How I’m Getting Things Done (Part 1)

August 1, 2008

Stacks by Salerie

Until recently, I let a large number of posts slide by me in my feed reader, just because they had ‘Getting Things Done’ or ‘GTD’ in the title. At that stage, Getting Things Done just seemed like some productivity cult or fad that a few people had picked up on and couldn’t stop banging on about. This was the same stage as when my idea of organisation at work was the ‘Sunflower’ method, ie. a ring of yellow Post-It notes around my monitor, each with a to-do on it, or something else I needed to remember. Filing was done in piles on my desk, which were sometimes literally taller than I was when sitting in front of them. I had years worth of work and paper on my desk and kept trying to find new surfaces to put more piles on. Not to mention my email inbox, which could easily number into the high hundreds on any given day.

It was apparent to everyone but myself that this was an issue. My work was reactive, in that it took prompting before I’d remember to do something. I’d rely on what emails came in to dictate what I had to do. Deadlines became problems and then slipped to not even being attainable goals. Every performance review I had was fine, but ended up in the same direction: the need to improve my organisation and initiative. Not that I took heed of this. It wasn’t until we moved office and I was able to start with a fresh space did it occur to me that not only could I change the way I worked, I would have to if I wanted to keep working. That’s when I started thinking about GTD again, this time a bit more seriously…

(link to part 2)
(link to part 3)
(link to part 4)
(link to part 5)

Posted in GTD