Getting Things Done

🎯 The Book in 3 Sentences

💡 Key Takeaways

Capture All Tasks: Record every task in a trusted system to free your mind.
Clarify Commitments: Define next actions for clarity and accountability.
Weekly Review: Regularly refresh your system to stay organized and focused.
Context-Based Actions: Choose tasks based on context, time, energy, and priority.
Project Control: Break down projects into actionable steps for effective management.

✏ Top Quotes

It’s possible for **a person to have an overwhelming number of things to do and still function productively with a clear head and a positive sense of relaxed control.

A task left undone remains undone in two places—at the actual location of the task, and inside your head. Incomplete tasks in your head consume the energy of your attention as they gnaw at your conscience. **

📝 Summary + Notes

Part 1: The Art of Getting Things Done

Chapter 1 A New Practice for a New Reality

Anything you consider unfinished in any way must be captured in a trusted system outside your mind, a collection tool, that you know you’ll come back to regularly and sort through.
You must clarify exactly what your commitment is and decide what you have to do, if anything, to make progress toward fulfilling it.
Once you’ve decided on all the actions you need to take, you must keep reminders of them organized in a system you review regularly.
You must *use* your mind to get things *off* your mind.
There is no reason to ever have the same thought twice, unless you like having that thought.

Chapter 2 Getting Control of Your Life: The Five Steps of Mastering

**Step 1: Capture**
- In order for your mind to let go of the lower-level task of trying to hang on to everything, you have to know that you have truly captured everything that might represent something you have to do or at least decide about, and that at some point in the near future you will process and review all of it.
**Step 2: Clarify**
**Step 3: Organize**
- A project is any desired result that can be accomplished within a year that requires more than one action step.
- You don’t actually do a project; you can only do action steps related to it.
**Step 4: Reflect**
- The item you’ll probably review most frequently is your calendar, which will remind you about the “hard landscape” for the day—that is, what things truly have to be handled that day.
- All of your Projects, active project plans, and Next Actions, Agendas, Waiting For, and even Someday/Maybe lists should be reviewed once a week.
**Step 5: Engage**
- There are four criteria to decide which action to do, in this order: context, time available, energy available, and priority.

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Chapter 3 Getting Projects Creatively Under Way: The Five Phases of Project

The key ingredients of relaxed control are (1) clearly defined outcomes (projects) and the next actions required to move them toward closure, and (2) reminders placed in a trusted system that is reviewed regularly.
The 5 phases of a project:
- Phase 1 - Purpose: Ask why.
- Phase 2- Principles: Whereas purpose provides the juice and the direction, principles define the parameters of action and the criteria for excellence of conduct.
- Phase 3 - Vision/Outcome: Vision provides the actual blueprint of the final result. This is the what instead of the why.
- Phase 4 - Focus: Focus on a clear picture of what you want.
- Phase 5 - Outcomes

Part 2: Practicing Stress-Free Productivity

Chapter 4 Getting Started: Setting Up the Time, Space, and Tools

If your space is properly set up and streamlined, it can reduce your unconscious resistance to dealing with your stuff and even make it attractive for you to sit down and crank through your input and your work.
You’ll need a physical location to serve as a central cockpit of control.

Chapter 5 Capturing: Corralling Your “Stuff”

Collect all the physical things in your environment that need processing, and then all mental things.
If your head is empty of everything, personally and professionally, then your in-basket is probably quite full, and likely spilling over.

Chapter 6 Clarifying: Getting “In” to Empty

When you’ve finished processing “in,” you will have:
- Trashed what you don't need.
- Completed any less-than-two-minute actions.
- Handed off to others anything that can be delegated.
- Sorted in to your own organizing system reminders of actions that require more than two minutes.
- Identified any larger commitments (projects) you now have, based on the input.

Chapter 7 Organizing: Setting Up the Right Buckets

If you’ve emptied your in-basket, you’ll undoubtedly have created a stack of “Pending” reminders for yourself, representing longer- than-two-minute actions that cannot be delegated to someone else.
There are seven primary *types* of things that you'll want to keep track of and manage from an organizational perspective:
- A "Projects" list
- Project support material
- Calendared actions and information
- "Next Actions" lists
- A “Waiting For” list
- Reference material
- A "Someday/Maybe" list

Chapter 8 Reflecting: Keeping It All Fresh and Functional

Your most frequent review will probably be of your daily calendar.
The next frequent area for review will be the lists of all the actions you could possibly do in your current context.
Do a Weekly Review to get your head empty again.

Chapter 9 Engaging: Making the Best Action Choices

There are four criteria to decide which action to do, in this order: context, time available, energy available, and priority.
The 6 levels of work:
- Current actions
- Current projects
- Areas of responsibility
- One to two year goals
- Three to five year visions
- Life

Chapter 10 Getting Projects Under Control

Set up systems and tricks that get you to think about your projects and situations more frequently, more easily and in depth.

Part 3: The Power of the Key Principles

Chapter 11 The Power of the Capturing Habit

When people with whom you interact notice that without fail you receive, process, and organize in an airtight manner the exchanges and agreements they have with you, they begin to trust you in a unique way.

Chapter 12 The Power of the Next-Action Decision

It forces clarity, accountability, productivity, and empowerment.

Chapter 13 The Power of Outcome Focusing

Define clear outcomes and determine next actions for every task.
Prioritize clarity of purpose and desired outcomes in meetings and communication.

Chapter 14 GTD and Cognitive Science

Capture, clarify, and organize tasks for clarity and focus.
Build self-efficacy, optimism, resilience, and hope by setting clear goals and taking concrete actions.

Chapter 15 The Path of GTD Mastery

Capture everything, use next-action thinking, and maintain a current system.
Gradually expand your focus from daily tasks to long-term goals, achieving clarity and creativity.