Getting Things Done

The art of getting things done
1. A new practice for a new reality
  1. The problem: new demands, insufficient resources
    1. Work no longer has clear boundaries
    2. Our jobs keep changing
    3. The old models and habits are insufficient
    4. The big picture vs. the nitty-gritty
  2. The promise: the "ready state" of the martial artist
    1. The "mind like water" simile
    2. Can you get into your "productive state" when required?
  3. The principle: dealing effectively with internal commitments
    1. The basic requirements for managing commitments
    2. An important exercise to test this model
      1. Write every thought down, clean your mind
    3. The real work of knowledge work
    4. Why things are on your mind
    5. Your mind doesn't have a mind of its own
    6. The transformation of "stuff"
  4. The process: managing action
    1. Managing action is the prime challenge
    2. The value of a bottom-up approach
    3. Horizontal and vertical management
    4. The major change: getting it all out of your mind
2. Getting control of your life: the five stages of mastering workflow
  1. Collect
    1. Gathering 100 percent of the "incompletes"
    2. The collection tools
    3. The collection success factors
      1. Get it all out of your head
      2. Minimize the number of collection buckets
      3. Empty the buckets regularly
  2. Process
    1. What is it?
    2. Is it actionable?
      1. No action required
      2. It's trash, no longer needed
      3. No action is needed now, but something might need to be done later (incubate)
      4. The item is potentially useful information that might be needed for something later (reference)
      5. Actionable
      6. If it's about a project...
      7. What's the next action?
      8. Do it, delegate it, or defer it
  3. Organize
    1. Projects
    2. The next-action categories
      1. Calendar
      2. Time-specific actions
      3. Day-specific actions
      4. Day-specific information
      5. No more "daily to-to" lists
      6. The "next action" lists
      7. Nonactionable items
      8. Trash
      9. Incubation
      10. Someday/maybe
      11. Tickler file
      12. Reference material
  4. Review
    1. What to review when
      1. 1. Calendar first
      2. 2. Action lists
      3. 闲暇看review/reading list
    2. Critical success factor: the weekly review
  5. Do
    1. Three models for making action choices
      1. The four-criteria model for choosing actions in the moment
      2. Context (tools, locations)
      3. Time available
      4. Energy available
      5. Priority
      6. The threefold model for evaluating daily work
      7. Doing predefined work
      8. Doing work as it shows up
      9. Defining your work
      10. The six-level model for reviewing your own work
      11. 50,000 feet: life
      12. 40,000 feet: three- to five-year vision
      13. 30,000 feet: one- to two-year goals
      14. 20,000 feet: areas of responsibility
      15. 10,000 feet: current projects
      16. Runway: current actions
3. Getting projects creatively under way: the five phrases of project planning
  1. Enhancing "vertical focus
  2. The natural planning model
    1. A simple example: planning dinner out
    2. Natural planning is not necessarily normal
  3. The unnatrual planning model
    1. When the "good idea" is a bad idea
    2. Let's blame Mrs. Williams
  4. The reactive planning model
  5. Natural planning techniques: the five phrases
    1. Purpose
      1. The value of thinking about "why"
      2. It defines success
      3. It creates decision-making criteria
      4. It aligns resources
      5. It motivates
      6. It clarifies focus
      7. It expands options
      8. Subtopic 7
    2. Principles
    3. Vision/outcome
      1. The power of focus
      2. Clarifying outcomes
      3. View the project from beyond the completion date
      4. Envision "wild success"! (suspend "yeah, but..."
      5. Capture features, aspects, qualities you imagine in place
    4. Brainstorming
      1. Capture your ideas
      2. Distributed cognition
      3. Brainstorming keys
      4. Don't judge, challenge, evaluate, or criticize
      5. Go for quantity, not quality
      6. Put analysis and organization in the background
    5. Organizing
      1. The basic of organizing
    6. Next actions
      1. The basics
      2. Activating the "moving parts"
      3. More to plan?
      4. When the next action is someone else's...
    7. How much planning do you really need to do?
      1. No more clarity?
      2. Need more to be happening?
Practicing stress-free productivity
1. Getting started: setting up the time, space, and tools
  1. Implementation--whether all-out or casual--is a lot about "tricks"
  2. Setting aside the time
  3. Setting up the space
    1. If you go to an office, you'll still need a space at home
      1. An office space in transit
      2. Don't share space!
  4. Getting the tools you'll need
    1. The basic processing tools
    2. The critical factor of a filing system
      1. Success factors for filing
      2. Keep your general-reference files at hand's reach
      3. One alpha system
      4. Have lots of fresh folders
      5. Keep the drawer less than three-quarters full
      6. Label your file folders with an auto labeler
      7. Get high-quality mechanics
      8. Get rid of hanging files if you can
      9. But if you can't...
  5. One final thing to prepare...
    1. 马上开始做！坚持做！
  6. The least thing you should worry about. 大家都太重工具，轻执行
2. Collections: corralling your “stuff”
  1. Ready, set...
  2. ...Go!
    1. Physical gathering
      1. What stays where it is
      2. Supplies
      3. Reference materials
      4. Decoration
      5. Equipment
      6. Issue about collecting
      7. 太具体了
      8. Start with your desktop
      9. ...
