The Fundamentals of GTD – Part 3

In Part 1, we talked about collecting all of your stuff.

• Performing a mind sweep and collecting everything in your head.
• Collecting all of the material to-do’s laying around your office, kitchen table, notes scribbled on the back of bar napkins, etc.
• Collect all of your unread or unactioned e-mail messages.

All of these things should be in considered in your INBOX (either real or virtual).

In Part 2, we reviewed the processing phase, or said another way, what to do with all the stuff in your INBOX. It comes down to 3 simple possibilities:

• If the item is not actionable, file it.
• If the item is actionable, decide what the next action is.
• Once you know the action: Do it, Delegate it, Defer it or Delete it.

Now it’s time to talk about sustaining this system. This is called the Weekly Review. The Weekly Review is the most important part of this system.

The weekly review is critical, yet simple - repeat the Collection and Processing phases. That’s it! For clarity, let me break this down into a bit more detail.

First and foremost, be sure to dedicate a slot of time during your week to actually perform the Weekly Review. I like to set aside an hour on a Sunday night for my formal Weekly Review. Some people prefer 1^st thing on a Monday morning, some people prefer last thing on a Friday afternoon. It’s up to you. Again, the most important commitment you need to make is to “Just Do It”.

The Weekly Review Process can be split into 3 sets of activities:

Get Clear

1. Collect all your loose papers and unprocessed mail into your INBOX. Process your INBOX
2. Get your e-mail INBOX to zero. Process everything in your e-mail INBOX
3. Perform a quick mind sweep. Get everything out of your head, decide what the next action is, and process it – get it on the right list.

Get Current

1. Review your upcoming calendar. Are you prepared for the next week’s events? Is there something you need done by a specific time? Is anything missing?
2. Review your project lists. Is there anything you need to do this next week? Do you need to schedule time on your calendar for project specific work?
3. Review your action lists. Is there anything that needs to be done this next week? The week after? Is there anything else that needs to be on one of your action lists? Have you made time on your calendar to do some of the things on your action lists? Is there anything you can mark as done?
4. Review your follow-up file. Are you up to date on the things you have delegated? Are people getting things done that you’ve delegated to them?

Get Creative

1. Consider longer term things you want to accomplish. Do you have them on a list? If not, create a list of your long term goals – keep in current each week,
2. Tweak you system. Do you have lists setup for all of your projects, agendas, follow-ups? Are there lists you don’t use? Do you have too many lists? Do you have to few lists? It’s your system, it needs to work the way you work.

That’s all it is. Basically, your weekly review is your opportunity to get your system current and tidy things up.

Again, these are my views of the fundamentals of the GTD system. For those who have read David Allen’s book, you may have a different interpretation. Part of the beauty of GTD is that it is flexible enough that you can adapt it to how you work. This series has been about how I work the system. This has been all about how GTD works best for me.

In summary, GTD for me is:

• Collecting all my stuff – Doing a mind-sweep
• Deciding on the next action for each of items. Then, Do it, Delegate it, Defer it or Delete it.
• Each week, perform a weekly review

My desire is that you found this overview useful. I hope you found a nugget or two you can use to Get Things Done.