Getting Things Done: How to Achieve Stress-free Productivity

As I read this inspirational book I want to blog my thoughts and what I've learned.

Chapter One seems to set up some of the ideas for the rest of the book, regarding setting up new practices for your workload.

Basic Requirements for Managing Commitments:

1. If it's on your mind, your mind isn't clear. Anything you consider unfurnished in anyway must be captured in a trusted system outside your mind, or what the author calls a collection bucket, that you know you'll come back to regularly and sort through.


2. You must clarify exactly what your commitment is an decide what you have to do, if anything, to make progress toward fulfilling it.


3. Once you've decided on all the actions you need to take, you must keep reminders of them organised in a system you review regularly.

Why are things on your mind? Most often, the reason something is on your mind is that you want it to be different than it currently is, and yet:

• you haven't clarified exactly what the intended outcome is;


• you haven't decided what the very next physical action step is; and/ or


• you haven't put reminders of the outcome and the action required in a system you can trust.

Most to do lists are merely listings of stuff, not inventories of the resultant real work that needs to be done.