Engage and get to work: Once you have strong systems and processes, you focus on the work.Reflect: Whether its daily or periodically, you need to take time to reflect on tasks, goals and processes.Essentially everything from random information you want to keep to things you throw away needs to have a “place” in your system. Organize: all information should be categorized and put it into a system.Clarify the thing you have to do: All tasks need to have a defined next step.Capture Everything: All information needs get out of your head and into paper or a digital collection system.The 5 core principles or “pillars” of GTD are this: We gain a work-life balance of productivity and meaning. In this state, we can better choose what to work on next. Through a mastery of systems and self, we can reach a state of “Zen” where everything is captured and we can act with confidence. The GTD method lets you organize your TODOs, priorities and schedule so that everything becomes manageable. In his book, “Getting Things Done,” Allen proposes a method of basic principles and processes to handle everything life throws at us. Systems fail and we fail to meet our goals and expectations. We deal with too much information, too much email and ultimately too much to do. It’s difficult to handle life and tasks in today’s age of information. It’s a book written by David Allen and its a method for the overload. “Getting Things Done” or “GTD” to its adherants is two things. This overall system has been huge in helping me. I’ll then dig into how I use Evernote to manage my tasks, projects and information. In this post, I want to share what is “GTD” and Evernote. I use Evernote as my primary task and project management tool with the principles of Getting Things Done. It’s my philosophy of productivity with a method of handling all the inputs. Evernote is old and is like a swiss army knife for capturing and handling digital information.įor me I have combined GTD with Evernote. These tools are great, but my primary tool for handling information and tasks remains Evernote. I recently started using Habitica which has a unique social gamification twist on managing habits and tasks with a group. I’ve tried lots of them like Asana, Wunderlist, TODOist, OmniFocus and many others. There is no lack of tools out there for handling our information, tasks and projects. GTD has a lot of proponents, though how you use and incorporate is up to you. We can all information and tasks we encounter and make them manageable and actionable. “Getting Things Done” (GTD) proposes principles and steps to handling information overload. The one book and process I return to and use is “Getting Things Done” by David Allen. There are a lot of articles, books, and systems on productivity. Once you got the information and tasks in an external, out-of-your-brain system, you work. Whatever your system is, you need a way to capture what you are doing, prioritize where to put your time and energy, and then DO it.Įffective task and information management is the cornerstone of productive work and life. ” Productive people depend on systems and well-defined processes. How do busy people handle everything? Everyone I meet who handles “too much” well tell me the same thing: “I have a system” or “I handle my tasks with. We only need the right mindset and right systems to handle all of life’s information and tasks. We can improve at completing our most important projects and responsibilities. Some people can handle it and thrive in the age of “too much.” Others drown. We all have too many emails, texts, chats, social updates, too much information to learn, study, read, and, of course, too much to do. These overachievers can manage many projects, habits, family commitments with dexterity and without worry.īusy is the norm. Presidents, CEOs and exceptional people all have busier lives than you do. Remove “busy” from your vocabulary of excuses. “Busyness” should not be an excuse for why you don’t get things done.