
A Pragmatic Guide to Getting Things Done - rahimnathwani
http://hamberg.no/gtd/
======
tempestn
GTD is a great system; once you follow it (in some form), it quickly becomes
difficult to imagine how anyone lives their life without it.

I have found Evernote to be a great tool to implement a GTD system. Evernote's
greatest strength is its flexibility. It works on basically every platform and
integrates with most other tools you use. It doesn't really tell you _how_ to
use it though, which is where GTD fits in perfectly. (And it turns out to be
really helpful to integrate as much of your system as possible into one tool.)

I found this site to be a great resource getting started with GTD and
Evernote: [http://www.thesecretweapon.org/](http://www.thesecretweapon.org/)

My current system is very similar to what they describe, although I added a
'Waiting' status, which includes both things that need to be done at or after
a given time, and things where I want to remember that I'm waiting on
something outside my control (a reply to an email, for instance). I set
reminders on everything in there.

The one other significant tweak I made is to use notebooks instead of tags for
the 'when' portion. Since every task needs to have a 'when', and since every
note has one and only one notebook, this seemed like a logical fit. So instead
of the 'Current' notebook they recommend, I simply use a Current stack
containing a notebook for each priority level.

I also use Powerbot to improve clipping emails from gmail.

Anyway, the details don't matter and are easy to change. The main point is,
give GTD on Evernote a try, and you'll be glad you did.

~~~
quanticle
The problem with GTD, IMHO, is that it's the organizational equivalent of
nuclear fusion. Yes, once it gets going it's self-sustaining and will provide
you with clear benefits. But, in my experience, it takes a lot of work in the
beginning to spin up GTD and keep it going until it gets to that self-
sustaining state. I tried going with the GTD system for two weeks and it felt
like I was _constantly_ managing and updating all the various lists that it
requires. I could never seem to get to the "promised land" where everything
would stabilize and the system would become self-sustaining.

In the end, I just ended up reverting back to keeping a simple to-do list in a
text file.

~~~
Swizec
My favourite getting-things-done methodology is still: "If you have more
things that you can remember, then you have too many things and you can safely
drop some"

I've also noticed that most things I put off, or forget to do, are things are
I don't actually want to do anyway and no amount of GTD-ing or tasklisting or
anything will ever make me do them. They are just cruft that accumulates.

Better to just let them slip off your viewfinder. One thing I have to improve,
though, is doing that consciously. Instead of letting things slip through the
cracks, I have to start consciously pushing them through the cracks.

~~~
dj-wonk
Interesting point, which I partially sympathize with. The core of it, as I
hear it, is that you should focus on the most important things first and not
worry about the rest. In any case, I think it is nice to write those "less
important" things down. If you later renegotiate your commitment to doing
them, you can add a tag or note that says, more or less, "This isn't really
that important" and take it off your active list.

To make a counter argument to your "methodology": There are "small" things
that don't seem important relative to other things, but as you get more
organized, getting those "small" things done can be very satisfying. Also the
energy needed to do them may be small when you remember them in the right
context.

------
mercer
I used the GTD approach for many years, but one of the main problems was that
I couldn't always maintain the weekly review and consistently stick with the
system. And in GTD world, that's very bad.

At first I thought this mainly had to do with my own lack of discipline, but
now I think it's mainly because GTD just doesn't work for every kind of task,
project, or occupation.

The main problem, I think, is that GTD assumes: 1\. that you can always cut up
a task into smaller actions 2\. that you can do a next action in one sitting,
and 3\. that having 'stuff' in your head is bad.

I've found that for some things this applies, and in those cases one might use
GTD. But for many other things these three items don't apply, and then GTD can
actually be counter-productive.

For example, a creative task might not be doable in one sitting, but it might
also not be concrete enough to split up into smaller next actions.
Furthermore, for a lot of creative stuff it might actually be very useful to
have it 'hanging around' in your head as 'stuff'.

Basically, I found that there's an inverse correlation between the
effectiveness of GTD and the amount of creativity needed for a task.

I've settled on Mark Forster's AutoFocus (Final Version) (as mentioned
elsewhere here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8629066](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8629066))
for most of my current stuff, as it's more organic and more fitting to what I
do now. If I were to have more managerial-type work I might switch back to GTD
though.

(and of course there are many principles from GTD that are useful to me even
if I don't use the full system)

~~~
codyb
I started doing five year plans. Each five year plan I break into sizable
chunks. And each chunk I break into single daily goals. Each individual goal
lasts a month, and every day I try to achieve my goal. Since it's only one
thing a day it's hard not to. And it's habit forming because of the month long
period per individual goal.

