Hello, fellow task cruncher! Ever felt overwhelmed by your to-do list and unsure of where to start? If you've been there, just like me, you're in the right place.
Have you found yourself missing an important deadline or deliverable because it got crowded out by today’s noise? I use the Getting Things Done methodology – a structured way of managing a pipeline of tasks - along with a few technical tools, and they’ve positively changed my game.
About me: I’ve been running big projects for the last decade or so – and many of those projects have been responsible for delivering life and limb services… my most recent projects have been £30m-50m, and one of my services carries almost a billion minutes of telecoms traffic every year. Those programmes bring with them a huge amount of moving parts - I’ve implemented a simple system that allows me to keep track of those, and all the other things I need to track on a day-to-day basis, which I’d like to share with you.
I’ve run about 50+ big (50k+ corporate users, 1m+ end users) projects and change programmes, and I don’t really have any purist methodological home – I’ll look at the task in hand, and work out if it suits Prince2, Scaled Agile (SAFe), Scrum, Managing Successful Programmes (MSP), or a generic kanban. When I have a programme consisting of lots of projects (my last big programme had 28 projects running at one point!), I tend to adopt MSP and focus on timely interventions. I could (and probably will) write an entire post on approach selection, but here I’m just scene setting… I run big projects, I’ve done it for a long time, they’ve all come in pretty much on time, on spec and on budget, and they’ve always had good reviews when externally audited.
I also have ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), combined type, which gives me some challenges when it comes to planning and scheduling, and forced me to develop effective ways to “outsource” my planning to a trusty sidekick. It started out in about 2004, when I bought my HP iPAQ, which got replaced by my HTC Kaiser, followed by an HTC Touch Pro 2, too many Blackberries, then a bunch of iPhones… yeah, I’ve always seen tech as the solution to the problem!
Today, I want to share with you how I've been conquering my list of daily tasks, managing projects, and running my business smoothly using the super-powered approach of the Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology, a culmination of years of trial and error, the result of which allows me to keep track of my work life, home life, and everything else I need to keep track of. Let me be clear, the GTD framework isn’t trying to replace any project methodology… it doesn’t do product breakdown structures, plans, financial models, RAIDs. I use it as a tool to help me to manage the range of tasks I need to do on a day to month to year basis, some project / programme / portfolio related, some not.
[Disclosure: Links marked with an asterisk below are Amazon affiliate links, so if you buy something from the list, we may get a small commission. We only endorse things that we personally use and highly recommend]
If you want to learn more about the GTD Methodology, David Allen's book can be found here on Amazon[*].
So what?
About 7-8 years ago, I totally got project management wrong. I fell into the “do it myself” trap, I forgot the “trust but verify” principal, and I forgot to keep track of my own workload. I tried to turn up to work daily and firefight my way through the day, and on Sunday nights, I’d dread going to work in the morning. I’d arrive, not really knowing what was ahead, and I ended up overwhelmed trying to solve symptoms of project issues, without dealing with the root causes. (RW’s Project 101: solving 1 root cause is worth solving 100 symptoms. Look for root causes.). I burnt out and ended up taking 2 weeks out on annual leave to try to hide from it. Honestly – I was a wreck. The problem I had was I stopped paying attention to the frameworks that stop the snowball, and I learned my lesson the hard way. It took me a month or two to get back on track, and I still shudder to think of the stress I’d been under during that time.
The GTD framework, developed by David Allen, provides a structured approach to streamlining daily activities, and getting control over work, life, and everything that comes with it, by helping to structure tasks, projects, and responsibilities. It was my way back out.
There are only 5 steps – Capture (Collect), Clarify (Process), Organise, Reflect (Plan), Engage (Do).
Capturing the Chaos:
You know those moments when your mind feels like a bustling marketplace of ideas and tasks? That’s my every day. Whilst I love the random connections that my ADHD gives to me, and I love being able to see patterns in data that aren’t immediately obvious, and I love the creativity that it brings, there’s a payback, which is that it carries on, even when I want to stop.
Now I adore the Chaos, most of the time. Chaos is what makes me run towards projects that are in trouble. I’m attracted to Chaos. My love of Chaos is what led to me being deployed - for best part of a decade - as a project and programme fixer.
Chaos, while challenging, prompts me to confront troubled projects head-on, and keeps my attention. It's an opportunity to experiment, learn, and improve. However, unchecked chaos can also be damaging.
Rather than try to tune out the Chaos, I’ve made GTD and Microsoft To Do my trusty companion (a recent change: until a few months ago, I was using Todoist, which is broadly equivalent). Every task, every idea, every "aha!" moment – they all find a home in To Do. The magic is in the simplicity. The moment something pops into my head, it's captured in the app.
