INTRODUCTORY GUIDE

TO GTD (GETTING
THINGS DONE)

Transcripts
 Introduction to GTD
Video 1

Getting Things Done is one of the most popular productivity systems out there today and with good
reason. It’s a very effective system for clearing your mind of all inputs so you can focus on the things
that are truly important, which in turn allows you to do your best work and get more done. If you
constantly feel overwhelmed, GTD’s central concept of capturing everything into a trusted system
has the potential to revolutionize your life. Implementing GTD can restore peace and tranquility as
everything gets filed orderly into your trusted system instead of the disorder and chaos that comes
from just responding to emergencies and putting out fires.

In this video, we’ll show you how to reclaim control of your life and accelerate the GTD learning
curve by showing you the philosophy behind GTD and walking you through the five different steps of
implementing GTD in your own life. The GTD system is built around the concept that you have a lot
of different inputs. These are things that enter your consciousness and you must decide what to do
with them. It could be a phone number that you need to remember, a meeting you have to attend,
or an errand you need to run. The problem is that most people don’t do anything with these random
thoughts when they have them and they just put them off. For example, reading an email that re-
quires some action but just leaving it in your inbox and hoping you’ll remember to do something with
it later.

By failing to put things where they belong on a calendar, a to-do list, et cetera, you can quickly be-
come stressed by trying to remember everything and continually worrying about what you’ve forgot-
ten. This lead to what the author of Getting Things Done, David Allen, calls emergency scan modal-
ity, which is basically a continual state of scanning the horizon looking for that next fire to put out.
We call this living like a firefighter. Living like a firefighter means that you live in perpetual fear that
you’ve forgotten something important and you’re constantly worried about having it blow up in your
face. You live your life scanning the horizon for the next fire to put out instead of being intentional
and making progress towards your goals. You’re just trying to keep your head above water and you’re
stuck in a cycle where you simply react to the next urgent matter as it springs up. Living your life
this way is no way to be productive and it’s incredibly stressful as well.

A better way to approach things is like a samurai. A samurai is laser-focused on their mission. They
know exactly what they want to have happen and they are willing to do whatever it takes to get
the job done. The key to samurai-like focus is being able to trust that the minutia of the day-to-
day projects that you are managing are detailed and covered by your project management system.
That’s where GTD comes in. When you know that the system you’re using is working, you can focus
your attention and willpower on the important things that will provide the greatest return on invest-
ment in moving you towards your goals. Now this may sound like a sensationalized example, but it’s
not. You physically, mentally, and emotionally can’t handle everything you need to do by keeping it
in your head.

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GTD provides the productivity framework so that you don’t have to by providing five simple steps to
follow. Capture, clarify, organize, review, and engage. Let’s break these down one by one.

The first step is capture or collect what has your attention. Without capturing what has your atten-
tion, the rest of this system doesn’t work. You ever have a great idea but you were too busy to write
it down and then you completely forget about it later? That’s because your brain is for having ideas,
not storing them. The central tenet of the GTD system is to capture everything and put it into your
trusted system so that you can make appropriate decisions about what to do when. David Allen says
you can’t feel good about what you’re not doing unless you know what you’re not doing, and if you
don’t capture the things that have your attention, you can very easily get stuck in that emergency
scan modality by default. You need to capture everything that has your attention to an inbox, note-
pad, or an app like nvALT on the Mac or Drafts on iOS just to make sure that you get everything.
Chances are you’ll have several inboxes like this in your life, so it’s important to identify them all so
you can routinely process them and make sure that nothing falls through the cracks. For example,
you may have a paper tray, an email inbox. You may capture random thoughts or notes to an app,
like I mentioned Drafts or nvALT. And if you’ve never taken the time to identify the inboxes that exist
in your life, this is the critical first step. You can’t process your inboxes regularly if you aren’t aware
that they need to be processed.

