Black Belt Productivity

from April 2006:

Chapter 2: Getting Control of Your Life: Mastering the Five Stages of Workflow

David Allen (DA) introduces the backbone of the Getting Things Done (GTD) system in this chapter. The key to a successful GTD^® system is to make sure that every action goes through five stages:

1. Collect all of our actions into one place,
2. Process what the action is and what needs to be done,
3. Organize them,
4. Review what needs to be done for each before you
5. Do it.

Allen states that most failed implementations are the result of people trying to do ALL five stages at one time. I have been guilty of this on many occasions. I try to set aside time every day to process my collections from the previous day, and then organize them at a later time. I will get more in-depth about each stage shortly.

The first step is collection. There are many points of input in our lives. DA suggests reducing your inputs to a few as you can. I have 5 input points in my life now: 2 physical Inboxes (work and home), 2 email addresses, and 1 voice mail. I use my two Inboxes as my collection points (CP). Every action needs to be recorded to one of your CPs so that you can process it later. For me, any actionable emails get printed out and put into my Inbox. If there is a voice-mail that requires action, I write it down on a 3x5 index card and put it in my Inbox. I carry 3x5 index cards with me at all times for any notes or new actions that come up through the day, Then I drop them into my inbox when I pass by it.

There are three factors for success in the collection phase. Every action must be collected and removed from your head. This is huge for me because my memory is horrible. The more CPs that you have, the longer the other four stages will take. I have reduced my CPs down to two, which I empty every day, if possible. That is the third factor in your collection phase success, regular processing of your CPs.

After you have collected your inputs, you can begin processing each of them. Processing is the single most important stage. During this stage you go through every single scrap of paper that is in your CP.

The first question that you will ask of each item is “Is it actionable?” This will determine which organizational bin the item will fall into. If the answer is “No, it is not actionable” then you have three choices for storing your item.

1. It is trash...throw it out.
2. There is no action now, but there might be one someday.
3. This is a piece of information that I want to hold onto for now.

If you find that the item is actionable, then you have to decide:

1. If this is a project that you are working on, or
2. What the next action (NA) I need to take on this item is.

Now, DA defines “projects” a little different than most of us are accustomed to. A “project” is “any desired result that requires more than one action step.” (page 37) Now, our traditional way of thinking of projects has just been expanded. Everything that we have always thought of as a project is still a project (like staging a new server, or installing a new desktop from my life). But things like “Get new tires for my car” is also now a project. I have to see what size tires I have, call a few places to find the best price, take my car to the shop. That is three definitive steps to getting new tires for my car.

The other choice is to determine the next action for that item. The next action is just like it sounds, the absolute next action to take to move to completion of the project or item. Once you have decided what that is, you need to do something with that next action. You need to:

1. Do it, if it will take under 2 minutes.
2. Delegate it, if you are not the right person to complete the action.
3. Defer it, if you are the right person and it will take longer than 2 minutes. Put the item onto one of you next action lists, which will be discussed shortly.

Chapter 2: Getting Control of Your Life: Mastering the Five Stages of Workflow

Now that you have processed all of your items, you will need to organize them all into one of eight categories. If you remember you have 3 options for non-actionable items. The corresponding organizational bins are:

1. It is trash -------> Goes in the trashcan
2. No action now, but someday -------> Someday/Maybe List
3. A piece of info that I want to keep -------> Reference File

The Someday/Maybe list is a sort of holding bin for your items. It is for things that you cannot take any action on right now, but you do not want to forget about them. Some people will utilize a “tickler file” for this. A tickler file is a file that you create to send yourself reminders in the future. There are many users of the tickler file out there. I am not one of them. Jason will do a write up on a tickler file at a later date. A reference file is a good tool to keep near your workspace for general information filing. I have notes for games that I play, insurance claim slips, genealogy documents that I have amassed for my family and a lot more. There are many filing systems that you can use, but the most important thing is that you can get your hands on needed info FAST!

Now that you have all of those non-actionables out of the way, it is time to tackle the next task at hand. You can just put a project in a Projects list and review them regularly (see next step). Some of your projects may require support material also. It is good to file them, but keep them in view. I have a angled wire folder holder that I keep my current project material in so that I can grab it even quicker than something in my reference file.

