Basic GTD Principles for Beginners

Hi, my name is Yulia and I am the head of the testing department. When interacting with people, I often see that technically competent specialists do not always cope with the continuous flow of tasks that come their way. Once, my colleague and I even prepared a short presentation for our department dedicated to the basics of time management.

In my opinion, the point is not in choosing a specific method. There is a lot of talk about different approaches. But if you delve too deeply into details at the initial stage, no method will take root. In order for an approach to work, it is usually convenient to make your own interpretation of the general rules, aimed at the features and specifics of your work. It is also important to understand that you will need to spend time adapting to a new activity and to its regular use.

With this article I will try to slightly lower the threshold for entry into one of the most useful (for me) methods – Getting Things Done. I will offer my own variation, which is easy to start using today. Without additional explanations, the system will be understandable only to those who use it. But it will allow you to quickly unload your head, without delving into the details set out in a rather voluminous book by David Allen.

Getting Things Done is great for those who are overwhelmed by a lot of things that they can't forget about. Interestingly, I started using something like this before I read about the details of the method.

In my opinion, the original book about GTD is written so poorly and complicatedly that it discourages any desire to implement something similar into my life. Perhaps, if I had first read the book and only then tried to get some results with its help, I would never have applied it in real life. But my approach developed evolutionarily. From one single to-do list, I gradually distributed the items among different entities, in accordance with the logic of their processing. And as it turned out, if you simplify and adapt GTD, it is much easier to implement it.

But let me get to the point.

GTD is a method for working with to-do lists that require you to take action, make decisions, or wait. It does not set any time frames – this is often criticized for it, because without time-bound meetings and calls you can't get anywhere. To get around this problem, I easily integrated a calendar into my implementation (I'll tell you how a little later). I use it only where there is no other way.

The first point that David Allen suggests following is to write down everything you can, except perhaps tasks that take no more than 2 minutes to complete. It is easier to do such tasks right away than to deal with their processing later.

I agree 100% that everything needs to be recorded. However, using a diary for this is not very convenient, I use a kanban board in the Notion system (Task List).

After writing down all the tasks, the original GTD suggests working on each item on the list.

A “task” in GTD terms is not a typical thing. Some things you can do in 15 minutes (I personally have tons of those), others require a long slot in the schedule, free from other irritants. And classic GTD prescribes dividing large tasks whenever possible – pulling out small ones from them and putting the next necessary action in the plan.

Let's say you need to write an article. Let's create a big task “write an article”. But before you start, you should choose a topic, a main idea, a plan for text blocks. As a result, the “write an article” card will lead to the birth of the “choose a topic” card. In this case, the article writing card itself can even be deleted, because the work has already begun. When the topic appears, we will delete this card, immediately creating a new “write an article plan”. And so on… If the points are independent and can be done in parallel with each other, then several cards may appear at a certain step.

It turns out that a large, challenging task turns into a more atomic one – it is much easier to tackle, and more enjoyable to do.

With this approach we:

• we simplify a complex, long task into a simpler, more achievable one;

• we remain agile in choosing the next steps, we do not plan much ahead (the situation changes regularly; we can return to searching for a topic if the one we have chosen suddenly becomes irrelevant or we do not like it upon closer examination);

• getting rid of the excess.

Decomposition is a difficult and labor-intensive task, especially when you are not used to it. Therefore, I suggest writing it down “as is”, without going into details. This saves a lot of energy at the start. Later, when you get to a big task, you need to spend time on decomposition. But this method is convenient because you go through the list when you can afford to allocate this time. There may not be time for decomposition right away, as in my case.

The key element of the methodology is the lists of these tasks.

I divide tasks into lists according to how many times over a period of time they need to be addressed (and how to interact with them in general):

• Main list or In progress – these are the tasks I work with during the day. I work with this list all day and add there everything that requires my personal labor costs – from carefully reading the selected task or documentation to checking test tasks of QA candidates or reviewing a new batch of automated tests. The peculiarity of the list is that I do not have a goal to close it by the end of the day.
  It is important to throw everything you usually keep in mind into this list so that you can focus on the current task and switch off less. It is equally important to go through this list many times a day, so anything that is not needed, waiting for something, is fixed for the future in the calendar or is a large educational task, is quickly removed from it and transferred to other lists, which are reviewed much less often.
  When this list ends, there is time to look at the backlog (we will talk about it later), the list of expectations, large tasks for decomposition, etc.

• Things to do on hold – this is where the cases that are waiting for someone's actions or decisions are placed. Let's say a decision was made to buy a TMS – a test management system for maintaining test documentation. All the research has already been done, the choice has been made, the decision has been made, but it remains to make the payment. But this is done by another department. You have already done everything you could and nothing depends on you.
  The main task of this list is to take such “waiting” tasks out of the main list so that they do not become an eyesore, but also do not disappear from the field of vision. As a rule, it is enough to refer to this column 2-3 times a day. And if everything is ready, then this will lead to the appearance of the following items for work already in the main list

• Backlog – all tasks that do not require completion right now go here. They can be done sometime when free time appears. This list does not require checking during the day at all, it can be reviewed once a week or less often. I refer to this list if tasks are mostly running out. When sending a task here, I understand that its completion may be delayed. If the task does have a deadline, then I indicate it in the title. I do not spend much time sorting the list, but if it suddenly appears, you can move the highest priority tasks or those that you want to do earlier to the top of the list.

• Calendar – meetings and events tied to a specific time are entered into it. I check the calendar in the morning, planning my day. Some people find it more convenient to look at it the day before.

• Educational tasks – I put everything related to learning or expanding my work horizons in this list. It makes sense to place such tasks in the backlog, but they are usually very large-scale. For example, a series of lectures can take several months to watch. With such initial data, you will never take it from the backlog. And even if you do, it will constantly be an eyesore in the main list. To prevent this from happening, I simply put all articles and books for future reading, as well as interesting conference notes and lectures, separately. As soon as I have free time, I choose something from this list, depending on the available slot (15 minutes for an article, an hour for a meetup or a conference report). Often, such tasks not related to work take up personal time. But for me, self-education is a fairly important topic, I believe that it is imperative to allocate time for this.

• List of ready-made solutions – these are already completed tasks that for some reason you want to save for the future. For example, the task description may contain valuable information that you will have to return to in the future. If the task is not valuable enough to be included in this list, it is deleted after completion.

Every day I work with the main list. If I don’t complete all the items listed in it during the day, I return to it the next day. I periodically review the other lists and, if necessary, move things between them. Let’s say a task comes to me (and settles in the main list), and then I wait for approval from a colleague (and move it to the “waiting” list). As soon as I receive approval, the task goes back to the main list and when time appears, I start working on it.

The basic principles listed above are enough for me to keep the department management tasks in check. As you can see, it didn't take a multi-page treatise to lay them out.

And, by the way, I use this method not only for work tasks. Personal matters can be included in the calendar if they are strictly tied to the time at the end of the work day. In this case, I need to see what time I should leave work to get everything done. For other personal matters, I have the same system, only the lists there are several times shorter. I deliberately do not mix it with work notes, so as not to upset the balance of work and personal life.

Finally, I will note that any method must be introduced into your life carefully. By nature, we do not like to change the established order of things. Therefore, in order to really motivate yourself to change, you need to start with something simple, get an obvious, albeit small, benefit, and only then expand and complicate. And if you immediately start from the complex end, no method will cope with the chaos.

I hope my variation of GTD will be useful to someone.