Perhaps you know this, but there is a productivity system, a methodology, called Getting Things Done which was invented by David Allen in the 1990s, and introduced to the world in
his book. It's about handling all your work, about coping with lots of tasks and ultimately, yes, about getting things done. Allen is a spectacularly clever man, and his methods -- honed over years of working with corporate types under pressure -- are genuinely useful and we'd even go so far as to say brilliant. They take effort to master, but they're simple to understand and they are very effective, to the extent that GTD, as it's known, has its evangelists. So we're just about to annoy most of them.
As much as we like and use many of Allen's ideas, we slipped in that word "corporate" there, and we did so deliberately. Allen is a corporate man, who speaks and thinks corporate-ese. For example, talking on the
Mac Power Users podcast, Allen said this: "if you say, David, how do I set my priorities, I say at what level haven't you matured your conversation?"
Okay, glad he cleared that up. Allen is also very definitely a fan of using paper notebooks, which tells you he has better handwriting than we do, where we happen to be just a bit more technology-driven. We believe that the Mac and iPhone are not just great devices for
doing our work, they are superb at this same Getting Things Done idea. The tools you have, and the tools that are available to OS X and iOS users, can make the GTD methodology fit in with your work and your life.
So that's what we're going to look at throughout next week. We're going to take apart GTD, and show you how to use the software and hardware you already have to get on top of your work.
Monday
Getting started with Getting Things Done means making a To Do list, but that's a short phrase for a long job: it's really about writing down everything. Everything. That takes time, it takes effort, and it gets you a massive To Do list, and we have advice on the best tools to do that with.
Then as you go along today, next week and forever, you will be constantly thinking of new things you need or want to do, and GTD means recording that somehow -- capturing it. Monday's article will show you how to capture every stray thought so you can think it, and then move on.
Tuesday
When you record every stray thought and you've written down everything you've already got to do, that is going to be a list and a half. To save you either breaking down or turning the list into your full-time job, GTD has you process the tasks. Listen to us: we're going corporate ourselves. Instead of "GTD has you process the tasks," let's say instead that "we'll show you how to do some things, ditch others, and dump the rest on someone else."
Wednesday
When we first raised the idea of doing a Getting Things Done series, there was a small pause followed by: "does this mean OmniFocus again?" It does. OmniFocus is our beloved To Do manager, but we bring this up now, under the Wednesday section, because this is the day that we'll talk about the big hole in OmniFocus: the thing it can't do.
Not to spoil the entire article yet, but all of Wednesday is about getting other people to do things. You can't do everything, and you don't want to do everything, but even if someone else has agreed to do it for you, there's an issue that you have to handle that. OmniFocus isn't great for teams, but there are To Do software apps that are -- and whatever you use, there are ways to bend them to your will.
Thursday
The part of
David Allen's Getting Things Done that people fall down on, and even software applications sometimes ignore, is the Review process. On Thursday, we'll cover what it is, and why it may be the single most important part of the process. Do Reviews, and you know where you are with everything; fail to do your Reviews, and everything falls apart.
We'll also cover what happens when everything
does fall apart -- because it will. No matter how quickly you see the benefits of GTD, no matter how useful you find it, you will fall off the wagon from time to time. Thursday tell you how -- and why -- to pick yourself up and have another go.
Friday
Throughout the week, we'll be mentioning software and hardware: on Friday, we'll step back and tell you which ones we specifically recommend. We don't think that something like a Top Ten list is brilliantly useful, unless we explain what we've picked and give you some context. So we'll explain what we've picked, and we'll give you some context that lets you see for yourself what will matter to you, and what won't.
Make a note and join us for next week's series, won't you?
Here's the next part.
-- William Gallagher (
@WGallagher)
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