Do you often think that your time is limited? You have only 24 hours every day that you need to spend on sleeping, working, preparing food, personal fulfillment, taking care of your family, cleaning, etc. Today people have very high demands, especially women. They have to cook delicious food, maintain comfort in the house, take care of the children, look great, make money and in addition be successful.
Understanding these needs, David Allen created the GTD system (getting things done). This system consists of creating several lists that will help you to unload the brain and have all your business at hand.
David Allen is the founder of the popular method of increasing personal effectiveness and the author of several popular books in this area. The most popular of them is “Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity”.
First of all, all things must be recorded. This can be done for example on the stickers, as shown in the pic. Also, David Allen advises to immediately do things that require no more than 2 minutes.
Then, all stickers with things, which should be done and all physical materials need to be sorted (business cards, any discounts and other information that is on the paper) and collected in one place.
In advance, it is necessary to prepare a box for storing physical information (official papers, business cards, invitations, etc.).
When you’ve written down all your tasks on the stickers, you need to decide where you will keep the task lists. It’s very comfortable for me to use planner Filofax. It is very practical because the pages can be modified, added and removed from the planner. You can also choose any other planner. The main thing is that it must always be at hand and be convenient to work with it.
There are several lists, which need to fill out.
All tasks or any information you add to one of the following lists:
1) Do later. To write down the things that have to be done by a certain time. It may be a few days or one-two weeks. They can be either urgent or not urgent.
2) Someday. The list has no date. Here you write down all the things that need to be done, but without any specific day. Just make free your brain from unnecessary information.
You will start doing things from this list when you have free time.
Nevertheless, don’t think that it’ll be never. You need to look at this list at least once a week. It requires some awareness.
3) Cases to be delegated. All tasks that you cannot do alone are here. For example, you need to repair the air conditioner. It’s clear that you couldn’t fulfill this work, so you need to delegate it and add it to this list.
4) Garbage. To throw out all unnecessary stuff.
5) Reference Materials. Just keep all that you need to save. For example, business cards, important names, the size of the clothes, the list of cosmetic products you buy, etc.
I also use one additional list:
6) Project list. I make it for all my projects. It’s much easier to complete your projects if you see the entire list. Just think a little about your projects and don’t stop promoting them😃
After that just sorting all that has gathered. Choose the first sticker and decide to which list the task can be added. Reference materials, such as business cards, discounts, etc. just put in the prepared box.
The next step is taking the sticker for example, “read pages from the book of German grammar.” This task can be added to the “Do later” list. According to this scheme, we analyze all the tasks.
Difference between GTD and a task list
We usually add only the most important things to the task list, but we don’t write down a less significant, small tasks. And in vain. They spin in the head, distract from work, and your efficiency decreases. One of the main principles of GTD is to write down everything (except tasks that you can complete in 2 minutes). So, you can unload your brain and use all its resources for work.
How to use the GTD system most effectively
Any performance system won’t work if you apply it blindly. To get the maximum benefit, customize it for yourself, and then everything will turn out. Moreover, no system can do all the work for you, so don’t be too keen on making lists, do not forget to act. GTD is a tool that helps you get rid of stress and don’t forget anything. But how you will manage your time depends only on you.