“Hey Siri, add a task in Todoist” (“Hey Siri, add task” for To Do) is a phrase I mutter to my apple watch, or one of my homepods, or my iPhone probably 30-50 times per day. “Call Dave”, “Book the car MOT”, “build a Python script to sort these image qualities”, “Check whether the project report came in”, “Find out if they’ve mitigated that risk about pancil cases”, “ask the Microsoft guy if he’ll build a feature in Outlook that displays sentiment and reading time, to catch my unguarded emails”, etc. It all goes on the list, raw, unfiltered, and a lot of it is total nonsense.
But the benefit is that it reduces mental clutter and improves my focus.
The Capture stage is designed to catch open loops. For instance, if I'm juggling the thought of buying bananas for banana bread, it occupies precious brain space. These open loops, where my mind continuously waits for next steps, aren't what our brains are meant for, especially mine. Anything that requires remembering belongs in To Do. If I'm swamped, I jot a quick note on a post-it or instruct Siri to "Remind me in 5 minutes about XYZ." Come day's end, I consolidate these tasks in To Do. The Microsoft Suite is well integrated, such as flagging emails in Outlook, which appear in To Do's "Flagged emails" section. Actions from meetings also find their place in To Do.
There’s one exception – the fearful Do Now list, and that lives in the Clarifying (Processing) stage of GTD. The takeaway so far… if a thing needs doing, it goes on a holding list. GTD calls this the “Inbox”.
Morning Fuel and Task Check-In:
Picture this: a cup of coffee, a hearty breakfast (or more often than not, a Huel shake), and a quick scan through my Todo backlog – that's my morning ritual. During this sacred time, I spot the urgent tasks and promptly move them to the 'Today' list. It's a fantastic way to set the tone for the day and ensure that I'm focused on what truly matters.
I’ve got a couple of jobs to do during this time, and it usually takes me 5-10 mins to process. (There’s a minor detail that I’m going to skip over – I also work in an environment that doesn’t allow calendar sharing etc, so I do actually do this process twice, once on my personal equipment, and again on my corporate equipment.)
Look at the Calendar:
Did I miss anything yesterday? If so, does it need rescheduling? Sometimes, life gets in the way of plans. What do I have on today? Where are my gaps? Is there anything in the 7 days look ahead that I need to be thinking about?
Look at the Inbox and Email follow-up list:
Are there any really important tasks in there that I need to do today? If so, click “add to my day”.
Are the other tasks well defined – do I know what needs doing, by when? The worst offenders for me are emails… did I flag it because I need to check for a response by a date? Or did I flag it because I need to follow up? I’m trying to get into the habit of setting those tasks immediately when I hit flag.
If so, move them to an appropriate folder - I have four permanent lists: Home, Work, Waiting for, and Maybe Someday. I add temporary lists for complex, multistep, projects.
If not, then try to clarify what I’ve asked myself to do (set a due date, add an explanatory 1 liner), or delete the task.
If I get the inbox to zero, great, but if not, that’s no big issue.
I think it’s important to have this morning ritual. It means that I’m starting the day on a positive, clear note, and I know what’s needed, even if that has to change.
Organise - a weekly reflection:
Once a week, usually last thing on a Friday, or first thing on a Monday, I do my grand sounding “GTD Review”. It’s a pause for breath.
I clear my desk, and make sure there’s no post-its lying around. I look through my Apple Reminders, to make sure there’s nothing hanging around in there. I look at anything unprocessed in my inbox or flagged emails list.
If there’s any quick tasks (“Hey, just following up for a response on this mail”), then I’ll do it. By this point, my “backlog” is entirely in To Do.
I read through my Waiting For list, and drop out email reminders or add them to my “call list” for Monday. Every few months I’ll take another look at my “maybe someday” list, to see if there’s anything I want to get back off of there.
I have a look at calendar items past and upcoming, and make sure I’m clear what’s happening around me.
For each of my big projects, I look for the next action. That might be – update the plan, update the financial model, get updates on tasks from delivery team. I use a judgement call whether to put tasks from individual Project Plan into my To Do, sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t, the decider is whether a) someone or something is already scheduling it, or b) whether it’s something I can actually action. If its not actionable, or if someone else is scheduling it, then I just ignore it.
The next step is a bit gnarly, its prioritising. The logic is easy, being consistent with it, is super hard. Flip through each task folder (Home, Work, Waiting For, Maybe/Someday, and others), go through each line, categorise each task in to a type, and take the following actions. (For scale: my current list is 42 tasks).
The Do it now / soon type:
Misleading headline alert. If something takes less than a minute or two (find an address, ring Colin and see if he’s sent that email, check if my accountant has replied), then I just do it.
Other things in this list are: making coffee, answering the door, shredding a thing. You get the point. I’ve got myself in a real pickle on more than one occasion when it turns out I have 100x 2-minute jobs, and I burn a whole bunch of time. I always part-regret it – on the one hand, I broke the plan. On the other hand, I got 100 tasks done.
If a task takes more than 2 minutes, but is urgent and important, or is a next action (something I need to do today, something I need to do soon), then I flag it as “Important”. I have 30 min chunks set aside through the day to pick these tasks up and can usually get 3-5 “Important” items cleared in that time.
