
GTD in 15 Minutes – A Pragmatic Guide to Getting Things Done - ingve
https://hamberg.no/gtd/
======
bkanber
Similar to GTD, I use a technique called "Bullet Journaling" [1] and it's been
transformative. It's less opinionated than GTD and I find it flows a bit more
readily.

I find it ironic that as a tech CTO I'm connected to my phone and computer
probably 80% of my day and love playing with productivity and organizational
tools -- yet I've still never found anything better than putting pen to paper!

I keep a small pocket-sized moleskine in my back pocket with me, and it
travels with me basically wherever I go. I leave it open on my desk during the
work day, and I find I "respect" the notebook more than I respect Asana or
Todoist or any other digital app. I guess it's because it's in my own
handwriting.

I spend about 10 minutes in the morning going through the notebook and another
10 in the evening looking forward to tomorrow. Strongly recommend this
approach if you're looking for a slightly more flexible approach than GTD.

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

~~~
aeroaks
I feel the same. I always have my notebook with me. Tried various apps but I
get back to my notebook everytime. Will definitely try "Bullet Journaling".
Thanks

------
zamazingo
Emacs Org-Mode, along with its org-capture mode and the ability to clock
in/out, is a perfect tool to implement this, btw.

[https://emacs.cafe/emacs/orgmode/gtd/2017/06/30/orgmode-
gtd....](https://emacs.cafe/emacs/orgmode/gtd/2017/06/30/orgmode-gtd.html)

[http://orgmode.org/worg/org-gtd-etc.html](http://orgmode.org/worg/org-gtd-
etc.html)

~~~
lypextin
I was always curious about trying this, but has always been put off by the
Emacs part of it. How much Emacs do you need to know to use this comfortably?

~~~
zamazingo
Apart from the actual set up to include org-capture in it, not much.

Shortcuts to open a file (C-x C-f), close it (C-x k), and closing emacs (C-x
C-c) would be the emacs shortcuts you'd need to learn. The rest would be org-
mode shortcuts, like setting something as done (C-c C-t d) etc.

You will have to get used to being in Emacs though, that's for sure :)

------
agentgt
GTD does work but to be almost any system that is used with habit like fervor
will work.

General productivity of contacting people and writing up things is pretty easy
to manage and in large part most of it is just getting it out of your head so
that you can focus on other perhaps cerebral things.

But that is the problem. Systems like these aren't at the surface terribly
helpful with creativity. However I do believe they can be used to help boost
creative output its not terrible clear how.

I have tried to be systematic with brain storming and coming up with ideas to
execute and its not been very successful. In some cases it even feels like it
stifles creativity.

Anyway I like James Clear's blog on this kind of stuff. He has some great
ideas.

~~~
ldiracdelta
David Allen's has the statement, "You can't manage projects; you can only
manage actions related to projects." This paradigm reduces the anxiety of
projects, which really does effect my creativity.

~~~
agentgt
Yes I totally agree.

I guess in some ways I'm asking for the impossible (well for now)... I want a
a system that comes up with ideas and just does everything for me :)

------
beaconstudios
I've tried to implement GTD a couple of times before but I always fail when I
end up with organised but huge lists of things to do, along with things that
become irrelevant over time (time-contextual "could-do's") and getting snowed
under by day-to-day maintenance chores. Has anyone had success implementing
it, and if so, was there any trick or technique that helped it "click" for
you? I also realise I might just be doing it wrong, but I was following the
capture loop as I understood it.

~~~
kendallpark
I started with this: [https://trello.com/b/2f37iYzy/sample-gtd-
board](https://trello.com/b/2f37iYzy/sample-gtd-board)

Then I made some alterations to fit my lifestyle.

For one, there's a giant "Homework" list with all of my assignments for the
semester and due dates. This helps me make sure that on any given day, I know
whether an assignment is coming up. I sync this Trello list with my Google
calendar, which sends me an email reminder the day before something is due.

I have a "Now" list that keeps track of my current task and my next few
immediate tasks (so like, "fix this bug," "do flashcards," and "call Doc to
make apt.") Sometimes I couple this with Pomello
([http://www.pomelloapp.com/](http://www.pomelloapp.com/)) which helps prevent
me avoid going down various rabbit holes when working on a specific task.

