Luke Carbis

As you may have noticed from earlier blog posts, I love GTD, and use Google Notebook as my GTD base. I use this to work, and achieve my short and long term goals. But first, you may be asking, 'What is GTD?'.

GTD^® is the popular shorthand for "Getting Things Done^®", the groundbreaking work-life management system and book by David Allen that transforms personal overwhelm and overload into an integrated system of stress-free productivity.

GTD is about working SMARTER. It's actually really simple, and probably comes naturally to a lot of people. So here are some easy to follow instructions on how to make your life a whole lot easier with Google Notebook, on the jump. 1. Set up Google Notebook! Register for a Google Notebook account first. Once you have it, you need to set up 5 Notebooks.

• Inbox
• Next
• Waiting
• Someday
• Reference

2. Install the Google Notebook firefox extension. If you don't use Firefox, use it. Then install the Google Notebook Firefox Extension. Use this extension to quickly take notes while surfing the net, note url's, or strings of selected text on a page. Most of the information passed through the notebook extension will go to the inbox. 3. Make Notes! Any time that you have an immediate or sudden thought, like 'Oh! I need to do the washing!' or 'I need to finish that report!', or you are given a new task, put it straight into the Inbox. This may be a URL you want to visit, something as simple as doing the washing, or something like writing a report. It is VERY important that you get into the habit of putting all your 'I need to get on to that' thoughts into your Inbox. 4. Plan your day At the start of the day or your session of work, the first thing to do is to go through your Inbox and consider this question for each and every item in it: "Should I DO, DELEGATE, or DEFER this item?" If your answer is Do, this means you have decided to deal with the item. Move the item from your Inbox into Next. If your answer is Delegate, this means you have decided to get someone else to do the item, or you need something else to happen before you can. Move the item from your Inbox into Waiting. If your answer is Defer, this means you don't want to deal with it at all, move it from your Inbox into Someday. Once you have gone through each of the items in your Inbox, you should have nothing left. You should never leave anything in there. The next step is to go through your Waiting notebook, to see if any of the items in it are ready to be dealt with. If so, ask the question 'Do, Delegate, Defer' again, and move to the appropriate places. The last step is to go through your Someday notebook. If there's anything in it which you would like to do today, throw it across into Next. 5. Do it! Now you have a list of things to do today in Next. You may wish to reorder it, and do them in order, or you may wish to just pick at things from the list. Generally speaking, I find it best to reorder the list, with the things that I really don't want to do at the top, and the things I'm looking forward to doing at the bottom. Attacking it in this manner means that you get all the yucky stuff done and out of the way at the start of the day, and can breeze through the rest. So I hope that helps relieve a little stress for everyone. There are always ways to improve this system, and to personalise it for your needs, for example, adding headings in the notebook like 'Work' and 'Home'. Try it out, and let me know what you think. I'd be interested to know any tweaks to this system that you have developed!

1. Mandy Says:
   May 29th, 2007 at 11:44 am

   Oooh, it sounds all scary and organised.
   *shudders*

2. Michael Says:
   June 6th, 2007 at 9:23 pm

   Google Notes rules!

   The email part is way too much IMO. You’re turning into Wallace, you know that don’t you.

Leave a Comment...