Photo by johnruexp. Getting Things Done GTD. Getting Things Done-style Project Management. I use Getting Things Done as my primary system for tracking my life’s work.
I have wanted to write a little about how to use GTD principles and practices to manage a project, so now I am. If you don’t know much about Getting Things Done, then I recommend reading about it, but at the center of the system is the Two-Minute Rule: If you can do it in two minutes or less, then do it now; otherwise, file it as an action to do in the future.
This rule combines with another simple, powerful heuristic, which I apply to every task I might do. For every task that comes your way, decide whether to destroy it, do it now (Two-Minute Rule), delegate it to someone else, or defer it to later. Notice that “destroy it” comes first. I don’t like to create expense reports. I use OmniFocus as my action repository, so I started a new project and dumped out my ideas for this software product. I created three top-level actions: Spike, Release 1, and Future Releases. Getting Things Done with Your Macintosh, Part 2. In part 1 of this article, I introduced David Allen's Getting Things Done system, and looked at several programs that could help you implement that system.
Now, I want to go into more detail about how GTD works, specifically on a day-to-day basis on your Mac. Mind Like Aqua Finder -- Remember, the key to GTD is to get tasks, vague plans, and random thoughts into the right collection buckets and out of your head as quickly as possible. Apple, in its Infinite Loop wisdom, has provided us all with a collection bucket that is always staring us in the face, but almost no one uses it properly as a productivity tool. I'm talking about the Finder Desktop. So, what's on your Desktop? Here's what I suggest you do: in your User folder, create a folder called "Desktop Storage.
" "But what about the Project of the Week? " Why do this? At the end of the day (or every couple of days, more commonly), I process my Desktop. I can hear you saying, "Nice. Taglines and Ticklers and Softwares, Oh My! Getting Things Done with Your Macintosh, Part 1. Longtime readers of TidBITS and listeners of MacNotables probably recall Adam mentioning that he and Tonya have been users of David Allen's "Getting Things Done" method of personal organization.
For those of you who are new to it, GTD (as it is frequently abbreviated) is not merely the eponymous book, or an organizational method. GTD is a cult, or at least it sounds like one if you listen to many of the thousands of people online who practice it. And like any self-respecting cult, it aims to reorganize your basic life principles, and even the way you think, with the ultimate goal of making you happier - while funneling some amount of your money to worthy product manufacturers. I'm a very happy cultist myself. Most of you are already a member of a productivity cult which may be less than fully functional - how many email messages are in your inbox?
The GTD method has five steps: collect, process, organize, review, and do. Simple, no? GTD.