There's also a "Dragons" list which is where I put important big tasks that
I've been procrastinating.

I removed the project lists. My GTD board is strictly a sophisticated to-do
list. Projects get their own separate trello boards.

EDIT: here's a skeleton example of what my GTD board looks like:
[https://trello.com/b/Y5wBPXLH/kendalls-
gtd](https://trello.com/b/Y5wBPXLH/kendalls-gtd)

~~~
guiambros
Nice! Thanks for sharing. I really liked your background. Funny, I've been
using the NYC landscape as my bg for years, but didn't realize until now it
makes me feel a bit anxious, while yours conveys calmness and organization.
The power of subliminal messages, uh?

+1 to getting rid of project-specific lists. I now create a separate Trello
board for anything that requires more than 3-4 tasks.

------
paulgb
Great summary. For me what made GTD "click" was understanding the core
psychological premise that humans are pretty bad at remembering things.

I implement GTD in a OneNote which is really helpful because when I'm creating
tasks I can attach links, files, etc. so that context switching is as fast as
possible and I don't have to dig stuff up every time I switch tasks.

It works really well for literature review: I create a note for a paper I want
to read and attach the PDF, then make notes right in the task as I read it,
and then move it to a reference section when I'm done.

------
jeffbarr
I keep a printed list in outline form, edited and annotated as I make progress
throughout the day. My list contains items as diverse as building mind maps
and writing blog posts for re:Invent, flattening out some boxes in my
recycling pile, updating my will, and adding final screen shots to those blog
posts. So far so good.

The key to productivity for me is to make the actual act of checking something
off of the list a cause for a tiny internal celebration. As I make that
checkmark I make sure that I feel a sense of accomplishment. This might sound
trivial, but it works!

------
methehack
I love GTD...in theory. It is rational, and it should work. In practice, it
ended up being demoralizing to realize how little of what I should do and
would like to do I actually have time for. It was "stress free" in the sense
that I was missing fewer urgent (Covey) things for sure. It was very stressful
in that it set a mood of "never enough...never enough". I think everyone
should try it though and obviously, ymmv. [EDIT: oh, and if you do want to try
it, this is really useful write up].

~~~
Jabinc
I struggle with the "never enough" side effect a lot. I am hopeful that
continuing to hone the system will allow me to reach David Allen's stress free
notion of "I can only do one thing at a time, and this is what I am choosing
to do." Applying the 10K foot goals helps me with the larger life balance, but
I still feel overwhelmed much more than is healthy.

------
mhd
I tried GTD way back when in the heady Merlin Mann days, but never got a
capture-anywhere method that I liked. Hipster PDAs were out due to me writing
with pens isn't exactly enjoyable/readable, and I get tired easily by my slow
mobile typing speed, too. And voice notes while among other people? I'm a
German introvert, goshdarnit...

On the computer, there's a plethora of possibilities (org, notational
velocity, "quake terminal" with editor), of course.

~~~
eru
On the voice notes: Google's voice recognition has improved markedly in recent
years. Now it can even understand my German-accented English rather well.

~~~
mhd
I don't mind typing the notes once I'm in front of a real computer, I just
don't want to do the "note to myself" while in public. And otherwise, I
haven't found anything that gets me to capture things like "note: buy eggs" or
"note: consider PEGs for the query builder optimization" fast enough. (Opening
an app and laboriously using the mobile keyboard don't do it for me in the
long run and just cause me to drop GTD again).

Maybe I should get one of those wearable chord keyboards from the late 90s and
connect it to an always-on note-taking applicance...

~~~
eru
I found opening the Google Keep app on my phone to be fairly painless to
quickly jot something down. I really like the location based reminders that
Google introduced across the board.

------
ryanmarsh
This is going to sound crazy to GTD'ers but I don't maintain a task list of
any sort. I used to be crazy about Franklin Covey, then GTD, and it was all
stress and anxiety. If something is important it will bubble up to the
forefront and I'll take care of it. Otherwise I just let it go. You'd be
amazed how few things you actually have to get done to enjoy a happy life and
to be successful in your work.

~~~
kstrauser
I use GTD and handle the thing you're talking about in the classification
process. Everything I think I might want to do goes into my OmniFocus inbox.
Everything. This gets it out of my mind and I can stop thinking about it.

