One of the most important aspects of being productive (perhaps the most important?) is the process of gathering, organising and planning all the "things" you need to do. This process is the building block of any productive system and ensures you have a solid ground to start your productive lifestyle. It ensures you have:-

  1. Collected all the tasks you have to do (Collect)
  2. Decided what you are going to do with them (Process)
  3. Put them all into a place you trust (Organise)
  4. Start to work through them (Do)
  5. Review this process again (Review)

Collect – Identify Everything On Your Mind and Get It Out of Your Head

Gather all the "things" that need to be done (thoughts, tasks, emails, letters, appointments, projects, phone calls, etc.) into one place ready to be processed. This task in itself may be overwhelming, but once completed you will already feel a huge weight off your shoulders. I find it best to use a notepad (paper or computer) to make a note of all the things that immediately come to mind or are in the form of emails, or documents laying around my office or home ready to be actioned. If the item is a physical object (a bill for example) put in an "Inbox" to process later.

Don’t worry if you don’t collect everything at this first attempt… once you have a process up and running you will be able to collect all your things as they come in, quickly and easily, this taking the responsibility away from your mind and into your system straight away. It’s such a relief to spend such a short amount of timing thinking about what needs to be done and when because it’s out of your head and into your system.

Process – Decide What To Do With It All

Once you have all your inputs in one place ready to sort out, you need to decide what to do with them. You need to go through each item and decide what to do with them next. Note: this is not actually doing them at this point, you are only going to decide what to do with them later. Unless it can be done in less than 2 minutes, in which case you can deal with it at this time.

Organize – Put All Your Tasks in Appropriate Places You Trust and Use Often

Once you know what to do with your tasks you need to put them into a system you use for managing your tasks. I do not believe there is one system for everything, so you need a collection of tools to help out here. Put your appointments into a calendar, your tasks into a task management system, perhaps a project management system for your major projects (this could be your task manager, or your project manager may be your task manager, depends on your processes and systems you choose), put reference material into a reference folder (not a sticky not on the monitor! File it gone!).

This the point you should feel an immense weight off your shoulder. You will have an empty email inbox, no desktop notes lying around or stuck to the monitor, a clutter free desk and empty desktop inbox and more importantly a free mind! No need to remember your tasks anymore, they are safely within your system for reference when you need them.

Do – Work Through The Tasks That Can Be Done Now

Once everything is in it’s proper place, can you do any of it now? Take a look at your list and see what will take you less than 2 minutes to do. Do them right now, or at least as many as you can in the time you have. Once you do them, check them off your list. Hey, that’s another great feeling of satisfaction. You have started to chip away at everything you need to do.

Review

Go through your list often to review your tasks. I tend to do this once per week, every Friday. At this stage you should work on your strategy for undertaking these tasks, and improving your system and organisation. This may include prioritisation, planning, delegating, deciding what to do next. It all depends on your own process and systems.

Repeat

Tasks are a continuous input into my daily life, so once you are familiar with the above process you should be following it on a daily or even more frequent basis. You can either file tasks away somewhere to undertake the above process daily or weekly, or work through the above steps as each task comes in. I tend to mix and match depending on my workload and how busy I am. The important thing is not when or how you do it, but to be sure you do it, regularly. Following the above GTD process will ensure you stay organised and efficient and never worry about remembering your tasks every again.

The following links were helpful in this guide and may help you understand it further. I highly recommend you do read them because the more you do, the more you understand.

David Allens Getting Things Done

To get a very detailed explanation of all this I highly recommend reading David Allen’s book, Getting Things Done.