Getting Things Done

Prior to this week I had never heard of Getting Things Done by David Allen. It could not have come at a better time. I am currently trying to juggle creating 4-6th grade curriculum for 700 students, two grad classes, an 8 month old, finding time for my husband, and finishing our basement. Needless to say my mind never stops, and I have a mile long to do list.

The basic principle of GTD is to get everything going on in your head out and into logical order so instead of thinking about everything you have to do, you can see what needs to be done, and get it done. Reading through the GTD lecture, Kelly Forrister’s Blog, and David Allen’s 5 Phases of Mastering Workflow I felt a bit overwhelmed at first. I was trying to come up with a way to get everything I needed to do in one easy to access place that I could connect to anywhere. Since I am not a Mac owner I was sadly disappointed when I came across the “Things” app for Mac. I continued my GTD research through a Google search of “things” where I discovered a wiki page that listed countless GTD resources. I decided to use the free site www.gtdify.com. This free site is set up based on Allen’s principles of collect, process, organize, review, and do.

The collect process was very time consuming, and I am still in the process of collecting everything that needs to be done over the next few months. GTDify has a great set up that allows for you to move seamlessly through the process of deciding if your tasks are actionable or if you should put them aside for later which you can do by choosing a date in the future or placing into the “projects” folder. Organization went very quickly for me. I set up my tasks into separate project lists such as: Grad School, GIS Communications, Home Projects, and Family Chores. I can easily see my active projects, active context, hidden projects, completed projects, and hidden context by just scrolling down the screen. GTDify also has the ability to sync with Google calendar. I have yet to do this, but it is on my GTD list for this next week.  Being able to sync my GTD list to Google Calendar will allow my husband to see what all needs to get done as well. As part of the organize portion of GTD I have also set up a Gmail account and am having 2 of my other email accounts forwarded to that account which also helps me save time and stay organized. I have been maintaining 3 separate blogs on Blogger for my job, family, and grad school. GTD motivated me to add my other usernames into each account so I can access any or all accounts from one log in, making my life easier, not to mention less username and passwords to try and remember.

I have decided to set up Saturday mornings to do a quick review of what needs to be done for the following week, and to add any additional tasks or projects to my GTDify page. I am currently onto the 5th stage of my first task which is to complete my GTD post. So officially I have completed all 5 steps of David Allen’s GTD process. I know this tool will help me stay organized and help me to get more done in less time since my tasks will be prioritized for me within GTDify. I am looking forward to utilizing this tool to make my life a little less hectic and much more organized.