The Fundamentals of GTD – Part 1

This is the 1^st installment in a series on the fundamentals of GTD. This is not the “text book” version. This is not intended to be a complete overview of all things GTD. I will present what I see as the fundamental “rules”.

By following a few simple fundamentals, you will be “doing GTD”. The actual implementation of GTD will look different from person to person. Part of the beauty of GTD is that actually implementing the GTD system is more art than science. When you start doing GTD, you personalize it. You tailor it to how you work.

The Collection Process
Step 1
The first part of the collection process is called “doing a mind sweep”. That is, getting anything and everything out of your head and onto a piece of paper (or many pieces of paper). Anything gets written down. Nothing is too small.

Need ideas? How about:

• Things you need to talk to your boss about.
• A list of things you need from the grocery store.
• The steps you need to take during your next project.
• A great wine you want to try.
• A phone call you have to return.
• A birthday present you need to pick-up.
• A meeting you need to prepare for.
• A letter you need to respond to.
• …and on and on and on. Anything goes.

The idea here is to free your mind of having to remember all your stuff. As you relieve yourself of the burden to track all of these things in your head, you achieve what David Allen calls “a mind like water”. A mind that is free flowing like a river; free to generate new, creative ideas without the burden of all those other things clogging the free flow.

Merlin Mann from 43folder.com put it this way:
“The idea behind the mind-sweep is to identify and gather everything that is making claims on your attention or is likely to affect the larger areas of responsibility in your life — everything that’s quietly burning cycles, stealing focus, and whittling away at your attention — so that you can then decide what (if anything) must be done about each of those things.”.

Important rules for the mind sweep:

• Don’t do these things now. There will be time to do them later.
• Keep one list. Don’t categorize your list. Don’t create multiple lists. Don’t skip things because “you will remember to do it later”.
• Consider anything pertaining to your work life and your home life. Don’t mind sweep only part of your life.
• Do it in one session. Don’t break up your mind sweep time into multiple sessions.
• Commit. Don’t give it hobby effort. Give it all you have.

Step 2
After the mind sweep, it’s time to collect all of the other things that will eventually end up on your to-do list. Anything you plan to read, any bill you intend to pay, that pile of unread mail on your kitchen table, your unopened e-mail; let’s get all of it in one place. Well, let’s shoot for 2 places. One spot for all your material to-do items – A plastic inbox will do. One spot for all your electronic to-do items – Your e-mail inbox will do.

So we now have 3 places with all of your “stuff”.

1. The list generated from your mind sweep
2. Your plastic inbox
3. Your e-mail inbox.

In part 2, I will talk about what to do with the output from your collection process. The next step is to Process all of this stuff you’ve collected. That is, figure out what to do with it. That sounds like a daunting task, but don’t worry. There are only 4 possible choices. Simple, right? You’ll love it!