To read my complete journey to GTD Mastery see the main post.

Step 17 to GTD Mastery is: I have a weekly review scheduled for each week.

I have a reminder set up on my cell phone for 7:00 AM on Sundays. My family is still sleeping so I’m able to perform the weekly review free of distractions.

Ricky Spears posted a must-read article on “Why We Resist the Weekly Review and Plan (and What You Can Do About It)”. At the top of the list: it’s not on our calendar. When I first started GTD, I brushed aside my weekly review almost every week because I didn’t actually set an appointment with myself.

The next step was actually creating a list of what I wanted to do in my weekly review (next actions). gtdfrk’s weekly review checklist provided an excellent starting block. I customized it to fit my system and life.

You can read my favourite posts on weekly reviews at my del.icio.us page. It covers posts on personal development-oriented weekly reviews as well as the literal GTD weekly review.

For anyone still feeling intimidated by the weekly review, I’m going to finish off with a quote from Ricky,

The only wrong weekly review is no weekly review at all.

To read my complete journey to GTD Mastery see the main post.

I haven’t decided on a paper filing system yet, but your comments have been insightful. If you haven’t already, feel free to share your paper filing system here. You are on my waiting for list =D. Nevertheless, the journey continues.

Step 16 to GTD Mastery is: I only have physical actions on my Next Actions lists—no multi-step projects.

I used to struggle with this until I made pruning my next actions part of my weekly review. This prevents the “amorphous blob of stuff” that one of David Allen’s seminar attendees coined. Looking at my next actions list doesn’t make me cringe anymore.

Here are the posts that have helped me create effective to-do lists.

Merlin Mann on Building a Smarter To-Do List: Part 1 and Part 2
Gina Trapani on “The art of the doable to-do list“.

To read my complete journey to GTD Mastery see the main post.

This is going to be a different kind of post in the GTD Mastery series. Today, I’m asking our readers to help me with:

Step 15 to GTD Mastery: I have a paper file system which is fun and fast to use, perhaps using an automatic labeler.

That’s right. I don’t have a filing cabinet or an automatic labeler (waits for the gasps of horror to subside). I don’t have any significant volume of incoming paper in my life right now. Any physical paper items (e.g. newpaper articles and receipts) that I want to keep for reference are scanned and uploaded to my server and backed up. I have all my bank statements sent online and have setup online bill payments. I’ve kept a 3-ring binder for my each of my courses over the years and they are put in storage bins upon completion or thrown out.

Nevertheless, I foresee a need for a filing system in the future. I’d like to implement it before classes start again this Monday. I’d appreciate any recommendations and user experiences with your filing cabinet and labeler of choice.

To read my complete journey to GTD Mastery see the main post.

Step 14 to GTD Mastery is: I have a tickler file or reminder system in place which is fun and fast to use.

My cell phone’s calendar has day and time-specific reminders. I use these for appointments, daily/weekly tasks, etc.

As I wrote about in my GTD implementation for students, I use Vitalist to create a tickler system for only my school assignments. There are a few reasons why I have two reminder systems.

1) I have Vitalist setup as my homepage. Whenever I open up the possible black hole of time that is the Internet, I’m greeted by my Vitalist dashboard with all the school work I should be doing. This shifts my brain into productivity mode until I see all of today’s actions completed.

2) It’s a lot easier to visualize my work using Vitalist’s dashboard which shows today’s, tomorrow’s, and upcoming actions for the week. My cell phone only has a daily view.

3) Vitalist’s SMS reminders only include the action’s description and its due date. I lose the action’s context, project, and notes which can be found in the Vitalist dashboard.

Have you ever been in a situation where new, time sensitive (i.e. homework due tomorrow) tasks are given to you on a daily basis, and no matter how elegant and streamlined your GTD system is, there just seems like there’s too much that has to be done?

The Goal: A GTD System that provides quick organization and direction about what today’s Hard Landscape is (”Things that have to get done”), so you can get to sleep and function the next day.

Presenting: The Daily Review (for when time is short).

The Situation: I am busy, and I need to transition quickly from Collect (GTD Step 1) to Do (GTD Step 5).