The second step is clarify, where you process what everything means. Once you have everything
collected in your inbox or inboxes, only then can you begin to process everything and make decisions
about what to do with all those inputs. Now this is actually the easy part, as once you have every-
thing captured and you have a plan in place for processing all those pieces of information, it only
takes a few seconds to decide where they belong in your trusted system. We break down the full
GTD decision tree in another video and show you the exact process for identifying everything and
putting things in the appropriate containers so you always know exactly where something is when
you need it. But for now, just know that you have to do this regularly. You cannot just let your inbox-
es pile up. If you let them pile up, it gets harder and harder to motivate yourself to process them.
For example, if you know you need to process your email inbox, is it easier to do it when you have 50
messages or 5,000 messages? The bigger the task, the higher the tendency to procrastinate. By pro-
cessing your inboxes regularly, you can avoid having a huge backlog like this and eliminate this po-
tential source of friction from your system, increasing the likelihood that you actually stick with it.

The third step is organize, where you put things where they belong. So once you identify what some-
thing is, you have to put it in the appropriate container. For example, if it’s something actionable,
you should put it in your task management system. We recommend OmniFocus, but you could use
something like 2Do, Todoist, Things, or Asana instead. If it’s not actionable but it’s reference materi-
al that you might need later, you should put it somewhere where you can easily recall it. You should
put it in a reference file. And if it’s time sensitive, like a meeting or an appointment, it should go
on your calendar. And if it’s not important, you may decide just to trash it and not worry about it
anymore. This is also where the idea of context come into play. A context is the tool, thing, place,
or person that you need to get something done. For example, a list of phone calls you have to make
might be grouped under the phone context, or a list of grocery items under the grocery store con-
text. If it’s something that you need to discuss with someone on your team, you might have a con-
text for that specific person, or an office context for tasks that can only be completed when you get
to the office. Contexts are flexibile. You should use them however they make sense to you.

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For example, you could even have contexts based on energy levels. You could have a low energy con-
text with easy wins or a high energy context for when you’re really motivated to be productive.

The fourth step is reflect. It’s important to review everything regularly. This is the number one mis-
take we see people make when they try to implement GTD. It’s the biggest reason why GTD doesn’t
work for people. They don’t review frequently enough. By failing to review consistently, they just let
things pile up, and it gets harder and harder to keep up with their system. They can get the sys-
tem set up, but then they try to set it and forget and they don’t maintain it. When it comes to your
productivity, though, you need to be consistently reviewing and making small adjustments to your
system. It’s important to clean up and update your lists, dump any new loose ends into your trusted
system, and clear your mind so that everything can run smoothly. At Asian Efficiency, we recommend
that you do this review weekly. Yes, it’s gonna take you a little bit of time, but the benefit of feeling
like you’re finally in control of your life is going to far outweigh the cost.

The fifth step is to engage or simply do the work. Now this step sounds simple and it is if you’ve set
up your system correctly. If you’re on top of your tasks and you know what you need to get done
each day, it’s easy to just pull up your list and execute the plan. The most productive people we
know are the ones who either the night before or first thing in the morning sit down with their task
list and identify the top things they need to do that day. Then they spend the rest of the day just
executing on the plan. This only works, though, if you follow the first four steps and can really trust
that everything that you need to do is on your list and in the appropriate containers.

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 Capturing Everything That Has Your Attention
Video 2

The first step of the GTD process is also the most important, and that is capturing what has your
attention. The rest of the system hinges on you being able to capture things quickly and efficiently
whenever you notice them.

In this video, we’re gonna explain why capturing your thoughts and ideas is so important and help
you identify the tools that you need to make sure that nothing falls through the cracks. Every great
work of art, revolutionary product, or new technology has started with somebody’s good idea. Every-
thing starts with an idea and the problem is that many times, we give ourselves too much credit and
we trust our brains to recall these ideas at will, which they weren’t designed to do, instead of writ-
ing them down, or capturing them, into a trusted system.

