David Allen and his methodology, Getting Things Done (or GTD, in common parlance), has gained a cult following among a distinctly male half of the self-help book genre - Productivity and Success techniques. Websites abound concerning productivity, such as lifehacker.com and 43folders.com, but through them runs a current of GTD obsession (43folders is named after the number of folders needed to operate a GTD file system).

So what's the big deal? In order to avoid "proselytizing", as my Dad called it, I'll avoid the juicy exclamations. Basically, GTD is a way to capture loose thoughts. In the book, Allen argues that stress is due to unfulfilled obligations, any time we think to ourselves "oh, I need to do this, or I should do that." It doesn't matter that we can't DO such and such a thing at a given time -- like remembering to fix the sink while in the middle of a business meeting -- the obligation part of the brain has little sense of time and hence thinks we should be fixing that sink all the time. Have you ever remembered something, and then forgot it, and then remembered it again and thought, "Shit, I already remembered that!" only to forget again? That is a source of stress.

One of the basic pieces of GTD is total capture. It doesn't matter how big or small an obligation is that is rattling around in our heads -- all of it needs to be put into a trustworthy system so that we know that we don't have to keep reminding ourselves of the same thoughts and stressing out. One of his best quotes is: You never need to have the same thought twice, unless you happen to like that thought.

So, first, you collect everything you see around you that could possibly have some sort of hold on you. "Dust the lights." "Call Darren RE birthday" "Clean up classroom" "Start to look for new apartment" "Replace old underwear" These are all possible obligations. Once you have gotten everything from your surroundings, you dump out your brain, writing down every single thing that occurs to you as needing to be done.

By now you have an intimidating mountain of notes in an inbox. Allen's next stage is Process. From here, you got through all of the items, asking a few key questions.
1 - Is it actionable - that is, can I DO something about this. If not, it is either Trash, Reference, or saved for Someday.
2 - If Yes, What is the next action?
3 - If the action is shorter than 2 minutes, Do It.
- If the action is longer than 2 minutes, Delegate It to someone else, or Defer it, that is, put it off until you have time to spend on it, OR Drop it - decide you don't really want to do it.

For example, I look in my inbasket and there is a magazine and a note saying "Charity coming to Japan? Timetable." The magazine is not actionable, it is reference. On to the shelf. The note about Charity is actionable. What is the next action? Write Charity an email. Can I do that in two minutes? Maybe but I'd like to write a nice one, so no, I'll put it off (Defer) until I have time for some emails.

Repeat several hundred times.

The result will be that you have a handle on every single project, big or small, that is weighing on your conscious, and the next action step to move it forward. This turns the most amorphous mass of confusion, the most intimidating task, into a series of small bites and a great roadmap for successfully doing what we want to get done.

The book has a lot more to say, especially about planning projects, and about considering what needs to be done regarding life and our existences on the planet. I won't go into that here. I will say though, that in the year since I first became acquainted with GTD, I have gone from an unorganized uber-procrastinator to someone who knows what he want to do and how to do it. On top of that, I'm able to make priority choices about leaving projects for tomorrow because there is a full inventory and nothing is going to blow up if I relax a while.