Hello, and welcome back. Now we're going to look at some key concepts that will be applied across the workflows we'll be looking at to increase self productivity. And the most important and overarching concept would be the GTD and it stands for getting things done. What is getting things done is a framework created by David Allen. He's the author of getting things done his best selling book, back in 2001. It's a framework that helps you stay organized and also it helps at ensuring that there are no distractions.

So that most your willpower is focused more on execution. So it breaks down into five steps. First is to collect information, then you process it, followed by organizing was processed. And then finally you plan then execute. The four big wins or the main reasons why this is such a great framework to have is that first of all, it helps you to stay on track. So the main benefit of kind of reviewing your process and the kind of tasks that you have at hand is that you can tie that your tasks to your goals that you're trying to achieve and also helps to prevent you from feeling of being overwhelmed.

So we'll have different examples how you can check progress throughout weeks, and days. And this helps because it breaks down to smaller chunks where you have pitstops. And you review your process and your progress. So this helps to make sure that your tasks irrelevant. If not, you might get distracted and do things that are not going to bring you closer to your goals. The next thing would be it helps you to iterate and improve your productivity further.

So according to this Harvard study, reflecting on a task is better than repeating it. So essentially, we all know that practice makes perfect, but only if you pause and you think about what you're doing that will have any effect at all. So for example, a weekly review gives you a chance to stop and look at the projects that you have, and which areas of your process you can improve. And sometimes even which areas of your project overall. So the next big win momentum. If you break down your review process on what needs to be done into chunks of weeks, or maybe even days, you get to start feeling more organized because you get to see the progress that you've done.

It does give you the extra positive vibe and gives you this rush to kind of see what's up next in the coming weeks. So last but not least, the final big win in doing GTD is realistic planning. So everything we're trying to do, using the GTD framework with it staying on track Being able to iterate and improve, making sure momentum is never diminished. It all reflect on how realistic your plan could be. Every time you start a new project, it comes with practice. But have you considered the added more to your to do lists and you can actually accomplish.

It's easy for you to get carried away and cram way too many things into your day or week. So having a framework where you review your progress, and then figuring out which parts of the task are too big that requires delegation, maybe perhaps, you should purchase new software that helps you increase productivity when you're doing certain repeated tasks, maybe even automate a few things. This will help you squeeze out more productivity and also make sure that your planning is not out of scope, so it becomes more realistic. So up next we're going to look at Daniel chait's GTD example. Daniel Chase is a CEO of greenhouse. And he's shared his format of how he would implement GTD.

So remember, the process is still the same, where you have to have a five step process of collection, process, organize, plan, and execute, which is do. So Daniel finds it particularly useful to use Trello in the collect, process and organize phases, but he doesn't really use Trello for planning and doing that's okay. Maybe when you're implementing this, or if you choose to do it, it's really up to you whether you want to use Trello to do the planning and execution of a task as well. So first things first, there is the collection phase that goes into the inbox. So this is pretty straightforward. It's all about making sure that you capture all the ideas that come to you throughout the day.

And don't go ahead and execute any of them or think too much of them. This can happen during your commute, you're having conversation with a colleague, maybe you just got an email from someone and you quickly read through a little bit of it. So it's just trying to document things before they get lost and to do it very quickly. So for example, I've set up a board that reflects this. Right here you can see the list of Items that I've populated in the inbox. And anything that's labeled yellow is just basically instructions and notes so that when you do have a look at this board, you can remind yourself of the instructions of how to use a board and some site notes as well.

I'll give a link to this board so you can copy it, and you can adjust it as you see fit. Now coming back to the inbox, as you can see the list of items, that's pretty straightforward. And they don't necessarily need a lot of details into them. In fact, right now, they're basically all empty. So imagine that you have collected all these items throughout the day, and then comes a day where you want to actually review these items. So we hop back to our slides.

This is the process face After you go into the inbox, then one of the first things you want to ask as part of the process phase is whether or not this item is actionable. So in this example, Daniel's got a few options. You can choose to archive or delete a card if he feels that it's not actionable. Or it could be a reference for the future. So he could move it to a particular list called reference materials, which you can see in this example. So let's say we'll have maybe hiring a new project lead in this example.