The Schedule it types:
I need to create a report. I need to make an appointment. I need to schedule a 2-pint problem solving session.
These tasks are the ones I put placeholders in my diary for. Microsoft Viva Focus time does a brilliant job of putting in placeholders through my diary for this type of task. If it’s a task to do anytime that day (say Happy Birthday to Sam), I make it an all-day event. If it’s a specific time, it’s a calendar event. You get the picture.
The Delegate it types:
These are tasks I don’t need to do. I can get a machine to do it. I can get a team member to do it. These are generally tasks either I’m not good at, or someone’s better placed to do it, or whatever.
I’ll generally copy and paste the task title into an email, send it to the best person, and mark the sent email for follow-up in a day or two. Once the person accepts, I set a new flag to follow-up at some point before their delivery date.
The Delete it type:
These are tasks that, on reflection, just aren’t worth doing. These tasks either get deleted, or marked as “maybe someday” and get kicked down the road by a few months.
The weekly check-in – my golden ticket to keeping tasks in check and priorities aligned. With this practice, I wave goodbye to old tasks that have lost their relevance and cherry-pick the most important ones to tackle next week. It's like fine-tuning my productivity engine and helps me to keep a focus on the bigger picture; paradoxically, the structure means that I have more flex to go off-plan, because the structure brings me back on-plan easily.
The "Do" Date Dilemma:
Let’s talk about the crux of task scheduling – the elusive "Do" date. Microsoft Todo and Todoist both come close, but here's the issue: there's no built-in way to estimate task durations and set reminders leading up to the "Due" date. So, I do a bit of manual calculation, add a buffer, and create tasks with a "Do" date. I might be presenting some new architecture, or overseeing the implementation of a big Change Record, and the important dates aren’t really the presentation or implementation dates, it’s the effort to prep for it. My MOT might be Due in November, but I’ll Do the booking in September, then Schedule the drop off and pickup once I know the times (or time windows).
ADHD and Me:
Before we wrap up, let's chat about ADHD. I'm sharing my journey not just because it's worked wonders for me, but also because it might resonate with others who are navigating the same waters.
ADHD for me isn't about attention deficit, in fact I have a massive amount of attention to give, its just that my brain focusses in on particular things to the detriment of others, destroying my sense of time, and forcing me to rely on external tools to fill in the gaps.
The GTD methodology, combined with these tweaks and tools, has been a game-changer in managing my ADHD symptoms and boosting my productivity. I feel the feeling of overwhelm less often when I know there’s a plan behind me, and I find it easier to communicate my intentions to others when I can show them the bigger picture that I have in my head!
Whether I’m tracking a Project Report, or an email response, or taking the kids to school, or reviewing submissions ahead of a programme board, or presenting on a 12,000 attendee Teams Live Event, I run everything through To Do and / or Todoist.
I also love how the low-touch approach (especially the use of Siri to add tasks) means that my fear of forgetting is vastly reduced. It takes 5 seconds for me to set a quick reminder. Or in those moments of brain fireworks, I grab an envelope or a bit of paper, write everything down as bullet points, and then transfer those into To Do when the fireworks pass. When I wake up in the night with something on my mind, I ask Siri to remind me “to see if that thing happened or not”, rather than let it keep bothering me all night.
So, my dear reader, there you have it – a sneak peek into my daily routine and how I'm navigating the world of business using the Getting Things Done methodology. Remember, it's all about finding what works for you and adapting the tools to suit your unique needs. Here's to a more organized, focused, and fulfilling journey ahead!
Putting it all together: A Simple Approach to Getting Things Done:
All tasks go in an inbox. They get clarified and go on to a list. They get done, scheduled, prioritised, delegated or deleted. There’s an ad hoc “next task” review, a daily quick review, and a weekly reflections review. Microsoft Todo and Microsoft Outlook are my weapons of choice, and Todoist served me well over the years too. My total effort is maybe an hour a week, maybe a little more.
GTD got me out of a hole all those years ago and has kept me out of the hole since then, so of course, I heartily recommend it. Just keep it simple, it’s easy to overcomplicate, if you're going to use it, adapt and adopt.
We're using a few methodologies here at Random Creation House to help manage the pipeline of work that comes with building complex infrastructure, writing code, deploying apps across the Android, iOS and Web Browser deployment targets, for making sure we're able to adapt to changing circumstances, and to make sure we're hitting our regulatory obligations. My own workload, is powered by GTD.
If you want to replicate my model, you'll need a subscription to Office365 Business Standard[*], which gets you the usual office apps, Todo, Outlook, Teams, and a bunch more. As I mentioned earlier, David Allen's GTD manual can be found here on Amazon[*].
Have you ever faced similar challenges in managing a high volumes of tasks? How do you currently handle them? What do you think of the GTD system? Feel free to join the discussion in the comments below, or over on LinkedIn.
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