About GTD

Conceived by David Allen, Getting Things Done (GTD) is a simple system to help work with one’s needs and desires. Some might consider such a system to be a “productivity aid”, but this is not the point of GTD. “Mind like water,” is Allen’s description of the experiential result of embracing such a system. By this he means: being in a state which is relaxed, clear, focused, with appropriately full attention on whatever is at hand, while still remaining in emotional contact with all that one cares about. In short, “mind like water” might describe the experience of being in touch with your cares, but without them “occupying” you while you remain with what is contextually apt.

To accomplish such a state, one first captures and clarifies ideas, desires, obligations, etc. That is, one records and organizes all of one’s unfinished projects or todo items. Until captured, these are considered “open loops” in the parlance of GTD. The purpose of capturing these items (on lists, notes, calendar items, whatever is appropriate) is that, once you have sufficient faith in your reliability in working with such a system, capturing such an item effectively allows you to relax about it, without worry of it “falling through the cracks.”

Additionally one must regularly reflect on whatever has been captured. That is, one must keep in touch with all that one cares about on an embodied, emotional level. This can be facilitated by scheduled daily refreshers, and weekly reviews. These reviews might involve dropping items that one has decided that they do not care enough about to ever tackle, or determining a “next concrete action” that one can take for a long-term project, etc. The refreshers and reviews serve to help consolidate and clarify one’s cares (for example by extracting actually engageable "next actions" from projects that are otherwise only abstract wishes), effectively pacifying general worry around forgetting about what matters.

Finally one must engage with possible next actions. At the most basic level, captured GTD items fall into two categories: *projects* and *next actions*. Projects are not things that you are able to “do” but rather, they are outcomes that you desire. “Build a house,” is not actually a doable action. Instead, in addition to a project, you would have a “next physical action” associated with it (in this case, perhaps “buy wood & nails”). So you engage with next actions. Some next actions might be complete in and of themselves, while others are the next action for some captured project. Some projects don’t yet have a next action captured, but that can be revisited during the regular reflection. Generally one picks a next action to engage with that is congruent with one’s context, available time, and energy level. I.e.: You do now what is appropriate to do now. Eventually this becomes intuitive and spontaneous.

About Carebeary

Carebeary is an attempt at a free, minimal desktop & mobile app to help one embrace GTD. Its UI and features are straightforward:

• Capture projects & next actions separately:
  • Allow drag-and-drop ordering for clarity
  • Optionally categorize (allows color-coding)
  • Optionally add markdown notes
• Review:
  • Daily summary emails (daily reflection)
  • Weekly interactive review: click through projects one at a time while tweaking next actions (weekly clarification)
• Import actions/projects from other apps

That’s about it. I will consider feature requests, but would like to keep it somewhat simple.

About me

I have a wife and two young children. I am a software developer. I am a practitioner. I learned about GTD from the Evolving Ground community of practice where it is sometimes discussed.