Rather than the five steps of GTD, I see my system as just two steps: capture and organize. Ultimately, get more important things done in less time and with less stress! A rather ambitious goal, and the system is definitely not doing all of these things for me yet, but it’s a start.

not get overwhelmed by everything that needs to be done.

not overschedule my time / say no more often.

give me insight into how much I’ve already done.

keep me focused on important projects, but not forget everything else.

A lot of these ideas are based on Getting Things Done (if you haven’t read the book, see a short explanation by LifeHacker) with additional inspiration from podcasts, blog posts and conversations with others like Felienne and Noeska. Since the system is still evolving, I thought it would be helpful for myself to summarize it, as a way of figuring out where I might still need to tweak things.

I’ve talked about the planning system I’ve recently adopted in a few of my progress reports, but I realized there wasn’t a single place I could refer people to if I wanted to explain it to somebody.

Gtd evernote