Productivity
by David Allen
Why won't your head go quiet?
In the shower you remember the passport renewal. In the supermarket you remember an email. David Allen calls each of these an open loop, a commitment with nowhere safe to live. His book is a method for getting them all out of your head.
Hear a sample · read by Laura
Capture everything that has your attention in a few trusted places. Clarify what each item is and whether you need to act on it. Organise the answers into lists. Reflect by reviewing those lists often. Then engage, and pick what to do now with a clear head.
Most to-do lists are full of projects in disguise. Allen asks for the next physical, visible step on everything, and calls any outcome that takes more than one step a project.
While you're clarifying, anything that takes less than two minutes gets done on the spot. Writing it down and coming back to it later would take longer than the job itself.
Allen sorts next actions by where you can do them, such as calls, errands or at the computer. So while you wait at the garage with your phone, you read one list, Calls. The calendar holds only what must happen on a set day or at a set time.
Once a week, gather the loose scraps, empty every inbox, read through each list and look at the calendar behind and ahead. Allen treats this as the habit that holds the system together. Skip it, and the lists go stale and everything creeps back into your head.
Open loops
Every unfinished promise you haven't written down keeps nagging at you.
Capture
Stop keeping tasks in your head. Write each one down somewhere you trust.
Next action
For each item, decide the very next physical thing you'd do to move it on.
Two minutes
If a task takes less than two minutes, do it now.
Projects
Anything that needs more than one step is a project, and belongs on your projects list.
One thing to try
Take a pad and write down everything that's on your mind, one item per line: the dripping tap, the dentist, the idea for the garden. Then write the very next action beside each one. Do any that take under two minutes before you go to bed.
Knotd has the key ideas from 250+ non-fiction books, each in a few minutes, in plain words. Getting Things Done comes with a Name That Idea round and a Spot the Trap case to make it stick.
Get the whole book on KnotdOpen in the appWhy won't your head go quiet? In the shower you remember the passport renewal. In the supermarket you remember an email. David Allen calls each of these an open loop, a commitment with nowhere safe to live. His book is a method for getting them all out of your head.
Five stages, in order; What's the next action?; The two-minute rule; Sort lists by where you are; The weekly review.
Take a pad and write down everything that's on your mind, one item per line: the dripping tap, the dentist, the idea for the garden. Then write the very next action beside each one. Do any that take under two minutes before you go to bed.
Yes. Knotd has the key ideas from Getting Things Done in a few minutes, in plain words, plus a Name That Idea round and a Spot the Trap case to test them. It's one of 250+ non-fiction books in the app.
