Summary: Here’s a short review of the GTD process to help you unproductive sons of bitches become efficiency machines.

Body: I just finished reading “Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity” by David Allen and found the ideas extremely valuable. I won’t get into the details because the workflow is a little complicated and takes some time to implement, but I highly encourage you to read the book if you are interested in increasing your productivity which I assume most here are. Here’s a couple keys points:

Key Principle #1: Put all ideas of things you want to do in one place.

Explanation: Let’s say you’re pumpin’ iron and you suddenly realize “oh shit, I’m outta protein powder”. From this point on, your unconscious psyche will continuously remind you of this fact until you get your ass to the store and buy some.

This is an example of an “open loop”. Open loops are anything from new project ideas to dreams of becoming a rock star to texting that sexy babe you met last night. You need to put all this shit in one place to clear your psyche and close all those open loops. The author calls this place “In”. What “In” is depends on you but can simply be a list you have with you at all times so you can easily transfer important thoughts into a physical place. This has a remarkable calming effect similar to the feeling you have after cleaning your living space.

For this technique to be effective you have to put everything in “In” or else you won’t trust the system.

Ok, so you got everything you want to do in one place. What’s next?

Key Principle #2: Process those things as either someday/maybes or next actions.

Explanation: Once you have everything in In, confident you’ve closed all the open loops, it’s time to process each item. What does this mean exactly? Well, it depends. It essentially comes down to whether the item is actionable or not. Can you do something about it? Is it a priority? Or something you might be interested in later on? For example, maybe you want to learn to sail but you’re currently living far from the ocean. That’s probably not something actionable right now, so you put it on your someday/maybe list. On the other hand, let’s say you heard a cross fit gym just opened up near your place and you wanna check it out. In that case you put it on your next actions list.

Delineating between someday/maybes and next actions may seem trivial, but it really helps you focus on what’s important in your life now. What are the things that you can actually take action on?

One final note on the next actions list: It’s crucial to distill the idea into a next action. “Get good with girls” is not a good next action because it is not actionable. How do you get good with girls? You probably need to practice interacting with them. How will you do that? Go to a place with girls. So a more appropriate next action might be “Head to the bar with my bros friday night and talk to some bitches”.

Processing In should happen during a weekly review when you have a couple hours of quiet, uninterrupted time. Remember process does not mean doing, just organizing each idea into the appropriate list.

Conclusion: Again, I’ve left out a lot of details from the book, but the main idea is to get everything out of your psyche, and deciding which of those can be done now (next actions) or in the future (someday/maybe). You focus your energy by completing the next actions, and reviewing the someday/maybes periodically to turn those ideas into current projects (which is simply a collection of next actions).

I now give you permission to go forth and grab life by the balls.

Edit: /u/TurboApe provided a more in depth guide for people who don't want to read the book: GTD in 15 minutes – A Pragmatic Guide to Getting Things Done