Capturing ideas and thoughts like this allows you to quickly record them and move freely to the next
one without having anything fall through the cracks. Capture is a foundational principle of any pro-
ductivity system, but it’s especially important in GTD. It’s just as important for the small tasks, like
remembering the milk, as it is for the bigger tasks, like a home remodeling project or even a product
launch.

Let me give you a real life example of the importance of capture. Let’s say I’m out to dinner with
my wife and I have a fleeting thought that tomorrow I’ve gotta give a big presentation at work. I can
handle this a couple of different ways. Number one, I can do nothing, but choosing to do nothing is
still a choice that I’ve made, and this is not a good choice, because there’s a good chance I’ll forget
completely about the project and I’ll show up for my presentation unprepared. Number two, I can
be preoccupied with the task, which is also not a good option, because my focus and attention is not
on who I’m with and what I’m doing. Taking this approach is gonna inhibit me from developing the
relationships that are important to me and it’s gonna wear me out. Number three, I can capture that
task, I can write it down and I can deal with it later. This is the preferred method because I can be
present and fully engaged, and I can still deal with the work that needs to get done when the time
and the context are appropriate. David Allen says it this way, “Your brain was designed for having
ideas, “not holding them.”, and by utilizing a task management or project management system, you
can free up your cognitive resources to function efficiently in their designed purpose. When you do
this, you’ll probably be shocked with how many more good ideas you have because your brain can
finally rest and function the way that it was designed. David Allen calls this efficient, natural state
Mind Like Water.

Mind Like Water refers to a natural state of being ready for anything and responding appropriately.
For example, when you throw a pebble or rock into still water, the ripples will radiate outward from
the point where the rock enters the water and the water always responds appropriately to the size
and the force of the impact. However, when you’re stressed or overwhelmed, you tend to overem-
phasize the things that aren’t important and let slide the things that really are important.

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In other words, we don’t respond appropriately. For example, if I’m stressed because I’m trying to
remember everything I have to get done instead of putting it into my trusted system, I might find
myself constantly checking my work email on my phone when I’m home instead of spending time
with my wife and kids. If I’m really stressed from putting out those fires all day I might even snap
at them for something small, even though it’s not their fault. The whole goal of the GTD system it
to help you achieve this Mind Like Water state so you can respond appropriately to all the different
inputs in your life, and avoid situations like this.

So, now we understand why capturing things is so important, but how do we actually do it? The first
step is to identify all the different inboxes that are in your life. These are the places where you
should be capturing information and then processing it later. When most people think of inboxes,
they probably think of email, but there are most likely many more inboxes in your life that you may-
be aren’t aware of. Here’s a few examples of the inboxes that need to be processed regularly.

Number one, snail mail. Most people still have an actual mailbox or post office box that they need to
manage, no matter how tech-savvy or digital their lives may otherwise be. A lot of bills still come in
the mail, and obviously, you need to take care of these, you can’t neglect your physical mailbox.

Number two, your task manager. A lot of apps like OmniFocus have an awesome quick-capture ability
that stores tasks in an inbox but just getting things into OmniFocus doesn’t help you actually get the
work done. You need to process that inbox regularly and identify what needs to be done, when.

Number three is a scratch pad, and this could be physical like sticky notes on your fridge, or digital,
using an application like Drafts on iOS or Envy Alt for your Mac. A lot of times you’ll write something
down and it might not be a task, but it still needs to go into an inbox and be processed later.

Number four is a physical inbox, so if you work in an office, for example, you probably have one of
these. No matter how hard you try to keep everything digital, there will be times when your boss or
your coworker gives you a piece of paper and asks you to do something with it. So, you need a physi-
cal inbox to capture this kind of stuff and process it later.

Now, once you have all your inboxes identified, then all you need to do is capture information the
moment you are thinking about it into one of these inboxes. It is critically important that you cap-
ture these things as you think of them and get them into your trusted systems so that you are free to
forget about that thing and focus on the next one.

