Getting Things Done (GTD)

At first glance I thought GTD? Is that a Jersey Shore thing? Oh no wait, that is GTL. GTD is Getting Things Done!

The GTD system provides solutions on how to organize your life. Being able to have your life organized will reduce the level of stress and increase the productivity.  I have learned about this system before, but never really new it had a name. I have used these skills in my everyday life and have seen quite the benefit from doing so.

I think everyone could benefit from this exercise. No matter how organized you are, there are always ways to improve.

The five steps of mastering work flow to GTD is:

• Collect
• Process
• Organize
• Review
• Do

The first step of COLLECTING everything and anything can be a difficult task. With all the information coming in from all the different sources it can be hard to make sure you track everything. I started with using Microsoft Outlook to GTD. Most tasks and meetings come into my inbox. I also add items to the tasks list and calendar to keep track of everything. My memory is not the best so unless I add it, I will forget it!

When on the PROCESS step I read my email and decide what to do with it. If I need to something from the emails, I add it to my task list or calendar. Once I have decided what to do with it I move onto the next step, ORGANIZING.

I would say I am typically more organized than most of my friends. I keep folders in my Outlook to organize everything! Nothing stays in my inbox more than a few days. I use both automatic filters and manual filters. My folders are organized by topics. By organizing I am able to easily find an email sent to me.

After I have COLLECTED, PROCESSED and ORGANIZED, I move on to REVIEW. Reviewing typically happens at the start and end of my day. When I get to work I review the calendar, task list and inbox for items that need to be done for that day. Once the day is almost over and I am wrapping up for the day I then use the REVIEW step again to see what I got done and what will be waiting for me tomorrow.

The last step is (as NIKE would say), DO IT!  Pretty self explanatory. Once I am all organized I know what to do, so I just DO IT!

This works pretty well for my work life. I now need to include my personal life as well. Outlook may not be the tool to organize my entire life. I have a gmail account for my personal email so I violate the first rule of collecting by not having everything collected into the same source.  I do have my Outlook calendar synced with my Google calendar so that I have ONE calendar for all my events, but that doesn't include tasks.  I also have to admit that if I let my email inbox get out of control, I just archive everything over a month and start over organizing. That might not be the best thing to do, but I feel it gets me back on track for organization.

As I said before, anyone can use a refresher in how to keep organized and GTD. I will take what I have learned in this assignment and try to do a better job in incorporating everything in my life instead of just focusing on my work life.