Then, unless it's time-sensitive, I let it sit there for a couple of days at
least. When I sit down to sweep through my inbox, I toss out the stuff that
doesn't hold up. "Check the van's mileage for an oil change"? Keep. "Buy that
dog t-shirt for my wife for Christmas"? Yeah, she'll still like that. "Turn
the lawn chair into a pilotable drone"? That sounded like a great idea at the
moment but I'll never actually do it: delete.

I also have a weekly review where I'm pretty ruthless about pruning stuff.
"I've been thinking about doing X for the last year, but if I was actually
going to do it, I'd have done it by now. Goodbye!"

At the end of this, I have a very manageable set of actions that I actually
intend to follow through on. Knowing that I don't have to remember each of
them is hugely liberating to me.

------
BtdTom
I liked GTD, but in my opinion the system laid out in "Total Workday Control
Using Microsoft Outlook" is much better: [https://www.amazon.com/Total-
Workday-Control-Microsoft-Outlo...](https://www.amazon.com/Total-Workday-
Control-Microsoft-Outlook-
ebook/dp/B071DMSZLS/ref=pd_sim_351_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=YW4W1SXRB8BK7CWRYX5F)

I was not a fan of Outlook before I came across this book, but the way the
author configures Outlook and the workflows he lays out works really, really
well. My inbox is near zero throughout the day, actionable items are captured
easily, and tasks don't get lost over time.

I highly recommend it.

------
Foxboron
I have been attempting to create a todo tracker for myself, but my problem
have been finding a suitable interface.

Currently i combine vimwikis diary function and taskwiki to integrate todo
filtering and have taskwarrior as the backend. The way it works is that i have
a template with a list of viewports from taskwiki. These gets initialized
everyday and clears out any done todos. I can still retrieve todos, and i can
see the history and context when todos was done when visiting old diaries
generated by vimwiki.

I hope this solves my problem of remembering todos, i have yet to notice any
difference.

~~~
throwawaytodo
Here’s a todo app idea:

1\. Take a standard notebook and a regular pen (or pencil, if you prefer). 2\.
Write down things you have to do. You can even organize them by date: 3\.
Actually do the things instead of yak-shaving solutions to making basic lists.
4\. Cross each thing off after you do it.

~~~
ashark
> 1\. Take a standard notebook and a regular pen (or pencil, if you prefer).

Good call. But... I mean... if I'm gonna have these with me all the time I'd
better make sure they're good ones. You know, durable, pleasant to use. _burns
400 hours researching and buying notebooks and pens, never gets around to
actually using them_.

> 2\. Write down things you have to do. You can even organize them by date

Sweet. But you know, I bet this could be more efficient if I color-coded. I
wonder if I could mix a calendar in, too? What about things that aren't
exactly things to do, but I want to record? What about appointments? Hm, I
wonder if someone else has figure this out. _wastes 400 hours looking at
instagrams of other people 's bullet journals, never actually bullet journals
for more than a day or two_

> 3\. Actually do the things instead of yak-shaving solutions to making basic
> lists.

Oh man, I'm on it, I've been _so_ productive! Crossing off researching-task-
management-tools tasks all day long!

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

------
chrisgd
The idea of breaking projects down into each logical step. Almost like a
program, you should be thinking of every single thing that may be necessary.
Gather a list of items that will be used, create lookup table, etc. Every time
I may want to look at twitter for 30 minutes, now I think to gather very small
things I need to accomplish my larger tasks. The greatest benefit obviously
comes from being able to stay with it all the time, but I am working on it.

------
jungletime
I've been using Typora to make my todo lists. It's a markdown editor. Super
simple to type, and you can really got some professional looking layout, with
headings and titles quickly too. Recently they built in a file browser. Open
one file in a directory, and it will show you all the files in side panel.
Which in my case are just todo lists for day of the week. But it could be any
type of notes. Highly recommend it.

------
jgaa
I wrote an app for that a few years ago :)

Not a full GTD work-flow, but what I found most useful at that time. It has
served me well.

[https://lastviking.eu/vikinggtd_released.html](https://lastviking.eu/vikinggtd_released.html)

Not worrying about remembering everything, all of the time, reduce stress and
increase what I can actually achieve.

