getting Things Done yourself? Are you a GTD practitioner? What book did you read this summer? Write your comment in the YouTube video above, or contact me in my socials, I'd love to discuss with you!
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