Transfer To-Do Items Right Away

By Matt:

One sure fire method to ensure you completely fail at GTD is this: After capturing action items, procrastinate on transferring them to your master to-do list.

How many times have you sat in a meeting and written down a whole mess of tasks, but then you get back to your desk and have misplaced that piece of paper you had captured everything on? Before long, you'll forget everything and that's about when you start dropping balls right and left.

Habitual Transfer
Productivity is about consistency and the diligence to manage yourself the same way, day after day. This means you need to create some good habits for yourself, one of which is the diligent transfer of action items to your master to-do list.

You probably record action items using any number of capture devices - a Moleskine journal, a text document on your computer, or a message sent from your phone using Jott. But ultimately, these items need to end up on your master to-do list. And so the crux of this entire post is to encourage this all important habit:

Transfer your action items to your master to-do list as soon as possible.

What this means is, when you get back to your desk from that meeting, avoid the temptation to check your email first - you'll get distracted. Don't start making phone calls, and don't continue working on the sales analysis document. Spend just three minutes transferring your new action items, and save yourself countless hours of lost productivity in the long run.

It sounds simple in theory, but it's a tough discipline to train yourself on - it is for me anyway. Test yourself this week. Can you spend a couple minutes adding items to your to-do list every time you sit down at your desk? Let us know how it goes starting today!

Action Oriented: Create Meaningful To-Do Items

By Matt:

A great stumbling block for many GTD-ers lies in a disconnect between how they construct their to-do list items and the true "next actions" that need to be accomplished. I have to remind myself everyday as I add items to my to-do list that I need to think "action oriented". When your to-do items are not action oriented they don't lead you to accomplish anything, and more often than not they sit there for weeks on end as you wonder why nothing is getting done.

Being action oriented requires us to use certain verbs, and construct our to-do lists in a way that clearly defines WHAT needs to happen next:

BAD: This Item Is NOT Action Oriented:
Think about ways to increase sales

GOOD: This Item IS Action Oriented:
Create a list of 5 new sales strategies

The difference in the example above is that there is a clear outcome to "creating a list of five strategies", whereas "thinking about new strategies" will have you staring blankly into your cube wall for the better half of a day. A good to-do item will lead you to accomplishing the end goal by giving you a framework to work within.

Structure Of A To-Do Item-
Any given to-do item will read about the same way:

• First it needs to include a verb - the "action" that needs to be accomplished.
• Second, it needs a measurement - generally in the form of a number or a dollar amount.
• And finally it needs a noun - the object of your goal.

A good to-do item is all about the verb, and it can't be chosen haphazardly. Write it poorly, and you may as well forget about ever getting that item done. I make a habit of using a small handful of action verbs in all of my to-do items... verbs that I can easily attach a measurement and a noun to. By keeping the list small I'm able to increase efficiency because I don't spend a ton of time trying to word my to-do items.

These words may not capture all the actions that are specific to your job, but should give you a starting point in "verbing" your to-do items.

Action Oriented Words:
Call
Create
Design
Draft
Email
Find
Label
List
Pitch
Proof
Publish
Purchase
Respond
Schedule
Write

More than anything I try to avoid what I call "empty verbs"... words that are technically verbs but leave you a little mystified as to what defines accomplishment. This isn't an exhaustive list, but I find it hard to create actionable to-do items out of words like this...

Empty Verbs:
Brainstorm
Look
Plan
Prepare
Review
Simplify
Think

You can "think" about your account presentation all day... you can "review" your monthly sales report until you're blue in the face, but what are you really getting done? Answer THAT and you're on your way to writing a to-do item that makes sense.

Merlin Mann, founder of 43 Folders, has some even more in depth analysis on building smarter to-do lists that serves as an excellent resource for writing "next actions". And finally, take some additional time this week during your weekly review session to look closely at your existing to-do items. Ask yourself, are these Action Oriented? If not, re-write them using some of the verbs listed above as a starting point.

Meta-Productivity

By Jon:

The productivity gurus over at lifehack.org have assembled a list of 50 items to help you be more productive. That sounds pretty daunting, and well, it is. However, it's a pretty exhaustive list that details the high points from most productivity experts, including GTD, 4-Hour Workweek, Merlin Mann/43 Folders, 7 Habits, and on and on from there.

Lifehack's 50 Tricks to GTD More Productively