Having a total and seamless system of organization in place gives you tremendous power because it allows your mind to let go of lower-level thinking and graduate to intuitive focusing, un-distracted by matters that haven’t been dealt with appropriately.
Remember your system will evolve over time so don’t be afraid to make changes after this. It should and will evolve.
There are 7 primary types of things that you’ll want to keep track of
- Projects List
- Project Support Material
- Calendar actions and information
- Next Actions lists
- Waiting for list
- Reference Material
- Someday/Maybe list
It’s critical that all of these categories be kept pristinely distinct from one another.
If you allow intermixing of the items, you will tend to go psychologically numb to the contents.
If you have projects that you’re not going to be doing anything about for some time they must go on your Someday/Maybe list so you can relate to the Projects list with the rigorous action-generating focus it needs.
and if something you’re Waiting for included on one of your action lists, nonproductive rethinking will continually bog you down.
All you really need for GTD are lists and folders
Organizing Action Reminders
The actions that go on your calendar.
Those that must be done on a certain day and/or at a particular time, and those that just need to be done as soon as you can get them, around your other calendar items
Calendar Items can be either time specific or day specific or both.
What many want to do, however based on perhaps old habits of writing daily to-do lists is put actions on the calendar that they think they’d really like to get done next, but this really disrupts the sacredness of the list. Resist this impulse.
Organizing ASAP Action by Context
Best way to be reminded of ASAP actions is by particular context required for that action - that is, either the ool or the location or the situation needed to complete it.
Although me(blog writer) find this an overkill and don’t do this, but just make one list of actions list.
Most Common Categories for action reminders
Calls
Computer
Errands
Office
Home
Anywhere
Agendas(for people and meetings)
This can be further subdivided for different people and meetings.
Read/Review
Organizing “Waiting For”
Like reminders of the actions you need to do, reminders of al the things that you’re waiting to get back from or get done by others have to be sorted and grouped.
“Manage Commitments of others before their avoidance creates a crisis.
The responsibility for the next step may bounce back and forth many times before a project is finished. Record the date and time of passing on the action, as Follow-up is much more meaningful when you can say, “But I placed the order Mach twelfth”.
Using Original item as its own action reminder
Certain kinds of inputs will most efficiently serve as their own reminders of required actions.
Paper Based Workflow
Magazines
Bills To Pay (if they are paper based)
etc
E-mail Based Workflow
You can create folders in the emails like @ACTION or @WAITING FOR etc.
Caution about dispersing reminders of your actions
There’s an obvious danger putting reminders of things you need to do somewhere out of sight.
Organizing Project Reminders
Projects List
Projects list is not meant to hold plans or details about your projects, instead, it’s just a comprehensive index of your open loops.
You won’t be working off of the Projects list during your day, Remember you can’t do a project you can only do the action step
The real value of projects list lies in the complete review, it ensures that you have actions defined for all of your projects and that nothing is slipping through the cracks.
Sometimes some projects are hidden you can try to find them in
- Current activities
- Higher horizon interest and commitments
- Current problems, issues and opportunities.
One List or Subdivided
Most people find that one list is the best way to go because it serves as a master inventory.
If you want to divide them, here are some common ways to sub-sort the projects
- Personal/ Professional
- Delegated Projects
- Specific Types of Projects like Presentations or Finances etc.
What about Sub-Projects?
Some your projects will have major sub-projects, each of which could in theory be seen as a whole projects.
Do you make all of this one entry on your Projects list — say “Finish new home upgrades” — or do you write up each of the sub-projects as an individual line item?
Actually it won’t matter as long as you review all the components of the project as frequently as you need to in order to stay productive, just make sure to mention the sub-projects and/or project plan as project support material.
Project Support Material
Don’t Use Support Material for Reminding
Organizing Ad Hoc Project Thinking
You’ll often have ideas that you’ll want to keep about project but that are not necessarily next actions.
You can attach the data by attaching notes or post-its, or through email and software applications, or pages in notebooks. You just want to attach the data with the project somehow, I personally put them into notion pages.
Organizing Non-actionable data.
Reference Materials.
Much of what comes across your desk and into your life in general is reference material.
Someday/Maybe
The second thing to deal with in organizing non-actionable items is how to track things what you want to re-asses in the future.
Someday/Maybe List
- Create a someday/maybe list that may include
- Things to get or build
- Hobbies to take up
- Skills to learn
- Creative expressions to explore, etc.
Now’s a good time to review yoru Projects list from a mroe elevated perspective(that is from the standpoint ofyour job, goals, and personal commitments) and consider whether you might transfer some of your current commitments to Someday/Maybe
You might also wanna divide the Someday/Maybe into some special categories like, Food, Children, Food etc.
Using the Calendar for Future Options
Reminder of things you might want to consider doing in the future.
One of the three uses of calendar is for day-specific information
Here are a few things you should consider inserting.
Triggers for activating projects
Like Birthdays, annual events, fund raisers etc
Events you might want to participate in
Decision Catalysts
Once in a while there may be a significant decision that you need to make but can’t(or don’t want to) right now. You can put it into calendar for a later date-time.
Checklists.
There are an infinite number of possible ch3ckliesst that allow you to have more relaxed control in various situations across your life and work.
Most common checklists can be
Things You want to pay attention to
- Exercise more regularly
- Spend more time with kids
- Ensure your team is in align with corporate strategy.
etc.
For most of this stuff there is an underlying project that you have to identify, like “Exercise more regularly” translates to the Project “Set up a regular exercise program”.
Blueprinting Key areas of work and accountability
It might include
- Career Goals
- Service
- Family
- Relationships
etc.
Checklists at all levels
The more novel the situation the more control required
Hence the need for checklist
Many times you’ll want some sort of checklists to help you maintain a focus until you’re more familiar with what you’re doing.
Be open to creating any kind of checklist as the urge strikes you. The possibilities are endless — from “Core Life Values” to “Things to Take Camping”.
Get Comfortable with checklists both ad hoc and more permanent.
We've organized all of your open loops, but in real world your'll get more inputs and your system will become messy again, this brings us to the next step Reflecting.