Getting Things Done

"Getting Things Done - the art of stress free productivity" is one of the best productivity tools in the market. As work and life became more complicated, the more I get bombarded with statements and bills through the post, and RSS feeds and e-mails on my laptop. I needed a system that I trust and that will help me hack my life and restore some normality to a heavy paced schedule. Enter GTD…

GTD

Wikipedia's definition : "GTD rests on the principle that a person needs to move tasks out of the mind by recording them externally. That way, the mind is freed from the job of remembering everything that needs to be done, and can concentrate on actually performing those tasks." This is a very simple concept to a very complicated problem.

Now I will be the first to acknowledge that I don't follow GTD to the letter of the book, but I do follow it in the spirit of the concept. I will also not go into the details of the system as there is a lot of resources here, here and here.

The system

Firstly, my system is mostly designed around Microsoft OneNote, Outlook and my iPhone. Windows is company issue or I would not have run Windows at all, but I have to give them credit for Microsoft OneNote. This piece of software is probably the best software I've discovered in the last 10 years. My set-up is similar to that of fellow blogger at 7breaths and I have found that suited my working style perfectly.

Secondly, I can't stress the importance of the weekly review. Things quickly get out of hand and as soon as you do not trust your system, you try and keep things in your head which is unnecessary information to remember.

Lastly, do not try and copy someone's system. You might work better with pen and paper and a shoebox as you inbox. Others work well with complex online applications. Find a system that you are comfortable with and tweak it every time you have your weekly review until you have it just right

To be honest, I'm looking forward to test my system from next year when a demanding study schedule will complicate matters.