Comments on: GTD Best Practices: Process (Part 2 of 5)

By: Michael Miller

Michael Miller — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 05:34:01 +0000

Hi Jan. I have been doing/tinkering with GTD for a while. I tend to do more things electronically. When I was doing a paper-based form of this (and in my work brainstorming) what i tend to do is use tiny post-it notes and save them in “old school” photo album pages. This way you can open the little static-cling type page, and rearrange everything. And you can fold it and not worry about it.

A good middle ground would also consider using index cards with some sort of index card sorter from lavenger.

I like to scratch things out on paper and then load them into the computer later. I tend to write the “next actions” in paper when doing the general planning/weekly review stuff. And I have an actual page for each project so i can ‘dump’ all the actions on that page.

I use the GTD iphone app so i can work through my lists and load things into my inbox with incredible efficiency.

By: Kelly Forrister

Kelly Forrister — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 23:08:50 +0000

Hello Jan,

Fine to capture any project Next Actions you can do in parallel, as long as you want all of those choices on your lists at the same time. It does not need to be limited to just one.

We do not recommend capturing sequential Next Actions though, as your Next Actions should only be reserved for actions you can choose now.

Hope that helps!
Kelly

By: jan Straka

jan Straka — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 16:14:36 +0000

Dear Kelly,
can you help me pls with one big question in my paper GTD?
Situation: I have some big project – i.e. painting the wall in the living room – which has some different steps = next actions.
When I plan this project (have it on the list in my personal role), should I plan all the steps and write them on their lists – buy the color (errands), prepare living room for the painting (home), prepare all the tools (home), etc? Or I should write the only one next action – i.e. buy the colour and the rest of the project I should plan constantly step by step after finishing the previous action?
I have the problem to do it on the paper because in Omnifocus I can do it at once and have all the steps on the specific lists but on the paper I do not know how to do it..
Thx
Jan

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 13:28:21 +0000

thanks for your answers Luke and Kelly. I suppose with any model of workflow processing there’s discipline required in analysing what you’re doing at various levels before doing it.

I guess what I’m wanting to do is raise my principle of being selective of the work I do in accordance to long term goals (rather than other people’s goals), higher or closer to my daily grind.

cheers
mike
the247analyst.wordpress.com

By: Kelly Forrister

Kelly Forrister — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 23:44:06 +0000

Hi Mike,

I would consider those under the “What is it?” question. There’s gold to be mined in that question and that’s where I’d be determining what it is, how it relates to my other priorities, and why it even landed in my world enough to determine if it’s actionable or not.

Kelly

By: Luke

Luke — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 19:28:27 +0000

@Mike
I’d say it’s already built into the process.

The question “Is this actionable?” means “Do I need to take action about this now?” Your values and priorities play a part in your answer to that question.

The most important and difficult decisions are often those that involve deciding what *not* to do or *stop* doing. If work is not going to add value then don’t commit to it at all. Toss it.

If you are unsure or think it might in the future then tickle it (Tickler file, Someday/Maybe) for a later date. Review weekly and decide either to move on it now or feel good about not doing it.

If you still have to get it done for compliance reasons (taxes, for example) then delegate it if possible. If not, manage it like anything else.

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 16:11:44 +0000

Hi Kelly

I’ve been a long time follower of GTD and I think it works really well. However in recent times when I have had many requests and inputs coming in from a variety of sources I’ve been forced to ask myself questions like, in addition to the ones listed in your entry, ‘do I really need to do this?’, ‘will actioning this move me towards a greater goal?’ etc. Without asking these questions I tend to waste a lot of time not actually doing things that move me towards bigger goals like a promotion! I haven’t read the book for a while but how would you include this aspect in the GTD model?

thanks
mike
the247analyst.wordpress.com