When you create a NA, you must decide which organizational bin is right for its storage. If you need to delegate an item to another person, it is good to create a Waiting For list. This list will serve as a reminder that you are dependent on someone else to complete that action item. During your review (see next step), you can catch up with that person to find out the status of that item. If you decide to defer the action, then it will either go on to your Calendar or onto a Next Action list. The calendar should only be used for time-specific actions or information. Meetings, things that you need to do a certain day, but not a certain time that day, and other information about a certain day are the only things to go onto your calendar.

If the action is not time specific then it needs to go onto a Next Action List. These lists are broken down by contexts. These contexts are whatever you want them to be, but they need to be grouped so that every action that you do can fall onto one of these lists. There will be much more on contexts in a later segment of the GTD^® Primer.

Once you get your actions organized, you need to get to work on completing them. Every so often, you need to review the work that you have done and make adjustments as you see fit. DA recommends that you do a formalized review at least once a week. This is probably the hardest step in implementing GTD^®. It has been for me, and I know a number of others that this is true for also. Review is a step-by-step look at every item in all eight of your organizational bins. For each item, you determine if it is still in the appropriate bin, if it needs to be moved to another bin, or if it has been completed and taken out of the system.

Of course, the last stage of your system, is doing the work that you have set before you in your eight organizational buckets. There are some model for prioritizing your work flow that I am not going to get into here. Basically, you need to get out there and start knocking things off those lists.

These five stages are crucial to the successful implementation of GTD^®. Skipping one may not mess up your system much, but ignoring one or trying to get them all done at once can wreak havoc on your system and your life.

Chapter 3: Getting Projects Creatively Under Way: The Five Phases of Project Planning

Projects, as defined by David Allen, are “any desired result that requires more than one action step.” We talked in a previous Primer post that this opens up the definition a little from our traditional thoughts about Projects.

Allen discusses the Natural Planning Method as his planning model of choice. It is based on how we naturally process information in our daily lives. There are five steps in the Natural Planning Method:

1. Define purpose and principles.
2. Outcome visioning
3. Brainstorming
4. Organizing
5. Identify Next Actions

To start out creating a project, you should always ask yourself “why” you want to do the project. This will define the purpose of the project. It will guide your thinking and actions throughout the duration of the project. A lot of people get caught up in the actions associated with their projects and forget why they are doing them. A clear purpose will aid in bringing the focus back to why you are doing what you are doing, as well as helping you when you are stuck at determining your NA for the project. Your principles will also help guide you through the project. They will set the standards you are seeking for successful completion of the project. These standards can be applied to projects that you alone are working on, or if there are others that are working with you, they can see what is expected of them from you, as the project ‘leader’.

After you have set the purpose of your project, the next step is to think about what the outcome of a successful project looks like. In this step, you want to ask the question ‘what’. ‘What will our network look like after we transition from Novell to Windows?’ as an example from my life. This vision should focus your attention to trying to attain the most successful outcome for the project that you can. One thing that Allen stresses is the notion of creating clear outcomes. We need to constantly review our steps to get our projects done efficiently. If needed, we should reallocate resources as necessary to get the project done.

The next step that Allen discusses is the notion of brainstorming. Basically this is dumping all thoughts about a project into a capture device regardless of anything. After you brainstorm, then you go back and weed out ideas that are not feasible, for any reason. This would lead directly into the organization stage. One of the more popular brainstorming techniques that Allen covers is mind-mapping. Using it, you place your main idea on a sheet of paper and capture ALL ideas related to it by connecting them in a free-form manner around the main idea. Since there is not a lot of creativity required in Network Administration, I do not use mind-mapping, or brainstorming too often. I am determined to try it on my next big project that I will try to brainstorm my actions. The biggest thing to remember in brainstorming is NOT to evaluate any idea during the actual brainstorming session. That will take place during the organization phase after you are done. You want to just empty your head of ideas for the project you are brainstorming about. While you are going through your thoughts from your brainstorming session you will see things start to fall into place. Priorities will emerge, as will sequence of events for the project. This organization will lead directly into a series of next actions that need to be fulfilled to complete the project. When you have a list of next actions that are not dependent on any other action, you can consider your project fully planned out. I try to come up with the list of all the things that need to occur to complete the project and notate them on the project item that I have set up in Tracks. I then place all of my NA in appropriate lists and then when one is finished, I complete it and move the next NA to the appropriate list.