Right now my five year plan is to stabilize all areas of my life (finances,
living situations, self). I'm starting with self, and my first individual goal
is getting out of bed the first time I wake up.

So far so good. And since theres no restrictions on what I do otherwise I get
a ton of things done in the morning but I never feel stressed if, for
instance, I don't get around to studying all the French I'd like to.

Somethings which are a bit more time intensive like keeping a journal I make
alternate tasks. So instead of just keeping a journal, every day I'd make it a
point to either write in a journal, record my dreams, or write down all of the
fool things I've done in a day (on the recommendation of Dale Carnegie who
found the idea from Benjamin Franklin). This gives me a bit more liberty,
dreams tend to be recorded in the morning, journals can be written in anytime,
and the introspection of a day takes place in the evening. Then if I go out
and party I don't need to feel stressed about breaking a goal when I wake up
in the morning.

It's simple. It's easy. It's positive habit forming. And it feels great.

~~~
fluidcruft
How long have you been doing this?

~~~
codyb
Not long enough yet but a few months now and I'm sticking to it which is
pretty good. It also keeps that five year plan in mind even though each
individual day never feels stressed by some looming goal.

------
halviti
For people like me who enjoy a non-electronic way to organize all of this,
I've found bullet journaling to be very helpful

[http://bulletjournal.com/](http://bulletjournal.com/)

~~~
edu
I've been using bulletjournal since January 1st this year and it's been
working wonderfully. Prior to it I used GTD with Things and Wunderlist, but
they always ended falling apart.

~~~
dj-wonk
Why did Things and Wunderlist fall apart? (Could it be that you did not
schedule and do the weekly review? I've had that problem myself.)

~~~
jmnicolas
Wunderlist had serious sync problems that made it impossible to trust.

I don't know if they solved the problem though.

------
ybalkind
Why productivity systems fail?
[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1p9U2Mu4Zth8Qa3buL3j2EQTf...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1p9U2Mu4Zth8Qa3buL3j2EQTfVA_tFUMkeQSzbuftiX4/edit)

~~~
visakanv
> Is that so bad? Muddling through has probably gotten you further than you
> give it credit for, why do you think you have to be mister super
> productivity to get further?

I have an answer for this one, and I think the War of Art captures it- it's
the pain of missed obligations, unfulfilled promises, etc. Anxiety, stress,
difficulty sleeping, etc. 'Mr Super Productivity' is a bit of a strawman- I
think most people would be happy just to say "I have regularly productive days
and I am on top of my work and my commitments".

I know what it's like to think "it's not so bad, I can just waffle my way
through life". It means upsetting parents, teachers, girlfriends, friends, the
spouse. It means disappointing people.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
It seems to me most of the pain comes from over promising, not being able to
say no and the unreasonable expectations of people close to you.

~~~
visakanv
That is actually very, very true. The single best way to get things done is to
have less things to do. Underappreciated fact.

------
wsc981
I think Bullet Journal could be very effective to Get Things Done (TM), though
I haven't used it in practice yet.

[http://www.bulletjournal.com](http://www.bulletjournal.com)

~~~
visakanv
I've been using it for a while, it's pretty good. One of the best things about
bullet journal that things like Asana, Trello, and all the digital tools are
bad as doing is- you have to REWRITE tasks that you haven't completed yet.
They don't just get lost under a pile of forgotten tasks. You have to revisit
them each time you rewrite them. This does something for the memory. It works
for me, anyway.

