The Complete GTD Guide to A Productive Life

This article is an excerpt from the Shortform summary of "Getting Things Done" by David Allen. Shortform has the world's best summaries of books you should be reading.

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Are you beginning the Getting Things Done system, and need a great GTD guide?

This GTD guide covers all the basics of the GTD system, as well as why you should be using it. In this GTD guide, you’ll learn what GTD is, why it works, and the benefits of using it.

Your GTD Guide: Why It Works

The Getting Things Done (GTD) program is designed to increase your productivity and effectiveness—not so you can squeeze even more into your already busy life, but so that you can do things with less time, energy, and effort. When you feel in control of your life and your to-do list, you can be present in each moment without the nagging feeling that there’s something else you should be doing. When your mind is clear, you can focus and use your creative energy for the task at hand, and in your free moments, you can fully enjoy life without feeling guilty that you’re not doing something “productive.” This GTD guide shows you how and why to use the GTD program to live organized and stress free.

The GTD program is meant to be a lifelong practice, and you’ll continually graduate to more advanced levels of application. As you start to cement the strategies as habits, you’ll reach new levels of mastery to enhance your life and productivity in new ways: Once staying on top of your emails is second nature, use your skills (and newfound free time and energy) to take on a new hobby or strengthen your important relationships.

In the meantime, don’t wait until you finish the book to start using the strategies—put them into practice as you go. Practicing the skills will give you a richer understanding and help you dive deeper into the program.
Many readers regularly re-read this book and come away with something new each time. The program requires more habit changes than most people can fully implement all at once, so readers tend to absorb pieces at a time; after the first time through, start practicing the basics, and the next time you’ll better understand the strategies for refining those basic skills. Each time you read the book, you gain a new level of understanding and practice.

The Five Steps of the GTD Guide

Through the GTD system, you’ll capture every task and reminder on lists, in files, and on your calendar. You’ll be aware and in control of your entire workload so you can be fully present in each moment without the nagging feeling that you should be doing something else.

The five steps of the GTD system are:

Capture all the problems and ideas that are taking your attention.
Clarify what each one means and what you need to do about it.
Organize the decisions and actions you’ve clarified.
Reflect on everything in front of you to choose what to tackle next.
Engage with the task (get it done).

When you first start out, you’ll have a large mental backlog of items to capture and process, and this will take a good amount of time. After you get through it once, you’ll have all the items in the proper place. Then, on a regular basis (for example, daily), you’ll step through the five steps to capture and process new items, then figure out what you want to do that day. This GTD guide can serve as a reference to walk you through the steps.

Use the Natural Planning Method to Plan Projects

Always have a next action identified for each project you have, so that you’re constantly making progress on your projects. Determining next actions on big projects can be daunting, but simply follow the same process you’d use if you were planning something in your daily life, like a birthday dinner with friends. This approach is an important part of the GTD guide.

This approach is called the Natural Planning Method, and it consists of these steps:

Define your purpose and principles. Your purpose is the intention of the project, and your principles create the boundaries. If you’re planning a birthday dinner, your purpose is to celebrate and the boundaries could be factors like how affordable you want the restaurant to be.
Envision your outcome. Your purpose is your why, while your outcome is the what: What will a successful outcome look, feel, and sound like? You might imagine your dinner happening around a big outdoor table, with all your friends laughing and sharing food. When you picture something and focus on it, it helps you create it and makes you more excited to achieve it.
Brainstorm. This is the how. Your brain naturally wants to fill in the gaps to determine how to make your vision a reality. During this stage, you might question whether the restaurant is open today, what time you need to go, and whether there’s gas in the car. Use mind maps or other brainstorming techniques to jot down as many ideas as you can without judging or criticizing the ideas along the way.
Organize. This is the step when you organize all the random thoughts, questions, and ideas from the brainstorming process. You’ll naturally organize them based on logistics, priorities, and what needs to happen first: Call the restaurant to see if it’s open and make a reservation, then invite the guests, then get yourself dressed and ready to go.
Determine your next actions. Determine what can actually be done now, and who’s going to do it. For dinner, your next action is to call the restaurant.