    2. Mental gathering: the mind-sweep
      1. "Trigger" list
      2. "Incompletion triggers" list
      3. Professional
      4. Personal
  3. The "in" inventory
3. Processing: getting “in” to empty
  1. Processing guidelines
    1. Top item first
    2. One time at a time
    3. Nothing goes back into "in"
  2. The key processing question: "What's the next action?"
    1. What if there is no action?
      1. Trash
      2. Items to incubate
      3. Reference material
    2. What if there is an action... What is it?
      1. The action step needs to be the absolute next physical thing to do
    3. Once you decide what the action step is
      1. Do it
      2. Delegate it
      3. Tracking the handoff
      4. What is the ball is already in someone else's court?
      5. Defer it
    4. The pending things that are left
  3. Identifying the projects you have
    1. You need a projects list
4. Organizing: setting up the right buckets
  1. The basic categories
    1. The importance of hard edges
      1. 明确工具的功能，并坚持一段时间形成习惯
    2. All you really need is lists and folders
  2. Organizing action reminders
    1. The actions that go on your calendar
    2. Organizing as-soon-as-possible actions by context
    3. The most common categories of action reminders
      1. Calls
      2. At computer
      3. At office
      4. At home
      5. Agendas
      6. Read/Review
  3. Organizing "waiting for"
  4. Using the original item as its own action reminder
    1. Managing paper-based workflow
    2. Managing email-based workflow
    3. A caution about dispersing reminders of your actions
  5. Organizing project reminder
    1. The projects lists
      1. One list, or subdivided?
      2. Some comon ways to subsort projects
      3. Personal/professional
      4. Delegated projects
      5. Specific types of projects
      6. What about subprojects?
    2. Project support materials
      1. Don't use support material for reminding
      2. Organizing ad hoc project thinking
      3. Attached notes
      4. Email and databases
      5. Paper-based files
      6. Pages in notebooks
  6. Organizing nonactionable data
    1. The variety of reference system
      1. General-reference filing--paper and email
      2. Large-category filing
      3. Rolodexes and contact managers
      4. Libraries and archives
    2. Someday/maybes
      1. Someday/maybe list
      2. Make an inventory of your creative imaginings
      3. Reassess your current projects
      4. Special categories of "somday/maybe"
      5. Food, books to read, gift ideas...
      6. The danger of "hold and review" file and piles
      7. Using the calendar for future options
      8. Triggers for activating projects
      9. Events you might want to participate in
      10. decision catalysts
      11. The "tickler" file
    3. Checklists: creative reminders
      1. First, clarify inherent projects and actions
      2. Blueprinting key areas of work and responsibility
      3. Checklists at all levels
5. Reviewing: keeping your system functional
  1. What to look at, when
    1. Look at your calendar first
    2. ...Then your action lists
    3. The right review in the right context
  2. Updating your system
    1. The power of the weekly review
      1. What is the weekly review?
      2. Loose papers
      3. Process your notes
      4. Previous calendar data
      5. Upcoming calendar
      6. Empty your head
      7. Review projects lists
      8. Review next-actions lists
      9. Review waiting for list
      10. Review any relevant checklists
      11. Review someday/maybe list
      12. Review pending and support files
      13. Be creative and courageous
      14. The right time and place for the review
  3. The bigger picture review
6. Doing: making the best action choices
  1. The four-criteria model for choosing actions in the moment
    1. Context
    2. Time available
    3. Energy available
    4. Priority
  2. The threefold model for evaluating daily work
    1. Doing predefined work
    2. Doing work as it shows up
    3. Defining your work
  3. The six-level model for reviewing your own work
    1. 50,000 feet: life
    2. 40,000 feet: three- to five-year vision
    3. 30,000 feet: one- to two-year goals
    4. 20,000 feet: areas of responsibility
    5. 10,000 feet: current projects
    6. Runway: current actions
  4. Getting priority thinking off your mind
7. Getting projects under control
  1. The need formore informal planning
  2. Which projects should you be planning?
    1. Projects that need next actions about planning
      1. Typical planning steps
      2. Brainstorming
      3. Organizing
      4. Setting up meeting
      5. Gathering information
      6. Random project thinking
  3. Tools and structure that support project thinking
    1. Thingking tools
    2. writing instruments
    3. The support structures
  4. How do I apply all this in my world?
The power of the key principles
1. The power of the collection habit
  1. The personal benefit
    1. The source of the negative feelings
    2. How do you prevent broken agreements with yourself?
      1. Don't make the agreement
      2. Complete the agreement
      3. Renegotiate the agreement
    3. The radical departure from traditional time management
    4. How much collection is required?
  2. When relationships and organizations have the collection habit
2. The power of the next-action decision
  1. The source of the technique
  2. Creating the option of doing
  3. Why bright people procrastinate the most
    1. Intelligent dumbing down
  4. The value of a next-action decision-making standard
    1. Clarity
    2. Accountability
    3. Productivity
    4. Empowerment
3. The power of outcome focusing
  1. Focus and the fast track
  2. The significance of applied outcome thinking
  3. The magic of mastering the mundane
  4. Multilevel outcome management
  5. The power of natural planning
  6. Shifting to a positive organization culture
4. Conclusion