Some context

I used to have a sort of To-Do list in my phone Notes app 📱, like many of us. But while I was working for Habitissimo, I had the chance to attend a workshop about Getting Things Done by the incredible Jordi Contestí👨‍💻.

I abandoned my Notes app immediately after that.

The event focused on using GTD for our personal and professional life 💪. We started writing a letter 📨 from our "1 year into the future" self, explaining "where" they were at the moment in relation to their goals and life expectations 🌟. This technique helped us to get our long-term goals in order 🗄.

Then we just divided those big goals into small tasks that we could complete independently during that year 📆.

Why?

The ultimate goal of GTD is not really to be productive at all times, it's more about achieving ease of mind 😌. You see, when you have chores and other pending obligations in your mind, it is hard to relax or even focus on your current and more urgent task 🚨.

You write them down in a way you can come back and pick them up easily later when you are free 🤗. That way you prioritize what's more urgent, and you can forget about them and experience some "Carpe diem".

My personal approach

I use a Trello To-Do Board managed similarly to a Kanban Board:

• Backlog 🗃: I use this one for writing down new ideas. In case I write an idea for a game or app on a card, I usually move its data to GitHub issues/projects when I create the repository to develop it
• Pending ⏳: The tasks that are more important to me. I will pick them up next after I complete the tasks in WIP. I order them inside the column, moving up the ones that are more urgent
• WIP ⚙: Tasks that are "Work in Process". I try to avoid working on more than 4 or 5 at the same time, the less the better
• DONE ✔: In Trello, you can just "archive" cards, so this column is not really required in my opinion
• Bonus ✨: I have an extra column for things I want to remember constantly, like how do I write my address in Japanese.

Some last tips

• Take home the things you like from GTD, but avoid being dogmatic 👩🏽‍🏫. Every person has a unique system that works better for them.

• If you can complete a To-Do task in less time than it takes to write it down and explain all its details; it makes more sense to just do it at the current moment 💁🏼‍♀️. This might seem obvious, but you can easily fall on "the other side of productivity" when you're deep into GTD 🥴. That means letting extreme organization and bureaucracy hinder your productivity 📉. Sort of what happens with governments and huge organizations.

• Also, it's recommended to check your whole Backlog at least once a year and make sure that it's still aligned with your long-term goals (you can write that letter to yourself again if it helps 😉!).

• Personally, it helps to organize my ideas in the form of a blog 📃: it motivates me to complete tasks that I was postponing, so I recommend it! It's a psychological mechanism 🧠 related to "Public Accountability".

Closing time

Do you have any tips to improve personal productivity? Do you hate personal productivity? Let me know in the comments 🤗!