Organizing means identifying various buckets to store your actions and support material.
For Non- actionable items:
- Trash: If something is determined as unnecesary to your workflow, trash it.
- Someday/Maybe: – The incubation bucket – If not sure when you want to get something done – save it here. Ex: want to learn guitar? But not sure when – put it here.
- Reference: Any information/documents/material you want to store as reference, put it here. Ex: project notes from the last client meeting (which might be necessary for the next meeting).
For Actionable items:
- Calendars: The hard landscape – Only items which need to get done on a particular day/particular time, need to be updated here. Ex: Client meeting would be on your calendar; not picking up groceries.
- Scheduled List: The difference between calendars & scheduled lists is that appointments on a calendar are non negotiable. So, I use this bucket if I have something to be reminded of, at a particular time or day, but which might not be important enough to go on to my calendar. They are the ones, I thought are important enough to be done that day in my weekly review. Ex: doctor appointment will be on my calendar, but picking up supplies for coming birthday party will be on my scheduled lists.
- Next actions list:Anything which needs to done as soon as you can get to them, need to be recorded here. Further, group them into ‘Projects’ & ‘Areas’, and divide them based on ‘Contexts’.
- Projects: Any task which needs more than one action step to complete becomes a project. The result of the multiple tasks should become the name of the project. Use a verb while namin the project (use the same taxonomy while writing down tasks). Ex: Don’t write – Bank Account. Write – Close bank account.
- Areas: These are your areas of responsibilities in life. The different hats you wear. Some Areas I use: Home, Spouse, Work, Personal, Household, Family, Friends, Health, Finance, Career, etc. Projects/tasks related to particular areas need to be grouped here.
- Contexts:These are the places/tools you need to be in/have to perform particular action steps. The idea behind arranging tasks into contexts is to easily zoom into tasks we can do at that present moment given the time we have, the place we are in, the energy we have left.
- Ask yourself, what is my routine? Where do I do my work? With what do I do my work? With whom do I do most work? The answers to these are form our contexts. Examples could be: places: home, office, errands, stores (groceries, hardware, medical) etc; People – spouse, boss, clients, etc; tools: computer, phone, etc; states: online, low energy, <15 minutes, etc.
This post is a part of “GTD Tips” series. Click on the link to to view the other tips: GTD
Reply