Writing Your Own GTD Story

Sunday August 10, 2008

Getting Things Done is a system developed by productivity expert David Allen. It takes the convoluted and excessive to-do lists, event planners, and Palm Pilots and reduces, well, getting things done, to a simple fairly elegant system. Instead of focusing on the project, which can seem daunting and entirely unattainable, the system is designed to get you to focus on your next action. Once you’ve completed all next actions in a project, guess what? That’s right, your project will be complete, and all without you sweating about how will I paint the whole house? or how will I cook the entire dinner?

I tried using the GTD Moleskine hack with some success, but it didn’t seem to work right for how I process information, for how I approach a project, or any issue, for that matter. After reading a recent article on 43Folders, I realized I need to employ the same methodology I did that was so successful in helping me achieve a good grade in Physics last summer: turn studying and learning into a story.

By turning it into a story, I was able to put myself into the role of the main character, and discover how the conclusion, which I already know, is best reached. I become the central player in my own book. It allows me to write my own story, using an outline, not so different than one would use to write a novel.

So, here’s how it works. Like Merlin’s system, it requires you to re-articulate your project and action using natural language. For instance: bq. I need to steam the broccoli and steam the corn and fry the chicken in order to prepare dinner tonight.

Here you see that each action is a part of the story, with the conclusion being to prepare dinner. So, instead of seeing a big project that I dread trying to complete, I see next actions that will lead me to the conclusion of the story where, in the case of my example, I get to eat a tasty, filling meal. Use this with a Cahier Pocket Moleskine by writing your name at the top, and then for each project place that at the end or middle of the page (in natural language, which ever works best for how much space you need for all the climaxes of your story. Then fill in the space in between with each next action. That should also be done using natural language. What you will have is an interesting read when going through your next actions for the day. Feel free to be creative, which I definitely plan on being, when you write in your projects and next actions. The key is to make your GTD story uniquely your own.