------
praptak
I found Neil Fiore's "The Now Habit" a great complement to the GTD system. GTD
tells me where to put a TODO and TNH helps when the neatly organized system of
GTD inexplicably fails to function without my actions :-) Obviously both are
only frameworks for solving problems, not magical solvers.

~~~
irickt
A summary of the book:
[http://hashref.com/summaries/TheNowHabit.pdf](http://hashref.com/summaries/TheNowHabit.pdf)

------
thinkersilver
Moving from what the book describes to a real workable system is a bit of
leap. I remember hambergs.no article. It helped immensely and I ended up
writing up my own system with a few personal tweaks. GTD has many
interpretations and many implementations and it is hard to know what to pick.
It is just as easy to lose site of the goal: Make your life easier and more
productive.

This was my experience. The question I had were surprisingly hard to answer.

1\. What is GTD and does it work? 2\. If GTD is failing for me is it because I
am not doing it wrong? 3\. If GTD is failing for me is it because my
implementation is wrong (i.e wrong tool or badly designed app)

The problem with the GTD system, as much as I have enjoyed using it, is that
there is no reference system to verify correct usage. The usual path taken,
for those who are patient and motivated, is that of hacking your way through
the books, tutorials and apps out there until it feels right. The 'it feels
right' feeling comes if you actually feel like you are on top of your work
load. The system you end up with that works for you (when you eventually get
to this place), may look very different from what the book described or what
you initially envisaged.

GTD is more like meditation than a system. It's hard to learn it by reading
about it. You only know you are doing it right when your life feels lighter
and more productive.

------
kamaal
GTD has some great side effects. I owe all my recent success to GTD. Apart
from all the other goodies, The following things have been a game changer for
me.

1\. Next tasks: Helps me identify new opportunities to work on. And take next
obvious steps to any task, where others aren't seeing. In fact one would be
surprised how many great opportunities lurk in the next tasks.

2\. Weekly reviews: Helps me take quick iterations of feed back on the week
and immediately improve by applying the feedback to the next week. This at
times over some months(When I'm working using GTD really well) has lead to
runaway improvements in many areas of my work.

3\. Writing it down and prioritizing: I use a normal pen and paper. Tracking,
drawing doodles, other things is very easy. Writing down tasks and
prioritizing helps me eliminate an entire tree of unimportant tasks and pick
up the important ones. This combined with the weekly review can be a very
powerful tool.

Lastly the efficiency of GTD depends entirely on our efficiency to take things
seriously and work on them.

And GTD is a framework, nearly all GTD practitioners I know of ultimately
build something over GTD that works for them.

------
AhtiK
GTD task prioritization works best when combined with Eisenhower matrix [1].
AFAIK the only tool that combines these two is TimeGT
([https://timegt.com](https://timegt.com)).

[1] [https://timegt.com/2010/07/14/what-is-the-eisenhower-
matrix/](https://timegt.com/2010/07/14/what-is-the-eisenhower-matrix/)

------
askinakhan
Is there space for (another) notes product that is purely focused on the GTD
framework? Would people use this if I created it?

~~~
logicallee
The space is actually unlimited.

Many successful entrepreneurs started by inventing a new to-do list. This is
because it is the only way to come to terms with what it means to get things
done at all.

There is literally no better use of a first-time entrepreneur's time than
reinventing to-dos.

~~~
arafalov
First time developer? Maybe. First time entrepreneur? Seems like a recipe for
failure. I would have thought it is better to pick a (non-IT) niche that one
has a deep domain knowledge in and have a go there.

~~~
logicallee
Yes, you're right. I am so deep in the bubble that to me "first-time
developer" = first-time entrepreneur!

------
chrisweekly
Adding a "do NOT do today" section to my todo list has made a big difference
for me in terms of staying focused on the real priorities. Start w list of all
the important things and rank em, then drop all but the top 3 into explicit
"do not do". Otherwise #4-N have an insidious way of taking precious time and
energy away from the most important stuff, while feeling justifiable.

Also, tracking wins has helped me feel much better about my productivity. Good
for a mood boost or shot of confidence, to glance through it.

