Category: “Getting Things Done - GTD”

Many people think that a personal productivity system consists of some software and/or a calendar and/or an ordered to-do list and/or a series of notes or documents relating to all this. However, this is nothing more than the physical, tangible part — the least important — of a personal productivity system.

Routines or repetitive, recurrent, scheduled tasks… Different names for the same concept. They are actions or events that repeat over time. There is some negative bias in them, perhaps because they are usually boring tasks that do not require too much creativity. They are usually unattractive so, when we have to procrastinate, they are the perfect victims.

GTD is a personal productivity system that allows us not only to get things done efficiently, but also eliminates the stress coming from the excessive commitments we all acquire too often. David Allen, creator of GTD, does know that this over-commitment, although overwhelming, is not the real culprit of our distress.

Horizontal focus is the key to a relaxed control over your daily activities. It is about clearly defining the outcomes you want—your projects—and the next actions required to achieve them, and creating reminders on a trusted system that you review regularly.

One of my favorites David Allen’s statements is that you cannot do projects, you can only do action steps. In the end, a project shows up as done after doing a lot of small, physical and visible actions that make the world fits with what you had in mind.