GTD Is More Than Just Another Productivity System

This article brings together selected writings by Francis Sopper, CEO of GTD Focus, exploring what GTD is, how it functions, and how it shows up in real life.

 

Since you’re reading this, you most likely already know what GTD is.

 

So how do we explain to others why it’s so much more powerfully effective than other approaches?

 

GTD shows up in searches using terms like productivity, organization, and time management. And while those things do emerge from a GTD practice, we know it’s so much more than any of them.

 

It’s not a system or a process. It’s a way of thinking. It’s about understanding your contexts, your experiences, and your relationships.

 

Here’s an example. A kitchen is a context. Cooking and eating are experiences. You have relationships with the people you cook and eat with. That kitchen needs tools and places to store and retrieve them. Food preparation requires knowledge, skills, and ingredients. All of that takes time. All of that, every last bit of it, is GTD. It’s why I’ve been at it for 23 years, because continuous improvement is also GTD.

 

What This Looks Like in Practice

 

When GTD is working, you know it. You have an optimum setup for Projects, Next Actions, Agendas, Waiting Fors, and Someday/Maybes — likely a combination of well-chosen apps and, for some things, paper. Your inbox is at zero. Your backlog is catalogued. Your calendar is for appointments, not task management. You’ve recently completed a comprehensive Weekly Review. You’ve gotten your stuff systematized, in place, and managed.

 

You got your act together.

 

Getting there, though, is rarely linear. And the path looks different for everyone.

 

Getting There Is Rarely Linear

 

In early March 2020, after landing in Boston from international travel and entering lockdown within days, I began an involuntary journey of self-discovery. Over the following two-plus years of masks, distance, and outdoor meetings, you know what it was, I learned something about myself: I am extravagantly extroverted. Yeah, I’m that guy who talks to you in the supermarket line, strikes up conversations with toll-booth keepers, and makes small talk with police standing in the rain at demonstrations. “Are you getting good overtime for this, at least?” I talk to fellow riders on the New York subway at midnight.

 

When I recently shared this realization with friends, I was informed I am now officially the last person to know this.

 

I mention it because it shapes how I think about the work we do, and because I know that what I’m about to describe won’t be for everyone, while for some of you it will be beyond price.

 

I came to Getting Things Done as a client in 1999. You can ask for my hitting-bottom story.

 

Meg Edwards arrived to give me two days in person to introduce me to the GTD methodology. This wasn’t step-by-step instruction behind closed doors or in a classroom. This was Meg in my space, in the heat of my actual day — people in and out, meetings with my boss, peers, and direct reports in between ringing phones, emails to answer, and looming deadlines.

 

There were no hypotheticals.

 

“How are you going to remember what that person just told you? You just made a commitment on that call, how are you going to track it? You just spent six and a half minutes searching for something in that pile. Here are file folders and a labeller. Let’s start rationalizing this. Were there any next actions for you from that meeting? Was that a necessary use of your time?”

 

For two days, Meg was the omniscient narrator of my life, my workflow, and my systems. What made it work was that there was no judgment, no critique of everything I was doing wrong, no long list of things I’d have to fix after she left. Instead, step by step, as things showed up in my real world, we built project lists, next-action lists, a calendar, reminder systems, clear and actionable delegations, and, new and revelatory to me, waiting-for lists and someday/maybe lists.

 

When Meg left, I had all those structures framed out and populated. That was 23 years ago. Those systems are as solid and functional as the 212-year-old house I live in. Both have been powered with new technology, fiber optics straight to my home office, but the fundamentals are simple, practical, and eminently easy to maintain.

 

It’s intense and highly personal. And maybe not for you. We’ve been providing remote coaching since the early days of web conferencing, and the last few years have led to some powerful refinements of that. The core understanding driving our work is that no two people stand in the same place at the same time and have the same experience. But if my experience resonates with you, contact us. For me, it was irreplaceable and life-changing,  and it’s been beyond price.

 

What Happens When You Get Stuck

 

Overthinking? It’s not really a thing.

 

What you’re actually doing is perseverating. Your thinking is stuck. Your mental gears are spinning without generating. A useful framework for getting those gears aligned again is to engage your horizons of focus. Here’s the summary.

 

Level 1 is the Runway — your next actions. Anything you do requires you to do something in the real world. I call them filmable events: someone could point a phone at you and document the action. Are you stuck because you haven’t identified the next thing to do?

 

Level 2 is Projects — a series of next actions that produce something in the real world. Buy a car, start a theatre in the barn, start a business, build a house, have a baby. All of these require a more or less coherent set of actions that result in something real. Are you stuck because you haven’t defined the outcome, haven’t identified the necessary next action, or are bumping up against powers beyond your control?

 

Level 3 is Areas of Focus and Responsibility — the things we do because of commitments we’ve made to ourselves or others. Eat more plant-based foods, spend a certain number of hours on the job, pick up the kids from school, take all your vacation time. Commitments aren’t static: we need to recommit or renegotiate them regularly. Are you stuck because the commitment seemed right at the time, but things have changed?

 

Level 4 is Vision — the idea place. Ideas aren’t filmable actions. They can be imagined, spoken, sketched, acted out, but they aren’t things yet. Rather than “let’s build a bridge here,” it’s “do you think there should be a bridge here?” Are you stuck because you’re feeling forces outside your control? This is the level where you ask: what if we amended the Constitution? What if we could deflect a meteor heading for New York City?

 

Level 5 is Purpose and Core Values — your life’s final exam question. I lived in LA during the “whoever dies with the most toys, wins” era. One day on Ventura Boulevard I saw a sparkling white Rolls Royce Corniche convertible with the license plate reading “FILTHY.” I had a camera, 35mm at the time. The photo is still in my drawer. That was someone whose actions were, I have to believe, completely and joyfully aligned with their core values.

 

By contrast, I’m trying to live a life defined by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control. Around that same time, my younger brother-in-law spent a summer with his sister and me in our small apartment. One evening, while washing the dinner dishes, he observed kindly: “Frank tries to be nice, but sometimes forgets.”

 

Still working on that. Still hoping to be ready for the final.