Some things I've learned about GTD

About six months ago I decided that if I wanted to succeed in my current job then I would have to do everything in my power to slay my own personal fire breathing dragon -- organizational effectiveness.

Many of you that frequent this blog know that I spend a lot of time 'chasing butterflies' - a habit of getting sidetracked from important tasks that I know must be done. While I working at my last journalism job I was paid to waste vast quantities of time as long as I finished my work up by deadline. While at first I learned to pace myself for the day's job, towards the end of my tenure there I was able to 'chase butterflies' the majority of my schedule and still turn out a quality day's work.

Since my move from journalism world to the knowledge based working world, I've had jobs with varying degrees of 'down time.' Each was had its own organizational demands that I quickly met and was instantly comfortable with. That all ended about a year ago.

My current job demands a significant degree of maniacal organization - something that took me by surprise. It soon became apparent that I'd need to become much more than get 'better' at my organizational abilities -- I would have to in fact become insanely effective at it.

I'm still not there yet -- but I feel that I'm progressing a little more every day. I think the biggest overarching difference is that I came to the realization that I would really have to work hard at getting better at getting organized and commit myself to doing everything I could to the cause. It truly was an emotional commitment that I wrestled with internally -- but one that I'm now enthusiastically committed to.

So, as I have worked at getting better the past few months, I've adopted a few habits, read a few books and feel a lot better about my ability to organize. Here are the top 15 things I'm doing or have already personally done to accomplish my goal.

1. I read Getting Things Done by David Allen - A short, efficient read that gave me hope that its possible to clear your mind of stress and still finish all your work. I've adopted a hybrid of his system that makes it so I can sleep nights.... most of them, at least.

2. I'm learning to have a mind like water - I'll always remember a day long fishing trip I took with Karli's family soon after we got married. We hiked to a mountain lake to fish. It was the most pristine, beautiful body of water I've ever seen. I remember later in the day throwing rocks into the water and watching how the water was instantly frustrated by my intruding rock, but worked hard to engulf it and then return to it's original, placid state of calmness. This idea, which I ripped off from David Allen and the late Bruce Lee is a goal I look to attain with each new project, task or chore that comes my way. While David Allen describes it much better than I, the idea is that instantly making a plan for each new intrusion allows you to return to a placid state of mind. This is also why I have pictures of mountain lakes as my desktop screensavers.

3. I work to get things out of my mind and into a system - This is an extension of number 2. If you keep things in your mind, you're bound to forget, misinterpret or marginalize the importance of the task. Taking the stuff (tasks, work, etc) out of your mind and putting into buckets is a great way to relieve that stress of knowing you have 800 things to do, but not being sure if you have the ability or stress load to do them all.

4. I signed up for Jott - and you should too. It's a free service that allows you to call and vocalize the thing (or things) that are occupying those stressful parts of your mind and need to be put into a bucket. After you hang up, Jott transcribes what you said and sends you a nice, tidy little email of your ramblings. Great for those times that you wake up in the middle of the night and want to record a thought. I also use it on my drives home as a way to empty my mind of the days tasks. Jott can be found at www.jott.com.

5. I rid myself of distractions at work -- This is easily the hardest thing for me to do. Facebook, Linked In, Plaxo, this blog, etc are collosal time wasters. Avoid them like the plague while at work and I'm convinced you'll accomplish more.

6. Turn off email notifications - sound, pop-ups, everything. You can do this by going to your email's preference and shutting off the email notification pop up windows. If you get a lot of email in a day, this is an essential trick for maintaining focus on stuff you're working on.

7. I now carry a notebook everywhere I go. I make a little star by notations that need action, then put this into my GTD system shown in number three above.

8. Not bite off more than I can chew - Again, a very tough one for me. I think I can do everything sometimes and I tell everyone yes - "Of course I'll have that 13-page proposal to you in two hours!" Learning to tell people no is an effective way of cutting down on workload.

9. Work smarter, not longer - If you're working 10-12 hour days, you're silly. Nuff said. Go home. Say hi to the wife and kids for heaven's sake.

10. Ask questions, lots of clarifying questions. Another thing I struggle with for the mere reason that I don't like to look stupid in front of people. I'm finding that people appreciate it when you ask questions that can save a whole lot of time later.

11. Take time to smell the roses every day - For me, this means playing foosball every afternoon. It might mean taking a walk, or going to Facebook for 15 minutes. Whatever you do, get your mind off of work for a while, escape to reality and use the time to refocus your energy of the remainder of the day ahead.

12. Prioritize my to-do list: I try to write down the top 3 things that need to be accomplished each day and tape it to my monitor. This helps me focus my time and energies in getting the importance stuff done.

13. Download the GTD Outlook plugin - This little digital wonder saved my life. It works wonders with my work's exchange server. It takes the above chart and implements an Outlook based system that is highly effective and allows my mind to be water.

14. Read a lot of productivity blogs - Lifehacker.com has a good one, but all you really need to do is search google for 'GTD blog' and you'll find a million of them.

15. Recognize and reward your success. - It's easy to not recognize your progress for a job well done. If you put off checking email every five minutes for an hour, then that's a huge step. Go get a milkshake or something. Maybe something less fattening.

Well, there you go -- my first blog list. Just like the writing I do for this blog, I did it more for me than for anyone else who might read it. But if it helps, well that would make me smile.

Pat