Getting Things Started
Last month I had the opportunity to see Dave Allen speak at a conference. Allen is author of Getting Things Done (GTD). The conference was BizConf 2010, held on Amelia Island, FL. BizConf is a business-oriented conference that boasts a number of high-profile speakers from the software development world, particularly the Ruby-on-Rails crowd.
Most of the attendees were involved with software startups, building a consulting businesses, or growing their organizations. And as anyone knows, the job of making a software business run (or any other business) is difficult, and personal productivity is a key challenge. I wasn’t the only one who felt that way.
I was skeptical that GTD would work for me. As a software developer, the personal productivity challenge is not so much prioritizing the to-do list, as much as it is clearing your calendar (and your mind) so that you can focus deeply on your work. Paul Graham has written about this dilemma, which he calls maker’s schedule / manager’s schedule. Since I don’t do programming all day long anymore, I try to spend at least a couple of hours programming per day so that I don’t lose touch. It’s important to me to have that time.
Needless to say, Allen’s promise of “stress free productivity” was appealing. We also got a free copy of the book.
When I started, I felt like I had a pretty good system in place. My typical process was to create a weekly to-do list, then create a calendar. On the calendar, I would block off time for programming, sales, and customer service, and then try to fit in the to-do items.
What was lacking is that my system did not capture everything. My to-do list was more of a “wish list” of things I would like to accomplish. I would intentionally leave things off in an effort to focus my priorities. The problem was, that things that were left off became the things that consumed my thoughts. Additionally, my system broke down as the chaos of the week ensued, which generally pushed into my programming time. After hearing Allen speak, I realized that these were the very issues GTD seeks to address.
The power in Allen’s method comes from collecting everything into a system that reminds you of the right tasks at the right time. Once you learn to trust the system, you spend less time re-thinking and juggling. Things don’t sit on your desk and distract you. Fewer things rattle around in your mind. The result is less stress and more productivity.
GTD is mostly common sense. Allen has simply molded this common sense into a process, and refined it. He spends his time helping people implement GTD and collecting feedback.
To get started with the system, set aside two whole days. It seems like a long time, but it’s worth it.
- The In-Box, complete with a copy of GTD to finish reading.
The first day, you collect everything that needs to be on your to-do list, and put it in the in-box: scraps of paper, meeting notes, bills to be paid, and ideas that you’ve been tossing around. The key in this step is not to organize. Simply add it to the in-box. Warning — a day of collecting everything that has been on your mind into a single in-box will lead to a sleepless night! I ended up starting this blog because I couldn’t sleep.
The goal for day two is to process the in-box. Allen lays out a clear flow chart on how to do this. Essentially, if something will take less than two minutes, you do it. Everything else is assigned to a number of lists. The lists have names like, “next actions”, “delegate”, “someday/maybe”, and “projects.”
The “next actions” list is especially powerful. For each project you have on your plate, you identify the very next action that will move it forward. This is a great way to get a project “un-stuck.”
It feels great to hit the bottom of the in-box. It takes all day. Going forward, you process it weekly in a couple of hours.
I started by writing my lists on pads of paper. This was simple and tactile, (and deferred the decision of what software to use — a decision which I knew could derail the project). Eventually, I decided on Google Tasks to keep all my lists, because I’m already using Gmail and Google calendar. (This is mostly due to the fact that outlook 2010 doesn’t sync with the iPhone yet) I found a way to make the tasks accessible on my iPhone using a app called GeeTasks. GeeTasks synchronizes Google Tasks to the iPhone, so you can work even when not connected.
A few weeks in, I’m delighted.
For one, GTD didn’t add any additional work. Given the number and variety of tasks I do (or any professional does) in a given week, there is no way around spending time to manage them. GTD was just a better way to accomplish this.
Second, my day is a constant barrage of emails and phone calls that require immediate response. Now that I have a continual clear sense of what is on my plate, I can prioritize a new task quickly, and move forward with confidence. Nothing is more stressful to me than that nagging feeling that of overlooking something important.
Third, I have always tried to set aside time in the morning for programming. This was always hard because I would arrive at the office with a number of things on my mind (usually a result of the previous day’s chaos). GTD enables me to organize those thoughts quickly and move on to my programming task for the day — and programming what I really wanted to be doing to start with.
