Ever feel there isn’t enough time in a day to do things?

Ever forgotten something important?

Ever wondered how highly successful people manage their time?

Ever wished you had more quality time to spend with your family?

If you answered ‘yes’ to any of the above, read on. I hope these short educational tips will help you get control and ahead in your life.

Before beginning, I know that most of you will have this sense of procrastination of change. It is perfectly normal to feel that inertia in changing the way we currently do things or that the technique below may not work for all.

But tell you what, spend the next few minutes reading to the end and if you feel like it made some impact on you, give it a shot, it cost nothing and you got nothing to lose. If things don’t quite work for you, you can always revert to what you are doing currently.

The 10 steps are as follows:

Step 1: Jot down everything you wish to do or need to do that comes to mind at that moment

Ideally if you have a PDA or smart phone (a device which you carry around all the time) with a to-do list application or program similar to outlook, jot down the task that comes to mind immediately.

Alternatively the pen and paper would work too though not as inefficient.

Let’s call this list of things the ‘inbox’. A task could be as simple as “pick up milk on way home” or as complex as “design a management information system for client by end June”.

There are two kinds of items you should jot down.  The first is an action task.  These are task where you have a known solution or course of action to perform.  It should be written in a clear, concise and most of all actionable manner.  The second is an idea.  Pen down any thoughts or ideas you may have.  Use this opportunity to collate them and not let your creative spark be forgotten and go to waste.

Step 2: Clear the inbox

Either at the end of each day or at the start of the next day, go through your ‘inbox’ to categorize and sort all the items there.  The key idea is to place similar items together and rank its importance.  I’ll go through some concepts next.  From this stage on, you will likely need some form of an electronic organizer, outlook or to-do list application.

Step 3: Importance and Urgency

For each item, mark it with two properties, degree of priority/importance and whether it is time bound (has a due date or no due date).

We may have many tasks to do each day and by using the above, we can prioritize and focus on the high priority and urgent tasks first.  It helps us form a clear picture of what is really important (a necessity) versus what is a good to have (a want).

Step 4: Moving it to the right list

All tasks from the inbox should be moved into pre-defined lists that you have previously created to categorize them.  A tip is not to create too many of these category lists else it defeats the purpose of consolidating similar or related tasks.  An example of such pre-defined category lists could be “Personal”, “Investment”, “Job”, “Family” and “Someday”.

You might be wondering what the “Someday’ list is.  Basically for me, this list stores all my long term goal, wants and good to haves.  For instance, “learn to play golf”.  Collect all the things you eventually want to do here but currently have no clear deadline or requirement to get it done but hope to accomplish it someday.

Step 5: Tagging

Tagging simply means to use one or several words to be used as properties of the task.  It is an added dimension to group similar tasks together.

Let me illustrate, for instance, I usually tag a location with a task.  Say using the tag ‘mall’.  All my tasks which can be performed at the mall (e.g. “buy present for anniversary”, “pick up dry-cleaning”, “purchase garden hose” and “get 2 packs of dog food”) will have this tag.

Optimally if your to-do list has this search function, you can easily do a search on the tags to pull up all the tasks you can accomplish at the mall.  These may include tasks which you may not have planned for the day but for convenience you might want to clear the task now anyway.  Even if your application does not have this feature, you can manually scroll for these tags to aid yourself in consolidating similar tasks.  That way if you can accomplish them together, you free up more of our time in future.

Step 6: For a large complex task, use sub-tasking

Some task are rather complex and may require several steps in completing it.  If that is the case, you should create sub-tasks under this main task, detailing the small steps required.

Let me illustrate with a simple example, let’s say my task was to “arrange meeting for shareholders”.  I might have to do the following steps to accomplish this such as “check shareholder calendar to select meeting date and send invite”, “collect responses”, “book a conference room” and “order refreshments”.

As you may have noticed, I may not be able to finish the main task in a day depending on shareholders responses to the invite, but with sub-tasking, at least I know the task is moving along (i.e. something has been done) and I can come back to it later.

Sub-tasking is ideal for project management; it lets you keep track of what is due, what is outstanding and what is required for successful completion.  It also allows you to add additional task you might think of along the way that would aid in the main task’s successful completion.

Step 7: Create list for things to do today

Scan through your pre-defined category lists each day and determine what you want or can accomplish today.  Move these to your to do list for the day.  If your to-do list application supports due dates, those tasks due that day would have already been pre-populated for you.  You can also make use of tags to search for similar tasks you can accomplish in the same day.

As you scan your lists, make sure to delete any tasks that are redundant or no longer valid. Your list for the day may be lengthy and you may not have the time to get through all, but remember the two task properties mentioned in step 3.  Use this to determine which ones to handle first.  The remaining items can be completed another day.

Step 8: GTD (David Allen’s Getting Things Done) “two-minute rule”

Every time you read a task from your list or come to mind a task which can be performed in less than two minutes at that location and time, immediately, just do it!

Step 9: Keeping track of what is done

As you might have guessed, your completed tasks stays in your device’s memory provided you don’t delete it.  You can always pull up a record of what was done in the past.  This I feel not only serves as a diary of events but it also lets you record what worked in the past and what doesn’t.  For instance, if you had a complex task, say a project before, and the sub-tasks in it led to a successful completion, you can use them as a guide for your new project’s sub-tasks.

Looking through your completed records also serves as reminder for recurring events.  For instance, you may need to service your car every 6 months.  If your to-do list application had a recurrence event function, that task would have been created for you automatically.   Otherwise, you can always add this manually when reviewing my previous completed tasks.