That sums up Chapter 3 about Project Planning, as well as closing Part I of Getting Things Done^®. The next part deals with the nuts and bolts of getting your system setup and ready to roll. The first chapter (Chapter 4) deals with setting up your space for Getting Things Done.

Chapter 4: Getting Started: Setting Up the Time, Space, and Tools

This section of Getting Things Done moves from concept to implementation. The first chapter in Part II deals with setting up your workspace (both personal and work) for implementing your GTD system. David Allen suggests that both your personal and professional spaces should be setup identically. This ensures continuity in your life. To ensure “Stress-Free Productivity” you need to use GTD in all parts of your life. How stress-free can you life be if only one aspect of your life is organized.

The other thing that DA states is that you do not have to go full boar into GTD implementation. Any little tricks that you can do to make yourself more productive will make your life better. I think that sometimes this is a barrier to some of our implementation. GTD is so open and customizable that it may hinders our productivity. There is no one perfect implementation of GTD. Jason and I have vastly different implentations. But we are united in the concepts that keep us going.

To start getting yourself ready for GTD, DA recommends setting some time with no interruptions to get all of your inputs together and collected, getting them processed and get all of your NAs in place. He says that two days is an adaquate timeframe to get all of this done. I, personally, did not set aside time to get my system in place. Mine has been a gradual adoption over about 6-8 months (along with 2 readings of Getting Things Done) before I had the principles straight in my head and ready to adopt the principles.

Another point that is stressed is that you need to have your own workspace. Do not share your workspace with wives, girlfriends, work associates (you may not have any say in this one). People need a sense of ownership in their tools. They need to know that the tool that they need that minute is available and not being used by someone else.

Allen lists a set of Basic Processing Tools:

• Trays, for your Inbox
• Paper, to make your notes
• Pen/Pencil
• Post-Its
• Paper/Binder clips
• Stapler with staples
• Tape and rubber bands
• Automatic Labler
• File Folders
• Calendar
• Trash can

Most of these tools are self-explanatory. The one that is really critical is the Automatic Labler. It is used to label your file folders. I have one, and I love to use it. My handwriting can be neat, but when I need to get into my files quickly, being able to quickly read the label is key! DA recommend Brother Labelers, so I went and got a Brother Labeler.

You still need to keep a Calendar as your “hard landscape”. It will be used for time-specific items. Some use them as modified Ticklers as well. My calender is a Moleskine 2006 Pocket Weekly Planner, and I love it. I am evaluating some online calenders as a backup for my Moleskine.

Lastly, the discussion centers around the filing system and how critical it is to your implementation. The recommendation is that you have at least two different filing systems: one for general reference material and one for your project files. I use a general reference filing system and have it setup in two places. The main files that I use regularly is in my workstation desk, and other more permenant filing is in another drawer across the room from my workstation. Your filing system needs to be as simple as possible. DA recommends a simple A-Z system. I have my main files group by function, and then sub-organized A-Z.

Your initial implementation is crucial in getting the principles set in your mindset. But the beauty of Getting Things Done^® is the fluidity of the system. You can always tweak your system (continuously unfortunately). The biggest recommendation that I can make to anyone starting GTD is to set your system and let it roll for a couple months, then look into tweaking it.

Chapter 5: Collection: Corralling Your “Stuff”

This chapter will talk about how you begin your GTD^® journey: collect all of your inputs.

Allen recommends that you take your time in this first step, up to 6 hours if needed. You need to really think about all of the things that are happening in your life, both personally and professionally. He states that you need three things to start the collection:

1. the time to do it right
2. your Inbox
3. a stack of plain white paper

The first thing that you need to do is, with your Inbox by your side, start putting all of your inputs into your Inbox. Anything and everything that is in the wrong place needs to be put in the Inbox for processing. Processing and organizing will put these things in their proper place, but there will be much more on that later. You need to also gather anything that has a pending decision or action on it. While gathering, Allen suggests that there are four catagories of “stuff” that do not need to be processed:

• Supplies
• Reference Material
• Decorative Items for your workspace
• Equipment

These seem to be self-explanatory. You need all of these things in your workspace to make it your workspace, so they are already in their proper place.

