How To Get Everything Done (and Not Forget Anything)

If you’re a productivity junkie like I am, you’ve probably already heard of the GTD system. It’s been a commonly talked about framework for systemizing your workflow so that you give yourself the space and time to focus on what matters while making sure no task gets left behind.

The system comes from David Allen’s book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. If the words “stress-free productivity” makes your heart sing, then you’re going to love this article.

The big idea behind the GTD framework is that you need to create a system that can contain everything you have going on in your life. Some call it a second brain, others may call it a life OS. Essentially Allen says that “if it’s on your mind, your mind isn’t clear”, and if your mind isn’t clear (of distracting thoughts, tasks, due dates, and other life events) it’s going to be a lot harder for you to have true focus blocks in your day.

He refers to these distracting thoughts as “open loops”. Open loops are defined as everything in your brain that does not belong where it currently is or the way it currently is. These open loops will continue to nag and pull on your attention making it impossible to give your 100% attention to something else.

Where you're going wrong

By keeping the coulds, shoulds, mights, and ought-tos in your head rather than recording them down as soon as you're aware of them, you're setting yourself up for failure.

In order to evaluate which part of your workflow needs work, we first need to understand the 5 most important steps of proper workflow management.

1. Capture - recording down everything that comes to mind
2. Clarify - figure out what each thought, task, or idea means and what you want to do about it
3. Organize - sorting through your tasks to figure out where they should go next (Calendar? To-do list? Projects dashborad?)
4. Reflect - weekly evaluation of how your tasks are going and whether you system is organized
5. Engage - figure out what tasks to prioritize and start working on them

Most people actually struggle with step 1 the most: capturing what has your attention. We tend to keep our commitments and tasks in our heads, making them easy to lose track of and hard to accomplish. By keeping the coulds, shoulds, mights, and ought-tos in your head rather than recording them down as soon as you’re aware of them, you’re setting yourself up for failure.

How to make it easier for yourself

If this where you’re stuck, think about creating an “Inbox” for your thoughts and tasks. There are tons of tools for you to do this but the most important thing is to pick just one. When you're taking notes in a notebook, in Apple notes, in your calendar, and on sticky notes you're making it infinitely harder for yourself to organize your thoughts and ideas. The more tools you use, the more convoluted your system becomes, making it harder to trust and less dependable.

I use Notion personally as my single source of truth where I keep all of my documents, to-do lists, project boards, goals, and more. I've also created an “Inbox” page that allows me to quickly capture any ideas or thoughts is my solution to making sure I don’t lose anything.

Once I know that everything gets dumped into one space, the second step (clarifying) becomes a lot easier. I know exactly where I need to go to review everything I have going on and decide what I need to do next.

By building this system into your routine, you’re also building trust with yourself so that your brain learns to feel safe. The security of knowing that everything that needs to be done has been properly recorded and prioritized gives you the space and clarity to actually focus on completing the tasks.

The process of processing

When you’re clarifying what each item in your capture system actually means or what the next step should be, you can use these questions to guide you:

1. What is it? - Figure out what exactly this item is. Is it an idea, a quote, a book you want to read?
2. Is it actionable (yes or no)
   1. If no - trash it, or save it under “maybe someday”
   2. If yes - go to step 3
3. What “project” does it belong to or what’s the outcome you’re hoping to achieve? Determine the next action you can take to move this forward.
4. Pick one: Do it, delegate it, defer it
   1. Do it if an action will take less than two minutes
   2. Delegate it if there’s someone who can do it better
   3. Defer it if you can’t do it in under 2 minutes and it needs a longer timeframe

By processing every task in your Inbox with these questions, you're creating meaning out of random notes and ideas and figuring out whether or not they can be turned into actionable tasks. Taking the time to process even the smallest of ideas creates a feeling of mental accomplishment and closure allowing your brain to close the open loops.

Maintain what you've created

Once you've created a workflow where you can properly capture, clarify, and organize your tasks, you'll need to reflect on and maintain your system. By reflecting and reviewing your entire work flow (from Inbox to the status of each task) you’ll be able to ensure that you’re staying on track with the completion of projects while also keeping the system operating. The key to success with any system is your ability to consistently update it and and maintain it. Allen recommends scheduling in a weekly review session dedicated to maintaining your workflow.

Your weekly review sessions should entail:

• gathering and processing all your “stuff”
• reviewing your system
• updating your lists
• getting clean, clear, current, and complete

How do I know what to prioritize?

There’s no hard and fast rule that will tell you exactly how to prioritize your tasks. Whether you use something like the Eisenhower matrix or some other framework, prioritization strategies can only help you figure out what’s important to you so that you can make an informed decision.

Allen provides a few models in Getting Things Done that are helpful when deciding how to prioritize the tasks in your system. The simplest one being the four-criteria model for choosing actions in the moment.

To use this frame work apply these 4 criteria at any given time when you’re trying to make a decision about what to do next:

1. Context - Look at your location, what you’re currently doing, and the current time to determine if there are any restrictions to what you can/can’t do
2. Time available - When do you have to move onto the next thing? This puts a limit to what tasks you could realistically accomplish in your current timeblock
3. Energy available - How much energy do you have? Some tasks may require your most optimistic and motivated self while others may be more lax
4. Priority - Given your context, time, and energy available, what action remaining of your options will give you the highest payoff? Consider the Pareto Principle here. If 20% of your tasks actually give you 80% of the output, which tasks are a part of that 20%?

Creating a system that works for you

Like with any system or framework, it's important that you personalize it so that it works well for you. I personally found the GTD system perfect for how I visualize my workflow but I've also had friends tell me that it doesn't really work for them. Even if you don't decide to adopt GTD in it's entirety, the core idea having a single system where all of your ideas, tasks, projects, and goals go is a valuable thing to consider.

With so many different options available to us, it's easy to get distracted by the act of trying and using new tools. What's important to remember is that the effectiveness and efficiency of your system is not dependent on how fancy or feature-filled your software is; it's about how consistently you maintain and follow your workflow.

There are a ton of other amazing nuggets to learn from the book so if you haven't read it before, I'd highly recommend checking it out. You can buy it here.