When surfing the Internet and reading all kind of geeky, nerdy blogs I often stumbled upon Getting Things Done (GTD). From the posts I discovered some important parts of GTD. The first lessons I learned from these posts was the handling of e-mail. As a doctor, researcher and teacher I get a lot of e-mail each day. Adapting the workflow from GTD in Thunderbird with different folders for Action, Waiting On, Someday, and Archive I became a master in handling e-mail. No overcrowded Inbox anymore.
See also how e-mail can ruin your life
I even bought a labeler for files. But when getting used to my efficient mail handeling I started to wonder about the book. At first I kept telling myself that you could read about GTD online and using good software would do the trick. One of my recent acquisitions was Omnifocus. But in the end I decided to buy the book, Getting Things Done by David Allen.
And I am glad I did. I read it in a weekend. It is very clearly readable written. It is very practical. It takes you by the hand to get organized. Not only online but also in your office and home office. The practical advice is really worthwhile.
The book starts with an explanation of the mind set for GTD. One of the first chapters is about projects. Projects in the view of GTD are anything that you want to or have to do that takes more actions than one. That way a lot of things to do are actually projects. In these first chapters he discusses the essence of projects with why what how and when.
Next he takes you by the hand and tells you how to collect all your projects to do, how to organize your office and how to collect files, deal with your calendar etc.
An important task with Getting Things Done is to set aside a couple of hours a week for a weekly review. In this weekly review you have to take some time to collect all loose paper , notes, and lists. Life hack.org has a nice recent post about the weekly review in GTD from the David Allen
Since their are a lot of excellent blogs about I will not bother you further with a description of the book. Read about GTD online and buy the book, it is worth your while.
Improtant blogs about GTD are:
43 Folders
Lifehacker.org
Dutch readers should visit lifehacking.nl and try the tag slimmerwerken instead of gtd.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Getting Things Done
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