There will be some issues that come up while you are collecting. There are four that are discussed in this chapter. The first deals with things that will not fit in your Inbox. Enter the stack of white paper. You should write a note and place it as a placeholder in your Inbox. Make it detailed enough that you know what the paper is representing. This can also lead to overflow of your Inbox. When that happens, just designate some space around the Inbox to keep piling your “stuff.” During this phase you will also realize that some of your “stuff” is destined for the trash…so go ahead and throw it away. That is one less item to process in the next step.

Another problem that can occur is that you start making decisions about the items that you are collecting, while you are processing. Try to keep your phases separate by resisting the urge to process and organize your items. Just get everything into one Inbox (or area around your Inbox, or room in your house), then move to the process step later. This separation will help you in the long run to differentiate the phases of the workflow.

Most of us have tried other forms of organizers and organization methods previous to GTD. Allen suggests that your treat ony item in another organization system like any other item. Write the item on a sheet of paper and put it in your Inbox for further processing later. This will ensure consistancy of all of your items so that you can further process your items from the same viewpoint.

While collecting you will also run across some items that cannot do without. Ask yourself if you need to deal with it before you finish your collection process. If yes, do it to get it out of your mind. If no, then put it in your Inbox. You will process it soon so your will not lose it once it is in your personal system. If you are still worried about losing it, Allen suggests that you create an “emergency” stack close by.

After talking about the issues that comes up, Allen suggests a kind of order to start your collections. Start with the top of your workspace and clearing off any items that do not belong there. Then start going through your drawers one at a time. This will also serve as a cleaning of the drawers that we all need to do. Then move to the tops of any other pieces of furnature in your space: bookshelves, credenzas, cabinets, etc. Make sure that when you are clearing off these place that there are no potential actions associated with those items. Then move into any cabinets you might have, then start hitting bookshelves and the floor. After you have thoroughly gone through your workspace, move to other parts of your house or office and do the same thing.

Once you have gone through your house/office, it is time to start dumping the contents of your mind, or as Allen calls it, the ‘Mind Sweep’. For this, he provides an extensive list of “Implementation Triggers” starting on page 114. This list is extremely helpful in helping you recall anything that could be on your mind. I recommend going through it item be item. I routinely go through this list during my ‘brain dump’ sessions that I try to have at least once per quarter. While going through your Mind Sweep, any items that require actions should be written on your paper and placed in your Inbox. This is where the bulk your paper will get used. You should only write one action/item on each piece so that you can throw it away when you process it and place it in your system. Don’t forget to go through your voicemails in this same way too.

At the end of it, you will most likely have a lot of stacks around you. You might freak out at this point seeing all of the stuff that your need to deal with in your life. Just please remain calm. Remember that this is the first step in getting organized. It is always darkest right before the light.

Come back on Thursday and we will start processing your huge pile and get it into a system that can make you more productive than you have ever been in your life.

Chapter 7: Organizing: Setting Up the Right Buckets

Today is the day that we really cement our system in our head and in practice. We will be setting up and filling all of the buckets that will be our trusted system. This is the part of the program that can be the most confusing while, at the same time, the most straightforward. We will be working on the outer part of the GTD Workflow Diagram.

David Allen states that there are seven types of items you will want to keep track of in your system:

• Projects
• Project support material
• Calendar (dated items and information)
• Next Actions
• Waiting For (deferred actions)
• Reference Material
• Someday/Maybe (no actions or time required)

He also stresses that it is “critical that all of these categories be kept pristinely distinct from one another.” (page 140) If they start meshing with each other, the individual value of each category will be lost.

The next most personal thing that you create for your system is your context list. These are your next action buckets. This is where all of your actionalble items will live until completed. There are NO wrong contexts!! These are going to be the lifeblood of your system. You can add, remove, generalize, drill down your contexts anytime that you want to. The most important thing is to make sure that they accurately represent some facet of your life. Right now, I have 14 contexts in my system. I routinely go through my context list and see if I need any or need to remove any. On the flip side, Jason only has 5 contexts in his system. Now I am sure that we have some of the same contexts, but we may use them in vastly different ways.

