My 7 Takeaways from Getting Things Done by David Allen

Concepts that can change your life

Books are the secret weapon of the ultra-successful. The right book you stumble upon at the right time can change your life. Whatever you are struggling with, whatever the challenges you face, the right book can be the answer.

Last year I wrote an article titled Reading. Why Read? How? And What? In this article, I explore the benefits of reading, make suggestions about how to read efficiently, and I share the list of fiction, as well as non-fiction books I recommend. Check it out!

In this article, I want to go into a little more detail about one of my favorite books on that list— Getting Things Done by David Allen. I stumbled upon it in 2013. Having just been promoted to a managerial position, I suddenly found myself struggling with the sheer amount of information and the volume of work that came my way. I canvassed the most recommended literature on time and workflow management, and it was after I came across David Allen’s book that I could turn things around.

Since then, I have gifted the book a few dozen times and recommended it many more times to anyone who will care to listen. And it is not just me. Getting Things Done has become a movement, typically referred to as GTD, a system embraced globally by millions of people.

What Allen suggests is really a workflow management, not time management. Here is the chart that explains the system, just so you have an idea — read the book for detailed breakdown.

Let me say this though, the stress-free productivity — that is a nice slogan, but hardly ever possible. Any work you want to do well involves hard work and a certain amount of stress. That said, when you have a system you trust, a system that works, then the stress is greatly reduced and at least you know that for all that stress, you are moving forward.

I try to read Getting Things Done at the beginning of every year. As I go through my copy of the book that is full of notes, markings, and comments made during different readings, each time I find something new that elevates my game. I strongly suggest reading it more than once. Give it a good amount of time before you revisit it, and you will find that as your circumstances and perspective change, you will keep finding useful advice in this book over and over again.

Here are my seven key takeaways from the book:

1. Start with the small, not the big picture. Many time management, personal development, or workflow management books tend to start with the conversation about your values, principles, and goals. The big picture. Allen, somewhat counter-intuitively, suggests you start with the everyday tasks, putting together the list of all the things that are on your mind — work tasks, home errands, everything. Nothing is too small. Anything that crosses your mind or captures your attention, any idea, movie you want to watch, a book you want to read, phone call you need to make, everything goes in. The genius of this approach is that as you make an exhaustive inventory of everything in your life — personal and professional, you may find out that what you previously thought as your big picture goals are not actually what you are working toward. Look at your everyday actions to understand where you are heading in life. And if you feel you need to change direction, you will immediately see what you need to change in your daily actions.
2. Write everything down. Everything. There is a saying: “The dullest pencil is sharper than the sharpest memory”. One of the reasons why we are stressed is that we rely on our memories and forget the things we need to deal with. Sometimes it is not even that we forget something, it is the possibility that we may have forgotten something that stresses us out. Allen suggests doing a “full sweep” of all issues in your life. The book has a a helpful trigger list to get you started. It is available in pdf here. An important reason to “empty” your mind of all mundane tasks, chores and errands is to free some operational space for your brain to be able to think, to be creative, to solve problems. As Allen says, “Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them”.
3. What is the next action? This question is the key to GTD not just being a way to compile and catalogue issues, but actually move forward. As simple as it is, sometimes asking this specific question can drive forward movement. If you can identify the next specific step in advancing a project, then you are more likely to act on it. Allen suggests creating a next action list for all ongoing projects as part of your planning and this way you don’t need to decide on action on the spot. Allen’s approach is also better than trying to map out an exhaustive list of actions, because they typically don’t account for the unexpected, delays and interruptions. But you should be able to easily identify the next specific action you need to take.
4. Weekly Review. People have complained to me that they struggle with this. Doing a full review every week can be challenging. I struggle with that too. But the main point is to have periodic review of the task list, re-prioritize and re-gain the confidence that everything is accounted for, is up to date and every issue and task is recorded. Note that if you don’t do the regular review, the system becomes messy and you lose the sense of control. This is perhaps the most demanding element of the GTD system, but it is also crucial for its efficiency.
5. Prioritizing by context. This idea is as natural as it is revolutionary. We are not used to think in terms of organizing tasks by context, but rather by importance or urgency. While priority is among the contexts Allen uses, he insists that we mainly organize the tasks by how, when, where and with whom we need to do these tasks. The simplest examples of these are locations — @home or @office, @computer or in the car. You batch your tasks appropriately to the location, for instance, you can do your phone calls while in the car (not when you are the driver). If there are key counterparts you meet periodically, you can batch issues you need to discuss with them so you can go through several issues in one seating. Allen also suggests energy levels as the way to contextualize tasks. When you are low on energy, go through a batch of routine tasks. When high on energy, focus on the toughest, most creative work. You don’t need a very long list of contexts. For most of us, 5–7, maybe 10 would be enough.
6. E-mail management. This was a life-saver for me. I now get roughly 200 plus e-mails a day and without Allen’s advice I would not be able to handle that kind of a volume. Firstly, the inbox is not the place to process e-mails. I aim to empty the inbox every day. Secondly, I separate processing my inbox from working on specific issues. Processing goes like this — anything that takes less than two minutes to handle, I handle immediately. Anything that takes longer, goes into my Action folder. Typically, up to 15–20% of all the e-mails end up there, the rest are resolved (deleted, delegated or handled) on the spot. The benefit of this is that the important e-mails I need to read, analyse, respond to or take other action about are not hidden among the hundreds of other messages. Thirdly, I have a Waiting For folder where delegated tasks go. I periodically check it and remind my staff about things I did not get feedback about. Fourthly, I have a folder called Resources where all important reference and guidance materials go. Finally, I do not have an elaborate filing system. Anything that does not go into the above folders, goes into one folder, called, well, Filing. That’s right, one folder for everything. When you have tens of thousands of messages, you use search function anyway. The amount of time people spend to create and maintain neatly organized folder, sub-folder and sub-sub-folder systems is an incredible waste! Beyond certain volume of e-mails, all it does is create false confidence in your “system”.
7. Someday/maybe list. This is my personal favourite. It is essentially a place where you keep the ideas about projects and actions that you want to do, but you don’t need or can’t do them right now. This could be work ideas or personal projects that you come up with and it is important to have a specific place where these go. You need to regularly review this, maybe not weekly, but let’s say monthly or quarterly, to see if anything from this list can now be implemented or perhaps is not of interest to you any longer. For this list, anything goes — books you want to read, hobbies you want to pick up, courses you want to attend, languages you want to learn, places you want to travel to and so on and so forth. No limits.

You won’t have it all perfectly under control. I know people who have adopted some parts of GTD and have dismissed some others. Feel free to experiment with the system, but it is no accident that it is universally recognized as one of the most effective.

Let me conclude by saying that this article is not a summary of the book, but rather the concepts that I consider the most important in the book. This article can’t do justice to a book this dense and packed with useful information, so I strongly recommend you read the whole thing.

Enjoy!