Time Management

Well, this is a topic that I am struggling with at the moment. Between this blog, my other projects a full time job, and a two month old daughter.

I have been using David Allen’s Getting Things Done System for a long time to help me stay organised, and I think that its the only thing keeping me in a state resembling sanity.

I have never been to one of his seminars, so I have learned everything I know by reading his books, Getting Things Done and Ready For Anything.

The central idea behind the system is to get everything we can out of our heads, in order to ‘make room’ for the important things.

I personally do this by writing down anything I think I might want to know later, either ideas I come up with, sites I want to look at more closely, ideas for blog posts, anything. Most of the time I carry a stack of file cards for just this purpose, although if for some reason I do not have them with me, I will use whatever is handy, such as napkins, till slips, etc. Some people like to use an audio recorder for this purpose, but I have never got the hang of it myself.

David refers to this part of the process as ‘capturing’.

The next step involves breaking down the scribbles into actionable items. Actions are things that can be accomplished in a single event, such as reading an article or looking at a website. They need to be well defined. For example: “Create blog” is not an action (its a project) is not an action, while “Upload Wordpress” might be.

The next step is organising these actions. According to ’standard’ GTD this is done using next action lists, and the diary. The diary is supposed to hold only things that need to be done on a specific day, but, like many other people, do not use it only for this, I also use it to write down things I want to accomplish on a specific day.

The next action lists are what I work from once my diary is clear. I try to select a task from the lists that is well suited to my current energy levels, and the amount of time I have available.

The final piece of the puzzle is a regular review. I review my diary, Next Action Lists and projects once a week, normally on Saturday.

Anyway, that is my way getting organised, I will go into more detail about it in future posts.

[tags]GTD, Time Management, Productivity, Next Action, Planning, David Allan, Getting Things Done[/tags]