Step 10: The psychological and time benefits

Free your mind; focus on the doing rather than spending effort remembering the things to do.  By adopting this organized approach, you will have one less worry in life about forgetting things that matter.  Furthermore, for me personally, I get a sense of satisfaction each time I strike off an item and at the end of the day when reviewing what I had accomplished.

Though it may seem like a daunting exercise initially, but once you get used to it, you will realize that the simple 15 minute exercise each day of clearing your inbox and building a list for the day will reap you much more time saving benefits later.  I have adopted this approach and not only am I getting more things done, I have more time for my family and leisure.

That’s it! Give it a go!

I wish you all the best in getting more productivity, having more control in your life and most importantly having more fun with your time! – Cheers

If you have an Android enabled phone and want to jump straight in at applying the above, have a look at the to-do list application I have developed below.  It is built with the above concepts in mind.

Note that though the concepts above relate to David Allen’s Getting Things Done methods, I am in no way associated with it, but I highly recommend you have a read of his book.

Another book I would recommend is Stephen Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

Introduction

Folks will be interested to find out how i actually carried out the things thatI often blog about. And this series of articles is an illustration to show how i actually do that.

Part 1 here talks about my plan and overview of my GTD system

Part 2 here talks about why i eventually chose iPod Touch 2G as my main to do list console

Part 3 here talks about why i choose Appigo ToDo for iPhone as my main task manager

Part 4 here talks about how to plan for big projects and smaller projects

Part 5 here talks about how to make use of Contexts, Tags to Execute your tasks

Part 6 here discuss about how you can review projects better using iThoughts mind mapping software

For this series, I will talk about how i carried out Getting Things Done in my daily personal and work life.

What is Getting Things Done and why do I use it?

Getting Things Done is a method Mr David Allen came up with to help get things out of your brain so that it frees up the memory and processing capabilities of our tiny brain to do the things that actually matters.

Simply put, its  a productivity and organizing technique that serves an alternative to Stephen Covey and his method listed in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

Getting Things Done or GTD in short ain’t something new. Its been blogged about for sometime but I would recommend for people who want to practice this seriously to pick up David Allen’s book and read it. You won’t get a better picture then from the man himself trust me.

I know different people work differently but perhaps you can contrast it against Stephen Covey’s methods. In that case, do pick up his book to find out more about his method.

I always wondered if i can organize what i do and the things and people that i worked with better and i used to bump around solutions to make things work, organize tasks so that it makes sense to me. But sooner i realise that it just not working. I would just stay away from my task / todo list or my calendar cause they just don’t make sense.

My Experience With the 4 Quadrants

I even tried out marking things into the 4 categories listed in 7 habits of highly effective people and really to me its very hard to make sense.

Consider things like:

Its a good thing to focus on the 80/20 rule, which is the 20% that is most important and matters, but really, as an individual, the 80% needs to get done as well.

Another gripe about this system is that what if the important and urgent things gets too much. Which one should you focus on first? Hey, they are all important and urgent isn’t it?

Do also note that things that are Important and not urgent would eventually move into Important but urgent. In that case, you will really get your hands tied up with alot of important and urgent stuff.

I always think that this only address the problems of managers who look at things on the strategic levels. When you are a small fry like i am, I have to think about the strategic stuff and worry about the small, time intensive things that i cannot delegate to others since i am the lowest of the lowest.

Why i find Getting Things Done better

GTD in a sense, is a god send. I used to think that GTD is all about creating Tasks and categories. That was before i read David Allen’s book and realise that it actually make a lot of practical sense compare to the 7 Habits.

Applying the living with it shows that its not the perfect system. Rather people spend alot of time creating the perfect GTD system. But hey, i think it gives quite alot of tools in the book to create your own system compare to the other book.

It makes sense to me because it explains strategic and day-to-day planning for an individual well.

The 6 Levels of Focus

The 6 perspectives illustrates planning at different levels and how it all adds up.

• The small Actions forms the goal to finish the Projects.
• The projects will eventually satisfy the Area of Responsibility
• Reaching the goals set for your area of responsibility will satisfy your Yearly Goals
• Which should be inline with your Life Goals or 5 Yearly Goals

As an illustration, I will not list out my Vision, Yearly Goals upwards but my Area of Responsibilities.

I don’t think i need to defined whether they are for work of personal since its pretty intuitive. These areas will eventually be your Big Project Buckets or Lists and you might get increase area of responsibility when

• you evaluate that you have new personal goals, and what is the big areas of responsibility that you need to achieve it. e.g. take good care of grandmother whose health is not in the best condition
• when your boss adds more assignments to you such that, you need special attention to it as it consumes much of your mental and physical resources e.g. handle the transition and knowledge transfer of Project B

My Work flow Process

Your work flow process will take care of how you execute the stuff that you get spammed with in life and how to make sense of it physically. Normally this would be where most people need the most help since people don’t normally think every day about what i want to achieve rather when would be a good time to do task A or task B or should i file or throw away this brochure.

The work flow process described treats every thing that comes along as a conveyor belt that gets rinse and repeated every time things comes along your way:

I am not gonna overload you by explaining my workflow but i will be explaining in the subsequent posts how all these will pan out. Having such a workflow looks complex but really it isn’t. Let me just say that without such workflow things that goes within your brain is even more complex than this diagram!

Conclusion

I realise the hard way that its not at all about coming up with the most fool proof plan. You learn along the way the flaws about your plan, about yourself and you improve upon it.

But i do realise that everyone is searching for the holy grail but perhaps there isn’t.Thats why i blog about this so that i hope people can contrast against the way i do things and refine or justify that what they do is better or worse than mine.

Next Up i will talk about Appigo ToDo, my current Life Planning Project Management software.

[Productive Organizer GTD Series Part 2:iPod Touch as an organizer]