The Caveat: The following is not a recommendation to leave GTD methods permanently, just a temporary method to speed up the task accomplishment process. Use of this method requires the use of extra time to accomplish what you’ve skipped to get things done sooner.

The Process: For best results, do this without a computer, as there are much less distractions when you just use paper. If you don’t like writing your tasks out, think about this: writing your tasks down on paper makes you commit to them, because you probably write slower than you type. If a task is worth doing - It’s worth writing down. For the daily review, you’ll need your calendar, your next action list (a list of the very next things you have to do to accomplish your goals), a writing utensil, and a blank sheet of paper.

1. Write the date at the top. This step provides focus. It is the “Time Available” part of the Four-Criteria Model of GTD. It reminds you that there is only one day that you are planning right now: Today. This step also forces you to limit your tasks to those that are of highest priority, focused towards your goals, and can be finished in the time available.
2. Process and Organize Your Inbox (Handy Chart) The linked chart is the Full GTD Method of “is it actionable,” etc. and that’s great, but when time is short, you can streamline this process.
   1. Remove all non actionable items from your inbox and put them into a “to file” pile if they are reference. If the item is trash, THROW IT OUT!
   2. If it is due tomorrow, or for any other reason it involves a task that must be done today, write it down on today’s list. This is your hard landscape, “a useful terrain for maneuvering throughout the day”
      1. “hard landscape: things which absolutely have to be done by a particular deadline, or meetings and appointments which are fixed in time and place. To-do items should be reserved for the next action lists.” [Hat Tip]
   3. Write it in the correct context. My daily review list today resulted in an “@ concentrate, @ calls, and an @ errands.
   4. If you are not going to do anything with a particular item/thought/next action today, track it on an “inbox” list, to be processed later.
3. What is today’s agenda? Are there events that happen at certain times? Today, I am having dinner, eating out with my family at 6, and then tutoring a student at 8.
4. When Should I actually do these tasks? As soon as you can, but consider using the time blocking method to help you actually do your tasks.

“GTD tends to leave it up to you as to how to decide what needs to be done right now–Allen seems to believe if you have everything laid out in front of you, it will be obvious what needs to be done at any given moment based on your circumstances (deadlines, how much time you have available, what tools are nearby, how much energy you have, etc.)” (Hat Tip)

I hope that this process makes deciding what “needs to be done right now” easier.

Todd

To read my complete journey to GTD Mastery see the main post.

Step 13 to GTD Mastery is: I have a folder marked “inbox” on my computer for downloaded files.

I named my folder “downloads” instead because I don’t use it as an inbox. Any files I manually download get placed in the appropriate folder immediately (i.e. a sub-folder of “documents,” “music,” “pictures,” etc.). This follows the 2-minute rule.

My “downloads” folder holds files that are automatically downloaded (e.g. µTorrent RSS) or may need to be resumed later due to large file size (e.g. FTP and IRC).

To read my complete journey to GTD Mastery see the main post.

Step 12 to GTD Mastery is: I have lists for tracking “loaned out stuff” and “stuff I’m borrowing.”

I use ThinkingRock to track these two types of items.

To create a list of my “loaned out stuff,” I go to my Waiting For list and search for “return” as seen below.

To create a list of “stuff I’m borrowing,” I go to my NAs list and search for “borrowing” as seen below.

I use ThinkingRock’s “due” field to store when I have to return the item (e.g. library books) as seen below.

To read my complete journey to GTD Mastery see the main post.

Step 11 to GTD Mastery is: I have a list for tracking “Waiting For” items.

In my implementation, I use ThinkingRock to manage my Waiting For (WF) list.

When you create an action in Thinking Rock, you have the option of setting its status to delegated (i.e. WF).

The “Delegated To” field stores who I’m waiting for. The “follow-up” field stores when I have to contact the other party for an update.

GTD treats WF as a context itself (i.e. @WF). However, ThinkingRock creates a list of all your delegated actions. Therefore, I don’t need a @WF context. I use the context field to store where I expect the action to be completed. In the example above, Kim Tang will return my DVDs at school.

ThinkingRock lets you view all your WFs in a delegated tab as seen below. I sort them by action date (i.e. the follow-up date) to see upcoming WFs that I have to follow-up on.