Category: “Getting Things Done - GTD”

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.

Normally we go through a five-stage workflow method to deal with our work. We (1) capture things that catch our attention, we (2) clarify what they mean and we (3) organize the results, which we (4) reflect on frequently to choose which thing to (5) engage with next.

You usually feel bad when you do not get things done that you had committed to do, but this feeling of anxiety and guilty is not because of the many things you have to do. Frustration comes up when you break an agreement that you have made with yourself.

If you work alone, you are self-employed, freelance or a solo entrepreneur, chances are that in your daily activity, you get entangled doing urgent things that do not lead anywhere. It is also very easy that time flies when you are doing things that are pleasing, although totally unproductive. Indeed, your internet connection can be a death trap.