------
resiros
The issue with such system is that it does not allow you to plan for the
future on the basis of your priorities and long term goals. It does allow you
to get things done, but generally you'll be only getting urgent things done,
while important but not urgent things are left behind (learning a new
programming language or a technology, practicing) your guitar. Here is one
trick that improved my productivity much and allowed me to concentrate on what
is important. I extended such system with the ability of weekly planning (and
not only review). At the beginning of each week I assign time for each of my
project depending on its priority and its alignment with your long term goal.
I start by stating my long term goals and my principles, then what projects I
am working on, what short-term goals I want achieve. I then assign when and
how long I will work on each projects.

~~~
arafalov
Have you read the book? Because that's what horizons are about. And the second
and third book in the series go into life-goals quite a bit.

But yes, it starts from the premise of building to that bottom-up, not top-
down. Once you have your flow/sense of control, David Allen said, your brain
is unlocked to think hard of the more important things.

------
fjarlq
I like this workflow diagram, by Scott Moehring, of the Getting Things Done
framework:

[http://gettingthingsdone.com/pdfs/gtd_workflow_advanced.pdf](http://gettingthingsdone.com/pdfs/gtd_workflow_advanced.pdf)

------
ntaso
Some people swear on "Final Version" as time management:

[http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs004/1100358239599/archi...](http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs004/1100358239599/archive/1109980854493.html)

The gist of FV is that it takes "psychological inertia" into account to a
certain degree - something, that many other systems lack.

To be honest, I never tried it and I don't use any time management system, but
maybe it's worth a try for people who don't like GTD.

~~~
girvo
Ah I used the very first version of that system a few years ago. Quite good,
actually, I may give it a try again to get on top of everything once more.

------
labianchin
There is also an alternative to GTD, it is Zen to Done
([http://zenhabits.net/zen-to-done-ztd-the-ultimate-simple-
pro...](http://zenhabits.net/zen-to-done-ztd-the-ultimate-simple-productivity-
system/)). It basically tries to be a simplification of GTD. Also the idea is
to focus on 10 simple habits to improve productivity.

------
qznc
> When reviewing the projects list, you will make sure that there is alway at
> least one action on your next actions list for each project, thus making
> sure that your projects aren’t forgotten.

This part could be done automatically. I don't know any app, which does it,
though. Is it a good idea to automate this or do GTD-users get some benefits
out of doing it manually?

~~~
emillon
Org mode has a feature for that:

[http://orgmode.org/manual/Stuck-
projects.html](http://orgmode.org/manual/Stuck-projects.html)

------
qwerta
I would recommend personal wiki such as ZIM. It comes with diary, todo lists,
git integration... They also have similar guide:

[http://zim-wiki.org/manual/Usage/Getting_Things_Done.html](http://zim-
wiki.org/manual/Usage/Getting_Things_Done.html)

------
motiw
What to you guys think about the arguments in this article?
[http://www.centask.com/a-eulogy-for-the-manual-to-do-list-
th...](http://www.centask.com/a-eulogy-for-the-manual-to-do-list-the-case-for-
an-integrated-productivity-system/)

~~~
azuta
Interesting ideas about the reason productivity systems fail but I am
skeptical whether this issues have a real solution

------
highmastdon
Looks like it can be involved with the way we process email. Maybe even in
combination with [http://inbox.google.com](http://inbox.google.com).
Processing email has become a less pain in the ass thanks to Inbox for me.

------
raju
Anyone try "Getting Results the Agile Way: A Personal Results System for Work
and Life" [1] ?

I just got the book from the library and the reviews seem a little mixed.

[1] - www.amazon.com/Getting-Results-Agile-Way-Personal/dp/0984548203

------
barking
GTD is great, I just wish I had the self discipline to follow it.

David Allen refers to the weekly review as the critical success factor.

And that's the one that I fall down on and then things slide and I get afraid
to look in the 'bucket'.

~~~
visakanv
Remove discipline from the equation if possible. Instead tie it to something
you already do. Don't go to bed without first going through a nightly review,
for example. And review it again before you leave for work in the morning.
Manipulate your environment to prime yourself to do what you previously
depended on discipline to do.

~~~
barking
That's a good idea.

Actually it's a bit like Allen's "Put it by the door" technique. Doing stuff
when you're smartest to help you when you're at your most dumb

~~~
visakanv
Yup! I like to think of most of my writing as buoys I put out during calm seas
so I can navigate during rough ones. Same fundamental idea.

~~~
barking
I like that analogy!

It's a great feeling when you're dealing with a once in a blue moon task to
discover that you've left some helpful notes for yourself in a place you'll
find them.

------
mfrankel
You might want to take a look at our 4 minute video (and graphic) on GTD.

[http://www.brevedy.com/gtdgraphic/](http://www.brevedy.com/gtdgraphic/)

------
krris
There is a great application for GTD: [http://nozbe.com](http://nozbe.com).

------
DodgyEggplant
It's a great system. However, one should not forget the lost art of doing one
thing at a time, for a time.

