Tweaking GTD for Better Weekly Task Prioritization

As a practitioner of David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) approach, one of the biggest challenges I have faced was balancing when to set a due date for a task, and when to leave it in the great mass of things that must be done (organized by context, of course) but with no specific requirement on timing.  I often found that once items made this list, it was tough to actually get them done; it was simply too intimidating when faced with free time to look over a list of 50-70 (or more) possibilities and make a good decision on what to do next.  However, I didn’t like artificially assigning due dates either, as this put undue pressure on some tasks, which often slipped as more truly important priorities arose. This made the weekly review frustrating, as I couldn’t decide how to handle those “in-between” tasks.  I largely avoided doing a rigorous weekly review, thus hurting the overall quality of the process.

As a bit of further background, I use the Netcentrics GTD Outlook Add-In to manage my tasks and Projects.  This Outlook plug-in is a great tool, as it makes it very easy to assign contexts to tasks, and organize tasks by context (action) or project, in addition to traditional Outlook task views (such as Next Seven Days).  There are other ways of organizing tasks using the GTD approach; one good approach is discussed in Michael Linenberger’s Total Workday Control Using Microsoft Outlook.

When I mentioned this quandary in a discussion with Claudine Motto, a productivity coach and professional organizer with her own business, Vistal Norte, she came up with a recommendation that I definitely felt was worth trying.  Her advice was to create a separate “@Week” category in Outlook, complementing the contexts available via the NetCentrics software.  She then recommended taking 10 to 20 tasks that were relevant and manageable and put them in this category during the weekly review. The number to choose would depend on other commitments for the following week, specifically fixed meetings or tasks with due dates. Then, when the opportunity to look for a new task to accomplish arose, I would have a more concise list to consult.

To help with this process, I created a new view in the Outlook Task Manager (Weekly To-Do), filtering the total list using to the “@Week” category, and grouping by context (@Computer, @Office, etc.).  Context still matters, so I didn’t want to lose this element in the new view.  This allowed me to jump back and forth between my most common “Next Seven Days” view and the new “Weekly To-Do” I found time to take on a new task during the day.

Having done this now for two weeks I can say the results are significant.  I am far more motivated to check the “Weekly To-Do” list for tasks to work on next them I am to look at the lengthy undated list.  In addition, I am more motivated to execute a weekly review, and it seems that the review goes more quickly because I have a specific objective to work towards.  I didn’t finish all “@Week” tasks in either week, but this didn’t create stress as I simply rolled them over into the next week.  I would estimate that I completed 5-8 more tasks in each of the first two weeks using this approach than I would have under my traditional, unstructured process.

There has been a recent post on the Manage This! blog on this topic of late (after I received the advice from Claudine).  The concept is similar, but less specific as to how to implement it into Outlook task management.  But the point is the same; it is far less intimidating (and therefore faster) to choose from a list of 10-20 tasks than one of 50-70.  I am grateful to Claudine for the suggestion.

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