Making a list, checking it weekly, updating it constantly

There are books that have changed my life to be certain, but I’m not sure that there is a more important book that I can recommend to you than this one.  I am probably two orders of magnitude (100x) less stressed than I was before I read this book.  I am probably one order of magnitude (10x) more productive since reading this book.  That means my life is probably 1000 times better than it was before I started to read this book.  I’ve never profiled a book here that has the potential to do that for somebody.  I think I will look back a year from now, and say to myself that this book did more to cure the depression I’ve been going through for the last couple of years than the thousands of dollars I’ve spent on therapy.  

Now, at the risk of over-promising and under-delivering, let me lay out for you what I got from this book.  

1. Write down everything, and I mean everything, you have to do that takes more than two minutes
2. Do everything that takes less than two minutes
3. Write down the very next baby step for everything that takes more than two minutes
4. Organize your items by the context in which you can handle the items
5. Put to do dates on each of the items that you have to do
6. If you forget, Just Follow the flow chart below.

Why do stuff that takes less than two minutes if you can do it right away?  It will take more time to log the issue than to complete the issue, and the goal is to have less items to worry about rather than more items.  This just feels great to do, and it makes you feel that much more productive. 

Why write down the very NEXT baby step to getting something done?  Because large tasks will intimidate you, and prevent you from moving forward, as you will avoid the task because you won’t know what to do first.  For many items the first thing you may want to do is look something up on wikipedia or a how to website.  Whatever that action may be, having it as a short little mini-task will really help you focus on moving things forward.

Why organize the lists by the context in which you can handle them?  Well, there’s nothing you can do about cleaning your home, while you’re at work, so why have that staring at you on your to do list as an unnecessary reminder that will only serve to distract you.

Why put due dates on every item?  It allows you to free up from the stress of not having something done.  You want to have everything done now, but by putting dates on things you can feel ok for not dealing with something until you’ve agreed with yourself it needs to get done.  This frees up a tremendous amount of stress.  

I wish I had read this book years ago, I’m sure most of you have some sort of system for keeping track of things on your To Do list, but I don’t know that I’ve ever seen something as comprehensive as this, nor do I know of anything that is as liberating as this.  I truly feel that my life is completely under control, with the exception of things random chance throws at me.  

Go to Amazon, get the book, Go to your local Barnes & Noble get the book, Go to your local Borders, get the book, Go to your local independent bookstore and get the book.  Get the book for your friends, your family, anyone who you think could use some help.  I’ve been recommending to everyone and talking to everyone about it since I was a couple of paragraphs into the book.  If you can’t do that you should at least check out David Allen’s talk about GTD at Google on YouTube.

As I was reading this book, the thought I kept coming back to was of my grandfather, who was an engineer at GM.  He was infamous for his lists.  My mom and her siblings would constantly talk about his lists.  The roast that was given him at his retirement party included several long lists of things to do.  Now, I wonder if maybe that knowledge somehow got lost through the years and wound up in this MUST READ.  

If you want to check out my to do list, its currently sitting in this Google Spreadsheet, with separate tabs for each context, and columns for the item, the context, the Next Action, and the due date, and sometimes a Barriers column.  

I’m looking to migrate to Remember The Milk, which is a great web service that actually already has a way to integrate the Getting Things Done methodology within it.  Right now the Google Spreadsheet has met my needs, but I can’t update it from my iPhone, and there are some other great features that Remember The Milk has, such as an email address that will redirect to the To Do list, which allows you to give that out to others so they can add it directly to your list without interrupting you.  Remember The Milk also allows for sharing of task lists with others so that you can use it as a sort of natural planning tool like Clay and I are planning for Cerebral Element.

Thank you David Allen for GTD!