------
noahkim11
The description in the blog rehashes the Eisenhower method.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_management](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_management)
The image feels more convoluted than the four squares.

------
halayli
Here's my comment from last week related to this:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15687021](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15687021)

------
developuh
This is a great summary. I have always liked the idea of GTD, it is just that
it can be a bit overwhelming at times :(

Is there a GTD _lite_ or something for beginners ?

~~~
Jtsummers
[http://gettingthingsdone.com/fivesteps/](http://gettingthingsdone.com/fivesteps/)

Capture everything in your head. Who you need to contact and about what,
upcoming trips, list the projects you're working on.

Clarify what all this means. Why am I trying to juggle this information in my
head when I can put it into a proper notes app or notebook (it's information,
record it, reference it later). If it's a project, add more detail (actions).
If it's action, you're good.

Organize it. Put things with deadlines into your calendar. Determine the
context of actions (I have to do this on the way home, I have to do this in
the lab at facility X on my next trip there). Put things into lists [0] that
make sense. Make a shopping list. Have an agenda for your meeting with Bob.
Have a plan for your next weekly sprint.

Review everything. We canceled this project, or we shipped that one. Actions
that are left open are put on hold or discarded. I missed a deadline, or I
finished this but forgot to mark it finished and so those are removed. This is
actually dependent on this other thing that I haven't written down yet, so I
write it down.

Engage. This is the purpose, this is your life (personal and professional).
This is you getting things done and where most of your time should be spent.

[0] Lists is a broad concept. My grocery list is a list, I should fill it out
and put it in my car or have it in my pocket notebook so it's accessible when
I'm near the grocery store. My projects' plans are a list, but it may be in a
MS Project file or an emacs org file, or even both. I have "Fix PR-123" in the
main project calendar. But once I get to it, it's in emacs for me and looks
more like "figure out this module and that module; update them; update
documentation and tests; get it peer reviewed".

~~~
developuh
Thank you so much for the link. Really appreciate it.

------
agumonkey
I have a dozen of GTD tabs opened. Irony

------
nrki
but this article is more than a 15 minute read...

------
nurettin
People who feel no impediments in getting things done are those who feel no
need to share their plans, interests or self-perceived successes. They can
actually remember more than two things at a time, and prioritize them using
their brains.

~~~
Jtsummers
Good luck with this. At some point, you're going to want to record what you're
doing or intending to do. If not for yourself, then for the team you're
working with or managing.

One of the main purposes of GTD is to acknowledge the fact that minds are
limited. If you waste too many brain cycles trying to keep your grocery list
in your head, you won't be able to remember it or you won't be able to focus
on the board meeting. It's a deliberate method (as opposed to an ad hoc
method) to help you expand what you're able to accomplish in any period of
time.

Since you're a programmer, I will ask: Do you also eschew structured
programming because you can keep an arbitrarily complex flow in your head? Or
do you accept that modern programming languages are better for designing (at
least) programs than straight assembler or machine code?

~~~
nurettin
Here we go with the lazy analogies born out of frustration. Using my brain
"wastes cycles" and "is like assembler language vs. GTD's high level design
structures". This is just another excuse not to trust your thinking organ,
making it lazier and lazier with no bound in sight.

No, grocery lists don't occupy my mind and stop me from thinking and
remembering other things. Here's how I handle groceries which may be too crude
for your high level manager mind: What is needed is _my_ need. First, I own
the need and imagine each subject in my mind, amplifying their absence. That
helps your remember things like your keys and your glasses as well. Try it
some time.

No, minor details don't go away or open you new possibilities when you put
them in a list or somehow believe that you measured their impact and are not
akin to coding in assembler. Not even sure how that analogy works.

Now for any person who lifts their head from the feast and wonders for a
moment; Do train your brain, don't go lazy. Because the next person who does
is better than you.

------
nilsocket
I don't consider this, human brain is just an amazing organ, we haven't even
used 20% of our brain potential, and we want to take load of it.

When you really want to do or you are really interested in something, then you
can't forget that.

~~~
chrisfosterelli
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_percent_of_the_brain_myth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_percent_of_the_brain_myth)

There's no evidence that we don't use all of our brain.

