It’s all just 1’s and 0’s…

The last week I have been using the Getting Things Done methodology. I must say that it has been very enlightening and makes it much easier and more pleasing to do stuff. The first few days after I initially cleaned up my head, and put it all on todo lists, I felt liberated. And I could also focus better on the things I was doing and I also noticed that I could be much more creative, just let my mind wonder about things, not inhibited by thinking about things I had to do.

Now that I look back on the first week, I realize that I got a lot more stuff done by applying the “2 minute” rule: everything that you are processing from your inbox that takes less than 2 minutes to complete, you have to do right away. This rule not only helps with getting small things done, but before, a lot of those things were lingering in my mind, bugging me from time to time, but I didn’t do them. So in effect, I wasted more time thinking about those things than actually was needed to get them done. Getting those things done not only cleared my head, allowing me to better focus on things that take longer to complete, but completing those small tasks also makes you feel better and more confident.

Finally, I never thought that it would help to write down things I want to achieve in the future. But it really helped me to see where I want to go and how the things I’m currently doing are related to that.

Anyway, I am happy with the improvement I’ve made so far, but I am going to reread the book and see what kinds of things I missed out, because I have the feeling that I missed a lot of stuff on the first pass.

About a week ago, I got my copy of Getting Things Done. I had heard so much about it, that I wanted to see if it was something for myself.

I can really recommend buying that book, reading through it and implement it. I’ve been using it the last week and I have got a lot of things done that were just sitting in my mind, bugging me from time to time.

For me, the best way to keep my ToDo lists is in this killer-app: GTDTiddlyWiki - A complete wiki in one html file, using Javascript. This works for me, because I almost always have a computer nearby, others might want to use it to print it out on paper and create an analog PDA, aka, Hipster.

Read on for some small examples of the art of Getting Things Done.

The central idea in Getting Things Done is that every open loop you have, everything you still want to get done, but just keep in your head, eats up energy and bugs you at the moment you least need it. The part of your brain that you use to remind yourself of things has no sense of past, present or future, so it thinks you should be doing those things all the time. So to solve that, you need to clear your head and store everything you need to do in a place that you really trust.

Another good thing he walks you through, is setting up such a list. Everyone has setup such lists, especially when he’s under a lot of stress. And structuring those lists always takes up a lot of time and never works out the way you want it to. Solution: Store your todo lists by environment. Have seperate todo lists for things you need to do at home, at home behind your computer, at work, groceries, a to call list, etcetera. So at any given moment, you know your surroundings and check your todo list and instantly know what you can do.

And to stop you from procrastinating or looking at your todo list and cringe, there are two things you should do. One, the two-minute-rule: if something takes less than two minutes to complete, do it now, or you’ll never do it. And two, for every project you do, define the next physical action that needs to be done to move that project forward. And the definition of a project is everything that takes more than one step to complete. For example: Getting your car checked (at the garage that a friend suggested you) -> Call friend to get phone-number of that garage.

Implementing these techniques will give you a completely clear head, you have a higher chance of completing things you promised to do, you always have a good overview of your workload and after some time, people will start to trust you more to get things done.

I’m really looking forward to see how things will go over the next week and I’ll report back here again soon.