Getting Things Done (GTD) is David Allen’s method for getting every commitment out of your head and into a system you trust. FocusCommit gives you that system plus a timer for the doing part: projects with To Do, Next Action, Doing and Done columns, a Someday list, a weekly view of every board, and a Pomodoro timer on every task.
This guide explains the five GTD steps, then shows how to set up each one in FocusCommit. Already know GTD? Skip to the FocusCommit setup.
What is GTD? A brief overview
Getting Things Done, often abbreviated as GTD, is a widely adopted productivity framework that has helped countless people regain control over their work and personal lives. At its core, GTD is about capturing all your tasks, clarifying their meaning, organizing them into actionable lists, regularly reviewing your commitments, and then engaging with focused attention on the tasks at hand. This method has proven effective in improving productivity, reducing mental clutter, and increasing overall well-being.
“Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.” – David Allen.
Your mind should be free to generate creative ideas and solve problems rather than being burdened with remembering and managing tasks and information. Therefore, GTD provides a structured system to offload those mental burdens, allowing you to think more clearly and be more productive in your work and life.
In summary, David Allen’s GTD methodology has profoundly impacted how to get things done, manage tasks, and achieve goals. It offers a practical and systematic approach to productivity, making it an invaluable resource for individuals and organizations looking to streamline their work processes and lead more balanced lives.
What Are the Steps in Getting Things Done?
The Getting Things Done method consists of five key steps:
Capture
This is about collecting everything on your mind or needs your attention. It could be tasks, ideas, projects, or commitments. The key is to get everything out of your head and into a trusted system. This step is crucial because it frees up mental space and reduces the risk of forgetting important things.
You can use various tools for capturing, including:
- Notebook: Carry a physical notebook with you to jot down thoughts and tasks as they come up.
- Digital Apps: Use task management apps, note-taking apps, or even your smartphone’s built-in notes feature to digitally record and organize your thoughts.
- Voice Recorder: Sometimes, it’s easier to speak your thoughts. Use a voice recorder app to capture ideas or tasks verbally.
- Email Inbox: Send yourself an email with the subject or task description to capture it in your email inbox for later processing.
- Whiteboard or Sticky Notes: For visual thinkers, a whiteboard or sticky notes can be a great way to capture and organize ideas and tasks.
The goal is to choose a method that suits your preferences and ensures you can quickly and easily capture anything that comes to mind, no matter where you are. Once you’ve captured everything, you can move on to the next steps in the GTD process.
Clarify
Once you’ve captured all your tasks, ideas, and commitments, the next step is to clarify each. This involves asking a few important questions:
- What’s the desired outcome? For each task, be specific about what you want to achieve. Clearly define the result or goal.
- Is it actionable? Determine whether the task is something you can take immediate action on. If it’s not actionable, it falls into one of these categories:
- Trash: If it’s not worth your time or irrelevant, delete it.
- Delegate: If someone else can handle it, delegate it to them.
- Incubate: If it’s not actionable now but may be in the future, put it in a “someday/maybe” list for later consideration.
Clarifying your tasks prevents vague or overwhelming items from lingering on your to-do list. Instead, you create a list of well-defined, actionable tasks, making prioritizing and executing them easier.
Organize
Once you’ve clarified your tasks and commitments, the next step is to organize them. This involves grouping related functions into categories, projects, or contexts to make them easier to tackle. Here’s how you can do it:
- Categories or Projects: Create classes or projects to group tasks with a common theme or objective. For example, you might have categories like “Work”, “Home”, “Personal”, “Health”, “Finance,” or specific projects like “Vacation Planning.”
- Contexts: Consider the context in which you’ll complete each task. For instance, you might have jobs that require you to be at your computer, make phone calls, run errands, or meet with specific people. Organize tasks in these contexts to streamline your workflow.
- Priority: Prioritize tasks based on their importance and deadlines within each category or context. You can use labels or tags to indicate task priority.
- Task Dependencies: Identify any tasks that are dependent on others. Ensure you have a clear sequence of jobs if they need to be completed in a specific order.
Organizing your tasks this way creates a structured system that helps you focus on the most relevant tasks at any given time. It also prevents you from feeling overwhelmed by a long, disorganized list and makes it easier to plan your day effectively.
Reflect
Regularly reviewing your task lists and commitments is a key aspect of GTD. This step helps you ensure that your priorities remain relevant and allows you to make necessary adjustments. Here’s how you can effectively reflect:
- Scheduled Reviews: Set aside specific times for reviewing your task lists. This could be daily, weekly, or monthly, depending on your needs and the nature of your tasks.
- Review Completed Tasks: Take a look at what you’ve accomplished. Celebrate your successes, no matter how small, to stay motivated.
- Assess Priorities: Consider whether your priorities have changed since you organized your tasks. Life is dynamic, and what’s important may shift over time.
- Remove or Update: You might find no longer relevant or necessary tasks during your review. Remove them from your list. For functions that need updating or rescheduling, make those adjustments.
- Reorganize: If you’ve completed some projects or tasks, you may need to reorganize your lists or categories to reflect your current workload.
- Long-Term Goals: Reflect on your long-term goals and see if your daily tasks align. Adjust your priorities as needed to ensure you’re making progress toward your objectives.
Regularly reflecting on your tasks and commitments maintains clarity and control over your workload. It also helps prevent charges from falling through the cracks or becoming obsolete. This step is critical to the GTD process and contributes to overall productivity and goal achievement.