Next, you need to make sure that you set aside time to process these inboxes regularly. Not all in-
boxes need to be processed daily, so figure out how often you need to process your own inboxes, and
how much time you need to do so. Then, put this on your calendar. It’s important that you don’t let
things pile up in your inboxes because if you do you won’t be able to trust your system anymore and
you’ll be back to living like a firefighter. One of the big reasons why people let things pile up in their
inboxes is that they aren’t quite sure what to do with them.

So, in the next video, we’re gonna walk you through the entire GTD decision tree so you know ex-
actly how to process each inbox in your life. But, before you move on, make sure that you’ve one,
identified every inbox in your life, and two, established a plan for when and where you’re going to
process each one.

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 GTD Workflow
Video 3

When it comes to implementing the Getting Things Done, or GTD method, there is a very straightfor-
ward thought process that you must follow when evaluating what to do with every item that finds its
way into one of your inboxes.

In this video, we’ll walk you through the entire GTD decision tree so that you can apply this frame-
work to your own productivity system and get things done more efficiently. In order to implement
the following workflow, you must first have a reliable capture system set up. So if you haven’t al-
ready, make sure you watch the video on capturing prior to implementing this workflow, so that you
can make sure that you have a solid system for capturing all the different inputs that come into your
life in the first place.

Once you have your inboxes identified, and a solid system set up to capture things to them quick-
ly and easily, the next step is to implement a system for deciding what to do with each input. This
is where the following GTD workflow comes in. Once you understand this workflow, just apply the
thought process to everything that’s in one of your inboxes. When processing your inbox, the first
question you have to ask yourself is, what is this piece of information? Once you decide what it is,
you can then answer the question, is it actionable? If it’s not actionable, it can go one of three plac-
es.

First, it could go in the trash. And a surprisingly high amount of information that we try to hang on
to, actually belongs here. Many people have a tendency to be digital hoarders, but the reality is that
you don’t need all the stuff that you think you need. So don’t be afraid to delete things that you
don’t think are important anymore. If you’d decide that it actually is important, you could put it
either in a someday, maybe folder, if it will be important to review at a later date, or in a reference
file, so you can access the information easily when you actually need it. For example, if you wanted
to keep a recipe for peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, but you don’t wanna bake the cookies
right now, it’s not actionable, and you should put it in your reference file like Evernote, so you can
find it later, when you want it. If the information is actionable, you need to ask yourself, what is the
next action? If you can’t complete the activity in one step then it’s actually not an action, it’s a proj-
ect and it needs further planning. A project is anything that contains multiple steps in order to fully
complete it. Chances are you’ll have several projects active at the same time, so in addition to the
initial planning phase of the project, it’s also very important that you regularly review the project
to see if there are any additional steps that are required to complete it. If the information is not a
project and you can actually finish it in one step, the next question you need to ask is, will this take
less than two minutes? If it will take less than two minutes to complete the activity, just go ahead
and finish it. It will probably take more time and effort to decide on a follow-up plan than it will to
actually just complete the activity. But if it will take more than two minutes to complete, you can
do one of two things with it.

First, you can delegate it to someone else. In which case, you need to make sure that it ends up on a
waiting list for you to follow up with. You need to make sure that you don’t just hand things off and

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forget about them, especially if you’re the one that’s ultimately responsible for the completion of
that task. You have to make sure that you follow-up and you have to make sure that the task gets
finished.

Second, you could defer it. When you defer a task, you’re pushing it out into the future. Usually you
do this for one of a couple of reasons. You need to complete the task at a specific time, you need
something else to be finished before you can get to that task, or maybe you just don’t wanna work
on it right now. If you’re deferring the task because it is time-based, like a meeting, you have to
make sure that it ends up on your calendar. And if it’s not time-based, but you’re waiting for some-
thing else to be finished before you can get to the task, then make sure that it ends up on your next
actions list in your project manager.

A task manager like OmniFocus is great for this because you can have sequential projects where
tasks are marked as unavailable until the previous task is completed. Don’t worry if it takes you
a little while to get the hang of this workflow. The more you implement it, the easier it gets until
eventually you don’t even have to think about it anymore. Eventually, you’ll be able to fly through
this in only a couple of seconds, because it will just become second nature. Stick with it and follow
this workflow and you’ll be getting things done in no time.

