Praise Be to GTD

I’m the sort of person who always has a hundred things going on at once.

I have pending tasks for myself, tasks I’m waiting on somebody else to do, appointments, meetings, hobbies, projects, side projects, potential future projects, short-term and long-term goals, scheduled activities which require following detailed up-to-date instructions, miscellaneous stuff I want to do someday, and things that I may never get around to but want to keep note of.

There’s no possible way I could keep all of it in my head.

I used to not have a cohesive system for organizing it all. I relied either on my own faulty biological memory, notes in random places, lists I seldom checked, or tricks so that I wouldn’t need to remember it. For instance, in university I used to study the material on the same day we were introduced to it so I wouldn’t have to remember when the test date was. I used to do homework the same day as well so that I didn’t need to remember when it was due. That strategy can work, but it’s not very robust. You still have to remember what you need to do until you complete it, which I didn’t always manage. I sometimes forgot homework and even class itself.

Even after university, I used to get very overwhelmed when I had a lot to do at once. I’d get upset when someone started talking to me, fearing that I might forget something important. Sometimes I’d be like that for days at a time where nobody could talk to me. The word that comes to mind to describe it is… dysfunctional.

That all changed a few years ago when I found out about the GTD system from someone who reads my journal. I felt an initial resistance to adopting it because it seemed complex, but decided to give it a shot anyways, and now I swear by it. It has significantly improved my ability to manage multiple things simultaneously without stressing, and I don’t forget important tasks nearly as much as I used to. I think the most important thing GTD has done for me is free up my brainpower for the current task by allowing me to drop everything else.

GTD is technology-agnostic, so I chose to implement it on my phone using a calendar app and a notes app. The calendar holds everything I need to do at a specific time. It allows me to schedule events, set event reminders, insert related information such as event location or what to bring, track my progress by marking tasks as complete, color code different types of tasks or events, and filter them by type.

Anything without a fixed time goes into my notes app. It has directories laid out according to the categories in the GTD system. The most important directories I have are “next actions” to keep track of what I need to do next, “waiting for” for things that I’m waiting on someone else to do, “projects” for plans that require several “next actions” to be performed, “inbox” for anything I need to note down but don’t have time to categorize right then and there, and “documentation” to document how to perform certain actions that require multiple steps.

I also have a “horizons” file with my medium- and long-term goals written out in lists. It contains near-term areas of focus too, which are designed to put me on the trajectory to accomplishing those longer-term goals. And all the day-to-day stuff I keep in the “projects”, “next actions”, and “waiting for” directories is designed to help me satisfy these near-term areas of focus. To summarize, it’s a hierarchy of goals organized by time horizon. This helps me track progress, find areas for improvement, and see the big picture.

As you might have gathered by now, GTD has been a very positive paradigm shift in my life. But should everybody adopt it?

I don’t think everybody needs GTD per se—it’s detailed, only one of many productivity systems out there, and probably better suited for people with a high systematizing quotient like myself—but I do believe that everybody should have something to stay organized though, even if it’s just a simple calendar that you check once per week. Unless you live an unusually simple life, not using anything to keep track of the demands of modern life seems like a recipe for disorder.

Do you agree? Disagree? Have you adopted an existing productivity system yourself or created your own? Let me know and thanks for reading.