The Two Minute Guide to Getting Things Done (GTD)

July 15th 2008 06:00 am

One of the biggest obstacles to getting more productive is getting started. Here’s a two minute guide to Getting Things Done (GTD).

1. Capture- Get all your to dos into inboxes. e.g. mail goes in one spot, verbal to dos go in your notebook etc.

2. Process- Go through all your inboxes and empty out anything in your head onto a to do list. Here’s how to filter your list:
  • Delete- If you wont need it, get rid of it.
  • File- file away anything you’ll need later- but dont need now
  • Delegate- if someone else should be doing it- let them know. keep a to do item to follow up
  • Defer- Is this task not important enough to be done soon? Put it on a “someday/maybe” list. Review the list weekly.
  • Do now- Is it a task that will take 2 minutes or less? Do it. That includes putting appointments in your calender, adding addresses to your contact list etc.
3. Do- Do your to do list.
4. Weekly review- Be on top of your to do list.
Of course there’s much more but if you start with this then you’re already ahead of most people.
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Posted by Heshy under GTD & Motivation & productivity | 7 Comments »

7 Responses to “The Two Minute Guide to Getting Things Done (GTD)”

  1. Pages tagged "gtd" responded on 16 Jul 2008 at 7:52 pm #

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  2. Dan responded on 19 Jul 2008 at 2:12 pm #

    For implementing GTD you might try out this new web-based application:

    http://www.gtdagenda.com

    You can use it to manage your goals, projects and tasks, set next actions and contexts, use checklists, schedules and a calendar.
    A mobile version and iCal are available too.

    Hope you like it.

  3. Heshy responded on 20 Jul 2008 at 7:09 am #

    This looks like an interesting project. My big concern with online task/project managers is that it isn’t integrated with email (which means is where I get most of my inputs), it’s not available offline (in case I’m not connected) and I cant sync it with my PDA (so I cant take it with me).

  4. A Two Minute GTD Overview from Success Making Machine | GTD Times responded on 13 Oct 2008 at 7:44 pm #

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  5. Bookmarks about Gtd responded on 10 Dec 2008 at 7:30 pm #

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  7. The Two Minute Guide To Success responded on 05 Oct 2009 at 10:13 pm #

    [...] The Two Minute Guide To Getting Things Done(GTD) went through the steps to start being more productive. Here we’ll talk about how to become successful. Rule 1: Write down what you want If you don’t know what you want, you can’t get it. Take a paper and write down your goals. [...]

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