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 How to do a Weekly Review
Video 4

Reviewing your system isn’t complicated, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. This is the number one
mistake we see people make when they start implementing GTD. They fail to review regularly.

In this video we’re gonna show you exactly how to do a review of your GTD system so that you can
stay on top of everything that you need to do and feel good about what you’re deciding to work on
and what you’re deciding to leave for later.

The review process is extremely simple, which is one of the reasons that many people frequently
skip it. They think that because it’s not complex or complicated, it must not be that important. But
nothing is as important as a regular, weekly review of your system. During the busyness of the week,
you’ll capture everything and maybe even process it, but things will still slip through the cracks.
And this weekly review process allows you to catch all those things that slip through and empty your
head of the extra stuff that would otherwise keep your brain up working overtime. I can tell you
from personal experience that when you neglect your review, you won’t see the results immediately,
but it won’t be long before you are completely overwhelmed because you’ve gone from relying on
your system to handle everything back to trying to keep it all in your head. Your body isn’t designed
for this and after a while that stress can be crippling. Remember, you can only feel good about what
you’re not doing, when you know what you’re not doing.

The weekly review provides you with confidence in knowing that the decisions that you’ve made
regarding your tasks, are good ones. The process for doing a weekly review is very straightforward.
First, make sure that all your inboxes are empty. Pull out all your loose papers, your receipts, post-
its, et cetera, and make sure that they’re in the proper place, according to the GTD workflow that
we covered in a previous video. Process your inboxes until they are completely empty. This includes
your notes, emails, and physical mail as well. Anything that could create an open loop in your brain
must be processed. Next, empty your head of any other ideas or tasks that aren’t already in your
system. There’s a good chance that processing your inboxes has triggered a couple of new ideas or
random thoughts. So make sure that those make it into your system as well. Don’t do anything else
with them right now, just make sure they’re captured and processed. Next, review all your projects
and tasks. Take your projects one by one and ask yourself a couple of simple questions about each
one.

Here are a couple example questions to get you started. Is there anything else I need in order to
complete this project? Is this project still something I should be working on? Are the next actions
for this project clearly defined? Are the dates for this project still current? If you decide that you no
longer want to do a project or task, simply delete it from your system. Otherwise, make sure that all
the information, the context, the due date, et cetera, is correct and then move on.

Lastly, review your goals. Reviewing these is important because it provides the why behind the tasks
and projects that you’ve decided to work on. These could be short-term goals or long-term goals,
but you need to keep these front of mind, if you want your motivation to stick.

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And in the next video, we’ll explain the six different horizons that David Allen teaches as part of this
GTD goal setting system. But for now, just realize that you must regularly look at these goals as part
of your weekly review process.

And one last tip to help your weekly review stick. Make sure that you create the time and the space
for your weekly review to happen. Some people like to do their weekly review on Sunday afternoons,
before they start their work week. Others like to do it at the end of the work day, on Friday, so they
can go home feeling confident that everything is covered and they don’t have to think about it again
until next week when they go back to work.

Whenever you decide to do your weekly review, just make sure that you put this time on your cal-
endar and don’t skip it. The weekly review is the grease that makes the entire GTD machine run
smoothly. If you stick with your weekly review, it won’t be long until your are escaping emergency
scan modality once and for all.

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 The 6 Horizons
Video 5

There are two ways to think about planning and focus, horizontal and vertical planning. Horizontal
planning has to do with the granular tasks and management of our day-to-day lives. This is what
most people think of when they think about the getting things done methodology or task manage-
ment in general. Vertical planning has more to do with the top down or strategic approach to manag-
ing our time based on our short term and long terms goals. Vertical planning connects all of our tasks
and to-dos with a higher purpose and helps us stay connected to our why.

