GTD® is the organization method I use that allows me to achieve greater productivity in my day-to-day life and coherence in the decisions I make daily.
I discovered GTD® around 2010 and since then, I have been studying and deepening my knowledge, even obtaining the first two levels of certification in this method.
Many people are curious about this method, so I decided to answer their questions in a simple way.
What does GTD® mean? GTD® stands for Getting Things Done. It is a productivity method that was developed in the 1970s by David Allen, an American.
What does “Getting Things Done” mean? It means basically, making things happen. And that’s what the method advocates! GTD is designed to help us have more control in our day-to-day lives and gain perspective in our lives.
Perspective? What do you mean by that? Perspective is achieved when we implement the higher horizons of GTD® (I will talk more about this later) where we define our purpose, our long-term, medium-term, and short-term goals. By having this definition clear, we know how what we do today relates to these future goals and our purpose. Thus, we find coherence in our actions today, in the here and now.
But I’ve heard that the method is very complicated. Is it true? It’s only true if it’s not applied correctly and if we try to do everything at once. Many find the method complicated because they read the author’s book and think they have to implement everything at once. Just as you can’t learn to play a musical instrument overnight, you can’t learn GTD® in a day either. It requires awareness and simplicity. GTD® is a method that requires organization and commitment. GTD® is for life. It’s a process of acquiring habits. It took me years to fine-tune my organization system, including setbacks along the way, but I recognized the advantages and always returned to GTD®, until today.
What do you mean by habits? :) The GTD® method is a 5-step method, which are nothing more than 5 habits that we should acquire in our day-to-day life:
- Collect
- Process
- Organize
- Review
- Do / Commit
Organizing is not always the most difficult part, the real challenge is to maintain this organization. That’s why the acquisition of habits is important!
But doesn’t organization take up a lot of time? GTD® has 5 steps and only one of them is organizing. The organization has to be minimal for your system to work. If you’re spending more time organizing than doing, then there are adjustments you need to make to your system.
In conclusion….
GTD® is not just about being productive at work, but about making better use of time and being fully committed to what you’re doing. Sometimes being productive also means doing nothing :) Resting can be the most productive thing to do at that moment :)
Do you want to know where to start? I will talk about this in one of the next articles!
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