Every GTD-er worth his or her salt knows that lists are a big part of a mature productivity practice. These very same lists are also a source of resistance. As folks look at their systems, a wail arises: Do I really have to have all these lists? Well, no. If you’re content with how things are, if reinventing your processes over and over is okay with you, if forgetting the little details and stumping your toe repeatedly feels good. Then forget the lists.
On the other hand, if you are sick and tired of beating your head on the wall, it’s time to get disciplined and work out the necessary lists. These include various sorts of checklists that you’ll need to boost your effectiveness. But just what kind of checklists do you need?
Thinking Prompts: You’ll recognize this as one of David Allen’s favorites; Getting Things Done is peppered with “trigger” lists. Meant to stimulate your memory, you might want to take the time to capture any of those little areas that you often find yourself thinking, “Dang, I forgot that again!?!”
Sanity Savers: These include the “got it?” sort of lists that keeps you from leaving on vacation and forgetting some necessary item (e.g. your phone charger) or keeps you from omitting some action that would be a lifesaver.
Workflow List: This is a document designed to make repetitive tasks easier. If you have any complex workflow that you do more than once, you might benefit from documenting all the steps along the way including which menu and choices you’re using in a complex set of steps involving software. I use these most often for “project” level activities that I do less often than once a week. For example, I must set up my distance ed course at the beginning of each quarter. This setup process used to take me about an hour and a half. With my Workflow List, it now requires 20 minutes. Seriously.
Justin Fox offered some other handy categories of checklists–got more? Leave a comment on this post and keep the list of lists growing.
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Having checklists is one way of getting organized. Here are some other helpful posts on similar topics:
Focus, Organization, and Being in Control
From Mind Like Monkey: Tara's Take on Processing
Tara,
I like your post. There are great benefits to using list as they let off load your brain and introduce sanity and structure to many tasks. However sometimes it’s easy to get overloaded with countless list to the point that you need a list to maintain list.
I guess different people have different tolerance levels for number of lists in their lives some can even live with out them.
I like to keep minimum number of list, just the bare essentials for my GTD implementation. Although I’m looking at introducing some more just to see how they work out.
Regards
Hi Rafal,
thanks so much for taking the time to read and comment. Glad you enjoyed the post. Which lists do you find essential? Anything you share is greatly appreciated!
Best wishes,
Tara
Hi Tara,
Here are my lists.My GTD is very simple, my essential list are:
-actions
-errands
-projects
-someday
-waiting for
I played around with handful of contexts but decided against as tasks got spread out too wide.
Regards
Rafal
Hi Rafal,
Sometimes simplest is best! Thanks for sharing these and your feedback. Always appreciated!
With best wishes,
Tara