The GTD Daily Review Checklist: How to construct the “perfect day”
OK, it’s time for your GTD master to lay out the foundation for your black belt GTD system and that’s with the construction of a daily review checklist.
Now for many people who read this, it’s going to be painstakingly boring and somewhat meticulous to break down the things the way I do. If you choose not to do it, that’s OK. But, if you don’t I am thinking that you are missing out on one of the crucial collection activities of GTD and that is getting everything, I mean EVERYTHING out of your head.
You see, black belt apprentices, I don’t think that it’s enough to get random information you need to remember to do out of your head, I think it’s also important to get the daily steps for all you do out of your head as well.
The reason is because then you’ll have the benefit of knowing what done looks like if you put it down onto paper, know when you are finished and then you can also work on the speed at which you do your daily tasks.
With that said, it’s important that you take action here and open up your favorite wordprocessor and start making a GTD daily checklist that is going to include everything you want to accomplish and all of the steps to accomplish it in one place. I will use myself as an example.
To start to capture all of my daily activities, all that is required is that I carry a legal pad with me around and record exactly when I start a new task and later add it to my checklist I’ve started in my computer. Then I print it out and follow it adding or rearranging things as I go along until the checklist can evolve no further.
So here we go with a sample checklist:
Get up at 6:00 am
Go to the restroom
Drink a glass of water
Walk on the treadmill for 60 minutes
Drink a glass of water
Eat breakfast
Rinse mouth with Cool Mint Listerine
Floss
Brush teeth
Shower
Wash face
Use facial scrub
Shave
Put on aftershave lotion
Put creme in hair
Get dressed
Review calendar for days activities
Do items on calendar tickler
Check email inbox
Mark spam/Delete trash
Archive email that needs to be archived
Process email that can be done quickly
Move actionable items to action folder
Review spam folder for misfiled email
Check Yahoo! reminders
Check Waiting For
Process Action folder
Check bank accounts
Etc.
Get the idea. I suggest that when you first start a process checklist you start with two basic ones, a morning and an afternoon one. Over time you’ll refine your daily review checklist until it’s complete. You’ll note that I added my getting ready routine which many people may find unneccessary. To that I say, why keep it in your head.
Once you start getting your daily activities out of your head you’ll know what done looks like and more important what done FEELS like and know EXACTLY when you are done and won’t have to think about it.
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.