Allen does sugget some starter contexts that you might want to use:

• Calls
• At Computer
• Errands
• Office Actions
• At Home
• Agendas
• Read/Review

You will probably find that you will outgrow these categories quickly. At least, I did. Most are self-explanatory as they details that you can do when you are at a specific location (computer, office, home, out and about (errands)). ‘Calls’ are calls that you need to make to advance the action. ‘Read/Review’ is any article, magazine, book, or website that you want to look at at a later time. ‘Agendas’ maybe the oddball here. Allen suggests that the ‘Agendas’ category be used to keep track of things that you want to discuss with other people, in meetings, etc. Each person that you need to discuss something with should have its own ‘Agendas’ item. For instance, you could have a ‘Agendas-Boss’ item for the things that you need your boss to do, or a ‘Agendas-Wife’, ‘Agendas-Kids’ items for things to discuss with those family members. It is a handy way to keep track of things that you need to discuss with other folks in your world.

Organizing your Projects list is a fairly simple list to maintain. This list is not to layout every item that any particular project has and how it needs to be worked out, etc. It is a simple listing of the projects in your life.You can see on the picture of my system (using bsag’s wonderful Tracks application) that I have 10 projects going on now. Now one project (Novell > Windows Migration) is my main focus right now at work. It encompasses 2 other projects on the list which are projects themselves (or subprojects, if you will). It does not matter if you only list the Main project in your list, or list the main and subprojects separately in your list (as I have). You just need to make sure that if you do the first method, you review the subprojects as part of your review step.

Your Project Support Materials also needs to be addressed. This is any and all stuff that helps in the advance of your project, and any reference material for the project. I would recommend keeping your Project Support Material separate from your general Reference Material while the project is ongoing. Once it has been completed, it can be placed into the general Reference File for a time of your choosing.

Your general Reference Files can be organized however you see fit. The main goal of the Reference File is to hold the information that your might need access to quickly. So the organizing needs to be simple enough that you can remember where a particular item is going to be housed. It also needs to be fun enough that you are going to use it regularly to house your material.

Your Someday/Maybe needs only to be a list of things that you might want to look into for the future, and have no actions for it, nor any timeframes. I have not fully dumped my mind of my Someday/Maybes, but that is ok for me, for the moment. I am working to revamp a lot of my system as I am re-reading the book for this Primer, and fleshing out my Someday/Maybes is one of the areas that I am going to work on in my future system.

This chapter is where Allen lays out the setup for the Tickler file. Now Jason has written an excellent post on ‘Who is Tickling Whom?’ I will defer discussion of tickler files to him because I do not use a tickler file. I have never been disiplined enough to put things away (physically) and check for them everyday. I guess that I use a Calendar Tickler more. I will put a reminder on my calendar for things like ‘buy tickets’, make reservations’, ‘Superman Returns opens’. But having a physical tickler files is one aspect that I know that will not work for me.

The way that you set up your system is as different as you are to me. Jason and I have vastly different systems, even though we use some of the same tools in our system. There is a number of people that are documenting their systems for all to read. Emory Lundberg has written a whitepaper (GTD LoFi/HiFi) outlining his system. Patrick Rhone has outlined his Org-Fu on his blog. Searching the 43Folders boards will bring a lot of these to light. I recommend you reading them to see how different people take different approaches to their system. You can alway gleem one little nugget that will make your own system better for you. Get involved, ask questions, learn how others do things, and it will make your system better.

- Michael

Chapter 8: Reviewing: Keeping Your System Functional

This is the chapter that details the hardest step in the process to actually complete: the Weekly Review. A recent poll from 43Folders stated that 32% of the respondents (75) found that reviewing was their GTD weakness. I believe that is how I voted in the poll.

There are some simple things that you can do day-to-day to keep up with your system. These will ensure that you will not let anything fall through the cracks.The steps are rather simple. Check you ‘hard landscape’ to see what time you have available. For me that is my Pocket Moleskine Planner and my Google Calendar (used now as a backup, but may be main calendar soon). Next, check your NA lists. This will put on your mind the general things that you need to do. You don’t have to do anything right now. You just want to take a quick survey of your system.

Now, David Allen recommends that we do a Weekly Review to empty our head again. This is the phase where we look at every item currently in our system, and make any modifications to it, add new items to our system and place them in the appropriate catagory, and then delete (or archive) any items that are completed and no longer need to be tracked.

Setting up a block of time will help you keep focused on the review while you are doing it. The first couple will take the longest, and be the most awkward. After a short time, the review will (hopefully) be second nature and be something that will take you under 30 minutes to complete.