So we move it here. So next, so if something is actionable, there's a bunch of other questions throughout this process that will further refine what Whether or not this action or item from the inbox will be moved to different lists, or should it be executed immediately. So for example, the next question that should be asked is that, does it take a single step to complete, for example, paying some bills. But if it takes more than that, it's then moved to a list called projects. So if you look at our board example, here, maybe gas bills can be done immediately. Where else something like a new app related to AI.

That sounds like a lot of things for you to think about and do. So this can be a new project on its own. So what Daniel has done is also break down projects. By using a card to represent, almost like a label. So marketing finance sales person. These are just some examples, and then there's a color associated to it.

So this is another way of how you can use Trello. To break up information and categorize different things. As you can see here, there's already a few items that's been populated the finance as one and the sales and recently removed a new app to personal. So going back assuming that it does take a single step, the next question you should be asking is, does it take more than two minutes. You can define how many minutes you want, but basically it should be something that is almost immediately doable. It doesn't require to wait For something.

So if it takes less than X amount of minutes, do it now. So anything that is orange in this slide is all about you doing actions. That's not related to Trello. It's something of you just go ahead and do it. But if it does take more than X amount of minutes, for example, in this instance, it's more than two minutes. The next question to ask is, whether this task is for you.

If it's not for you, it should be moved to waiting for a list just for that. So let's look at the example we have. Sometimes, you might be waiting for something. It's a task but it's something that is not necessarily executed by you 100%. For example, maybe do you have? Let's see a list that we have here.

Confirmed meeting with Sony Rep. Let's say that one, you're waiting for your secretary to confirm. So you can put it on the waiting for. And in Daniel's example, he had different people's names to indicate a card very similarly to the projects. So he breaks up his list this way. For me, I rather use the user roles like assigning an actual member or user. That's my style, but again, we're looking at his workflow and his board example.

So feel free to use whichever style that suits you. So going back to our process, so just now we look at it and we've put that toss and the waiting for And I think it was Sarah that needs to come back to you. So what you have to do was probably just follow up. So you know, everything that waiting lists is for you to follow up eventually. So when you ask, Is this a task for you? If it's Yes, the next question to ask is, is it for a specific day or time?

Is there a deadline to it? Is it tied to something important? So it's not that you move it to action items list. So you can work on it at any time. If it is a very important thing and has a deadline. Then what David does is he puts it into his schedule an actual calendar so that it's blocked within a specific time of day, and then there'll be reminders sent to his phone and then he'll be able to execute on it because it has been deemed as So high priority.

So going back to the board example, might archive this because we're done it because it takes less than two minutes to do. This is something that we'll probably need to set a meeting and ask someone to go over the new changes. But there's no specific time. This one is something that potentially needs to go to the calendar. And then this one will probably also, actually this one go to the calendar as well. So these two will go to the calendar based on what David's workflow is.

So there you have it. Again, one more time. If item is in inbox, is it actionable? Yes, no, it's no whether it's you archive deleted immediately, which is trash. Or you can save it for the future and the reference materials list. Is it actionable?

Yes. Then the next question is, is it a single step to complete? If it takes a lot of effort, then it should be a project. If it just takes one step, then the next question whether it takes two minutes or not, if it doesn't take two minutes, or more than should do it now get it over with. So you don't want clutter. You want to keep doing things that will clear your inbox, right?

If it takes more than a few minutes, then the next question to ask is, is it a task for me? If it's not then who is it for or who are you waiting for? Who should you follow up with So this belongs to the waiting for list in Trello. However, if it is a task for me, I should be asking the next question, which is, is it for a specific day? Meaning Is there a deadline. If there's no deadline, it can move to the action items list in Trello and can be worked on whenever I'm free.

However, if there's a specific date, it should be added to a calendar so that I get notifications and I have my hours blocked throughout the specific week or day to execute this task. So in a nutshell, this is the Kate's GTD workflow.