In this video we’re gonna teach you about vertical planning and introduce you to the different lev-
els of vertical planning so that you can make sure your tasks and to-dos are in alignment with your
larger goals and objectives.

When it comes to vertical planning there are six horizons of focus, made popular by David Allen,
author of, The Getting Things Done Methodology. Think of this like traveling in an airplane. As the
plane climbs in altitude, your perspective changes. Things look a lot different from the runway than
they do from 50,000 feet. As you ascend, the different horizons provide different ways of looking at
all the things you have to do. These different horizons help you to see the big picture of how your
day-to-day tasks and to-dos are actually helping you move forward and accomplish your big goals.
Let’s break these down one by one.

First, is the runway level, or your next actions. This is the ground floor and includes a lot of actions
and information that you currently have to do and organize including emails, calls, memos, errands,
things to read, things to file, things to talk to your staff about, et cetera. Most people have a lot that
falls into this category. According to David Allen, if you got no further inputs in your life, this would
likely take you somewhere between 300 and 500 hours to finish everything off at the runway level.
Just getting a complete and current inventory of the next actions required is quite a feat. But it’s
also only the starting point.

Next is the 10,000 foot level, or your near-term projects. This includes all the things that you have
commitments to finish that take more than one action step to complete. These open loops are what
create most of your actions. These projects can include anything from, plan a birthday party for
Susan, to buy shrink-ray for the secret hide out. Again, according to David Allen, most people have
somewhere between 30 and 100 of these near term projects. If you were to fully and accurately de-
fine everything on this list, it would undoubtedly generate many more and different actions than you
currently have identified at the runway level.

Next is the 20,000 foot level, or your areas of responsibility. At this level, you begin to ask questions
like, what’s my job? There are usually four to seven major areas of responsibility that drive your
projects and you at least implicitly are going to be held accountable to have done well. At the end
of some time period, by yourself, if not by someone else, like a boss. With a clear understanding of
what these areas of responsibility are and what you are and are not doing about them,. There are
likely new projects to be created here and old ones to be eliminated.

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Next is the 30,000 foot level, or your six month to one year desired outcomes. This is where you ask
questions like, where is my job going? What will the role that I’m in right now look like in 12 to 18
months based on my goals and on the directions of the changes at that particular level? Many people
do not do only what they were hired to do. These days job descriptions are moving targets. You may
be personally changing what you’re doing, given personal goals. And the job itself may need to look
a little bit different given the shifting nature of the work at the departmental or divisional level.
Getting this level clear always creates some new projects and actions.

Next is the 40,000 foot level, or your three to five year goals and objectives. These goals will help
shape your personal and professional direction. This is where you might ask questions like, where is
my company going to be three to five years from now? How will that be affecting the scope and scale
of my job, my department or my division? What external factors like technology are influencing or
driving those changes? How is the definition and relationship with my customers going to be chang-
ing? Thinking at this level invariably surfaces some projects that need to be defined and new action
steps required to move them forward.

Last is the 50,000 foot level, or your life purpose. This is where you ask questions like, what is the
work that I am here on this planet to do? What am I supposed to do with my life? This is the ultimate
big picture discussion. For example, is the job that you’re in right now the job that you want? Is this
the lifestyle you want? Are you operating within the context of your values? From an organizational
perspective, this is the purpose and vision discussion. Why does the organization exist? No matter
how organized you may get, if you are not spending enough time with your family, your health, your
spiritual life, et cetera, you’re still gonna have those incompletes that you have to deal with. You
have to make decisions about and you’re going to have projects and actions about in order to get
completely clear.

If you employ these different horizons to your project management and review process, you’ll be
able to get a much more complete picture of all your tasks and projects. By getting above and slight-
ly outside your day-to-day work, you’ll get a different perspective that will allow you to see things
more clearly. When you do this regularly, you’ll find that the problems that you were stuck with sud-
denly become not so difficult and the solutions often become clear as you make sure that what you
are working on is in alignment with your long term objectives and goals.

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