BULLET JOURNAL FREE

It looks like this:Īt the very least, you need a good hour to do a weekly review well, but preferably two hours.

You can find a link to my Workflowy template for the weekly review here. And the longer you go between reviews, the less well your system will work for you. It can be done less frequently than weekly, but not much less. In David Allen’s book-as well as the many times he’s talked publicly about the system-he has stressed the necessity of a weekly review. The key way to staying engaged is to invest time and attention in a weekly review. GTD is only as good a system as you are good at being engaged with it. The Crux of Doing GTD Well: The Weekly Review For things that aren’t documents, or that I need physical copies of, I have a large filing cabinet in my wife’s office (mine is too small to fit it).

BULLET JOURNAL FREE

My printer came with a free app that I can use to “scan” documents quite well and save them to Google Drive. That makes it easy to link things in Workflowy as needed, or simply upload files as well.įor physical documents, I try as much as possible to digitize them. I create folders and label materials as explicitly as I can. As much as I can, I use Google Drive folders for reference material. My strategy for this has varied, and I still don’t have a great handle on it. But we need to keep them organized, so we can refer to them when we need to. We also have reference material on papers and in actual physical objects.

We have reference material on phones, computers, and tablets. We live 2 lives these days: digital and analog. Reference material is both the least addressed, yet most difficult aspect of GTD to do well. This folds nicely into an agenda list that I use to store things I need to speak with people about, the next time I meet with them. I do use the symbol as a kind of context for people. If I’m leaving, I generally have a reason, and I can check an list to see what else I could get done while I’m out. I’m pretty much in my home office all the time. They allow you to group next actions based on where or when they can be done, and theoretically allow you to more efficiently choose and complete actions. Next actions-of which 90% belong to a project, go in a long master list of actions.Ĭontexts are a big deal in the GTD framework. My projects go either in a project list or in the incubator (aka the “someday/maybe” list). my day job inbox (Outlook on a separate work computer).my gmail inbox (for communications with my family & side-hustle).The vague “stuff” of life that I haven’t processed goes in an inbox. They’re composed of things I need to do and the places they go until they’re done. The Elements of GTDįor the purposes of building a system, there are only a few things that make up the bones of GTD for me. The GTD website has a great flowchart of the system, which you can see below.Ĭredit: David Allen Co. The fundamental idea of GTD is to get things out of your head and into a trusted system that allows you to efficiently clarify, organize, reflect on, and engage with the stuff of your life as much as you need to. I’m assuming some familiarity with both systems here, but I’ll balance that assumption with some quick summaries of each system, as well. How you might be able to make your own effective mash-up of the two systems (kind of like I have done).Which of the two systems you’d prefer to use.So my hope is that you walk away from this piece of writing with one of two pieces of new knowledge: Here, I want to bring a balanced review of what it’s like to use both systems, with the twist that no matter what system I use, Workflowy will always be a part of my array. I’ve become excited to see how a system like it can work for me.

But, over the past few years, I have learned a great deal about the Bullet Journal method, read the book, and listened to many interviews with its creator, Ryder Carroll. In this particular article, I’ll be comparing two wildly popular personal productivity systems with equally enthusiastic fan bases: David Allen’s GTD system and Ryder Carroll’s Bullet Journal method.įull disclosure: I’m a long-time GTD practitioner and enthusiast. And there are a lot out there, several of which I’ve tried over my time writing on the subject. I believe that in order to continuously achieve big goals in your life, you need a personal productivity system. I am a firm believer in and admirer of productivity systems.

Bullet journal