Engage
After you’ve captured, clarified, organized, and reflected on your tasks, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and get to work. Here’s how to effectively engage with your studies:
- Prioritize: Begin with the most important and urgent tasks. These are the ones that need your immediate attention. Consider using the Eisenhower Matrix to categorize tasks as urgent/important, important/not urgent, urgent/unimportant, or neither.
- Time Blocking: Allocate dedicated time blocks in your schedule for specific tasks or categories of jobs. This helps you focus and prevents interruptions.
- Single-Tasking: Avoid the temptation to multitask. Focus on one task at a time to maintain high-quality work and efficiency.
- Use Tools and Techniques: Employ productivity tools and techniques that work for you. This might include task management apps, the Pomodoro technique, or the Two-Minute Rule (if a task can be done in two minutes or less, do it immediately).
- Eliminate Distractions: Create a distraction-free work environment. Turn off notifications, close unnecessary tabs or apps, and tell others when you need uninterrupted work time.
- Break Tasks Into Steps: Break them into smaller, manageable steps for larger or complex tasks. This makes progress feel more achievable.
- Review Your Lists: Periodically refer to your organized lists or categories to ensure you stay on track with your priorities.
- Adjust as Needed: Be flexible and willing to adjust your plan if unexpected tasks or changes arise during the day.
The “Engage” step is where your productivity and efficiency come into play. By tackling tasks in a systematic and organized way, you can make significant progress and accomplish your goals effectively.
Remember, the key to getting things done effectively is maintaining a clear and organized system, prioritizing tasks, and staying focused on your goals. Adjust these steps to fit your workflow and preferences for optimal productivity.
How to set up GTD in FocusCommit
FocusCommit has no separate inbox screen. Each project’s four columns do that job instead. Here is how the GTD lists map onto the app:
| GTD | In FocusCommit |
|---|---|
| Inbox | The To Do column of a project (for example one called “Inbox”) |
| Next actions | The Next Action column |
| Projects | Projects in the sidebar; subtasks for small multi-step tasks |
| Someday/Maybe | The Do it someday switch, listed in Someday |
| Calendar | The When? date, listed in Today and Upcoming |
| Contexts | Tags such as @computer or @phone |
| Weekly review | All Boards, Upcoming, Someday and Logbook |
| Engage | The Doing column and the Pomodoro timer |
1. Capture into To Do
Click Add Project at the bottom of the sidebar and create a project called “Inbox”, or capture straight into the project a thought belongs to. Click Add new task at the bottom of the To Do column and type just the name. Don’t sort anything yet.
- To turn text on your screen (an email, a chat message) into a task, press Ctrl + Shift + T and drag over the text. If nothing happens, turn the capture shortcut on from the FocusCommit icon in the system tray.
- To empty your head in one go, run through the GTD mind sweep trigger list first.
2. Clarify each item
Go through To Do from the top and decide what each item is:
- Not needed: open it and delete it with the trash icon.
- Takes less than two minutes: do it now and tick it off.
- Not now, maybe later: open More settings and switch on Do it someday.
- Needs several steps: make it a project with Add Project, or add the steps with + Add sub task if it’s small.
- Everything else: rename it to the next physical action (“Email Sam the draft”, not “Report”) and drag it to Next Action.
3. Organize with dates, tags and Someday
- Dates: give a task a When? date only when it really has to happen that day. It then appears in Today on the day and in Upcoming before that. Deadline is a second date with no reminder.
- Contexts: add tags such as @computer, @phone or @errands. In Search, Select Tag lists every task with that tag.
- Recurring tasks: use Repeat for weekly chores and your weekly review itself.
- Someday/Maybe: tasks with Do it someday switched on are collected in Someday, out of your way.
4. Reflect: your weekly review
Open All Boards. It shows every project as one row with its To Do, Next Action, Doing and Done columns, and the Done column holds what you finished in the last 7 days, which is exactly one week. For each project, check that there is a next action, move stuck tasks back to To Do and delete what no longer matters.
Then look through Upcoming for the coming week and Someday for anything you’re ready to start (switch Do it someday off). Logbook lists everything you’ve completed, grouped by month. Imported Microsoft To Do and Google Tasks lists don’t appear in All Boards, so review them from the sidebar.
5. Engage: one next action at a time
Start the day in Today, which lists what’s due today plus anything overdue. Then pick one task from Next Action, drag it into Doing and click the ▶ button that appears to start a 25-minute interval. When the interval ends, take the break and choose again. How to use the Pomodoro Technique in FocusCommit covers estimates, breaks and the Report tab.
Conclusion
GTD works when you trust the system enough to stop holding things in your head. In FocusCommit, that comes down to a short routine: capture into To Do, clarify into Next Action or Someday, review All Boards once a week, and work on one task in Doing with the timer running. New to the app? Start with how FocusCommit works, or download FocusCommit.
Frequently asked questions
Does FocusCommit have a GTD inbox?
There is no separate inbox screen. Use the To Do column of a project as your inbox, for example a project called “Inbox”, and clarify each item into Next Action, Someday or a project of its own.
How do I do a weekly review in FocusCommit?
Open All Boards: every project appears as one row, and the Done column shows what you finished in the last 7 days. Then check Upcoming, Someday and Logbook.
Can I use GTD contexts in FocusCommit?
Yes, with tags such as @computer or @phone. In Search, Select Tag lists every task with that tag.