It seems so easy. Take some time, block it off and go over everything in your system. Re-adjust when necessary. Done!

So why do we not do it more?

There are many different ways that you can get things done, once you have a system in place to tell you what needs to be done. The methods described here were briefly mentioned in Chapter 2, but I did not go into any detail then, knowing that they would be covered in depth here.

The first model that Allen discusses is ‘The Four-Criteria Model for Choosing Actions in the Moment’. It is defined by the criteria:

1. By Context
2. Time Available
3. Energy Available
4. Priority

You decide what you want to do by evaluting against the four criteria. Allen says,

“At any point in time, the first thing to consider is, what could you possibly do, where you are, with the tools you have?”

This is the essence of choosing actions By Context. They define the circumstances in which you complete your actions. Your @Calls will require a phone, @Computer will need a computer. If you don’t have a phone with you or nearby, or you are not near your computer, then you do not even have to consider any item on those lists. If you are in your car heading to the store, then you might want to check your @Errands list to see if there is anything that you can finish while you are out and about. The same hold true for Time Available. You do not want to start drafting an Annual Report when you know that you have a staff meeting in 5 minutes. This is one place where having a good up-to-date hard landscape is vital to your productivity.

There are some times when you do not have the energy to start a project, or hit that next action. That is ok. As long as you know that you have some high energy items on your list, you can save those for those high energy times. Allen suggests that we keep a list of actions that “require very little mental or creative horsepower”. I have not tried this, but I think that I am going to work on this list (add to @Someday/Maybe).

Deciding your priorities is a subject of much debate in the GTD world. Some people shun them entirely as not necessary within GTD. Others fight that they are essential for them to know how to get their work done. Allen does not do away with priorities in GTD. Allen says that we need to feel, at the end of each day, we got accomplished what we needed to do. If we need to prioritize certain item higher than others, so be it. Get done what we need to get done.

The next model that Allen discusses is ‘The Threefold Model for Evaluating Daily Work’. This is probably the simplest model of the three, and the one that I follow most of the time. It makes the most sense for me in an IT Support role that I am in. It is defined by three types of activites:

1. Doing predefined work
2. Doing work as it shows up
3. Defing your work

This model is pretty self-explanatory. You do your predifined work until something else shows up. You decide if it has a higher priority than what you are working on. If so, you change tasks; if not, place it in your system and move back to what you were previously working on. Once you start to feel comfortable in your system, you will be able to shift your focus from one task to another easily.

The last model covered is, in my opinion, the most difficult to get my hands (and head) around. It is ‘The Six-Level Model for Reviewing Your Own Work’. It sets its criteria in terms of altitude:

1. 50,000 ft: Life
2. 40,000 ft: 3- to 5-year goals
3. 30,000 ft: 1- to 2-year goals
4. 20,000 ft: Areas of Responsibilty
5. 10,000 ft: Current Projects
6. Runway: Current Actions

Allen suggests that you start your evaluation from the bottom and work your way up the ladder.

Runway: This is where all of your action lists reside. Keeping them up-to-date is essential in keeping your runway clear. When this level is in order, you have a better sense of how your work is laid out, and what order things need to get done in.

10,000 ft: Your Projects will give you a greater sense of your responsibilites and commitments. This will give you greater control in making decisions with your time. You may also find that there are steps that you were not aware of that you could do to move a project forward.

20,000 ft: This is where your areas of responsibility live. Professionally, this is usually the job description of your current job. Personnally, it is the many hats that your wear in your life (parent, spouse, coach, teacher, etc). Allen recommends creation of an Areas of Focus checklists for your personal and professional life. It will serve as a guide for your next actions and projects in each area.

30,000 – 50,000 ft: The top three levels are grouped together as the ‘future life’ levels. We mostly live at the bottom three levels, but they must be in sync with the things in the top three levels for effective life management. Allen does not discuss much at this level, since his focus is on the implementation of GTD, not necessarily goals and visions. You need to have a feel for items in the top three levels so that you can effectively work towards those goals by the things that you do in the bottom three levels.

Honestly, I have been very bad about thinking about the top three levels. I think that may be a missing piece in my life. So I have begun to think hard about goals for my life in the 30k and 40k levels. I think that it may lead to a major overhaul of my GTD system. But I feel that it will be beneficial for me and my life.