Getting Things Done (aka GTD)

noun

GTD is a productivity workflow developed by David Allen and presented in his book, Getting Things Done.

The basic idea is that every actionable thought that enters your head should be recorded elsewhere and managed by strict guidelines as opposed to remaining in your mind, which is disorganized and breeds stress.

First, all actionable thoughts, emails, post-its, etc, are written down and stored in an inbox where they're processed daily. Each item in the inbox can only end up being processed in a handful of different ways: filed/archived for future reference, deferred (added as a task on a to do list), thrown out or delegated.

To-do lists are organized by “project” and “context,” which make it easier to tackle things when it’s time to get things done. Projects are a list of “next actions” in sequential order that need to be finished for a project to be completed. A context entails the resources needed to complete an action. For instance, there are certain tasks we can only do at a home computer and others that require a cell phone – those are contexts.

When all of this is implemented, GTDer can easily decided what to do when it’s time to work.

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