MASTERING WORKFLOW SERIES

METHODOLOGY GUIDES
INTRODUCTION

METHODOLOGY GUIDES
MASTERING WORKFLOW SERIES

Enclosed is a set of key principles and checklists for Getting Things Done ® (GTD ®). Honed over many
 years of hands-on work with thousands of people, these have proven highly effective in supporting
maximum personal productivity. Though simple, they are not simplistic. Used appropriately, they
serve as a foundation for implementing and maintaining the best practices for winning at the
game of work and the business of life.

Wishing you all the best,

David Allen 
OVERVIEW

METHODOLOGY GUIDES
MASTERING WORKFLOW SERIES

Five Steps
These are the keys to staying current, organized, and in control of your life and work. The five individual
steps of the workflow process have their own principles, methods and tools. Each must be mastered
and integrated to create a coherent and effective system. Use this to remind yourself of improvement
opportunities for your productivity.

Incompletion Trigger List

A critical factor for graduating to a level of mastership is keeping your mind as clear as possible. Review this
list regularly to uncover open loops lurking that need to be captured and clarified externally.

Workflow: Clarifying Diagram

These are the key initial elements of workflow management—how to clarify your input and get your inboxes
to empty.

GTD Weekly Review ®

The primary success factor for managing the practical aspects of your life is a consistent revisiting of the
projects, actions, and checklists that represent anything you are responsible for and/or interested in. If you
actually DO everything on this review just once, it will amaze you. If you do it every week for a month, you
will transcend to a new level of productivity. When this is a habit, you will be free to live and work from a
very different plateau of effectiveness.

Natural Planning Model ®

This is the quickest and most effective way to get any project, topic, or situation off your mind and constructively
moving forward. Based on how your mind naturally thinks anyway,  it provides a highly practical procedure
for managing the five levels of focus that migrate projects from the idea level into physical reality. Use it as
a reminder about areas that need attention to increase clarity and get things going.

Project Planning Trigger List

This is merely a catalyst for project thinking, covering a wide range of potentially relevant topics. Use it to
foster and capture details and perspectives that might add value.

Horizons of Focus ®

The need to prioritize is a given—but how to prioritize, minute to minute, can be a challenge.  This overview
FIVE STEPS OF MASTERING WORKFLOW

01 CAPTURE
COLLECT WHAT HAS YOUR ATTENTION
• Capture anything and everything that has your attention in leakproof external “buckets”
(your in-trays, email, notepads, voicemail etc.)—get them out of your short-term memory.
(Use the Incompletion Trigger Lists to keep yourself “downloaded.”)
• Have as few of these collectors as you can, and as many as you need.
• Empty them regularly, by processing and organizing (below).

02 CLARIFY
PROCESS WHAT IT MEANS
• Process the items you have collected (decide what each thing means, specifically).
• If it is not actionable–toss it, incubate it for possible later action, or file it as reference.
• If it is actionable–decide the very next physical action, which you do (if less than two minutes),
delegate (and track on “waiting for” list), or defer (put on a Next Actions list). If one action will not
close the loop, then identify the commitment as a “project” and put it on a Projects list.

03 ORGANIZE
PUT IT WHERE IT BELONGS
• Group the results of processing your input into appropriately retrievable and reviewable categories.
The four key action categories are:
Projects (projects you have a commitment to finish)
Calendar (actions that must occur on a specific day or time)
Next Actions (actions to be done as soon as possible)
Waiting For (projects and actions others are supposed to be doing, which you care about)
• Add sub-categories of these lists if it makes them easier to use (Calls, Errands, At Home,
At Computer, etc.).
• Add lists of longer horizon goals and values that influence you.
• Add checklists that may be useful as needed (job description, event trigger lists, org charts, etc.).
• Maintain a general reference filing system for information and materials that have no action, but which
need to be retrievable.
• Maintain an incubate system for triggers of possible actions at later dates (Someday/Maybe lists,
calendar, tickler).
• Maintain support information files for projects as needed (can be kept in reference system
or in pending area).

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FIVE STEPS OF MASTERING WORKFLOW

(continued)

04 REFLECT
REVIEW FREQUENTLY
• Review calendar and Next Actions lists daily (or whenever you could possibly do any of them).
• Conduct a customized weekly review to get clear, get current, and get creative (see Weekly Review).
• Review the longer-horizon lists of goals, values, and visions as often as required to keep your project list
complete and current.

05 ENGAGE
SIMPLY DO
• Make choices about your actions based upon what you can do (context), how much time you have,
how much energy you have, and then your priorities.
• Stay flexible by maintaining an integrated life management system, always accessible for review,
trusting your intuition in moment-to-moment decision-making.
• Choose to:
1. Do work you have previously defined or
2. Do work as it appears or
3. Take time to define your work.
(You must sufficiently clarify and organize to trust your evaluation of the priority of the ad hoc.)

• Ensure the best intuitive choices by consistent regular focus on priorities. (“What is the value to me
of doing X instead of doing Y?”) Revisit and recalibrate your commitments at appropriate intervals
for the various horizons of life and work (see Horizons of Focus):

GROUND: Calendar/actions

HORIZON 1: Projects

HORIZON 2: Areas of focus and accountability

HORIZON 3: One- to two-year goals and objectives

HORIZON 4: Three- to five-year vision

HORIZON 5: Purpose and principles

HORIZONS OF FOCUS
®

(continued)

Formats: Off-sites with partners, board, team, family; initial discussions for launching projects, meetings, whole
enterprises; life planning; annual revisiting of enterprise direction; ideal scene development; personal treasure maps
Frequency: Whenever additional clarity, direction, alignment, and motivation are needed
(Gracie’s Gardens: “Recognized as the #1 garden and landscaping store in the tri-county district; a fun, interesting,
creative, informative place to browse and shop, attracting discriminating clientele who love to spend time and money
on an on-going basis;” etc.) 

HORIZON 3: GOALS AND OBJECTIVES What do we want and need to accomplish, specifically, within the next
12 to 24 months, to make the vision happen?

Formats: Off-sites with partners, board, team, family; strategic planning; annual goal-setting and broad planning
sessions; life and family planning
Frequency: Annually; quarterly reviews and recalibrations
(Gracie’s Gardens: “By year-end, 15% sales growth, 20% profitability, wholesale business established and in the black,” etc.) 

HORIZON 2 : AREAS OF FOCUS AND ACCOUNTABILITY Important spheres of work and life to be maintained
at standards to “keep the engines running.”

Formats: Job descriptions; organization charts; employee manuals; personal lifestyle checklists; family responsibility
designations; project checklists
Frequency: Performance reviews; monthly personal check-in’s; whenever job or life changes require reassessment
of accountabilities
(Gracie’s Gardens: “Executive, administration, PR/marketing, sales, finance, wholesale operations, retail operations,” etc.) 

HORIZON 1: PROJECTS Outcomes we want to achieve that require more than one action and which
can be completed within a year.
Formats: Overview list of all projects; project plans (defined sub-projects)
Frequency: Weekly review; whenever next action contents are not current
(Gracie’s Gardens: “Set up wholesale division, get the books current, hire Director of Marketing, finalize Acme contract,
upgrade HVAC system,” etc.) 

GROUND: CALENDAR/ACTIONS Next physical, visible actions to take on any project or other outcome;
any single action to take about anything.

Formats: Calendar, Next Actions lists (e.g. calls, errands, at home, at office, talk to boss about...);
action folders or trays (e.g. read/review, bills to pay)
Frequency: Multiple times daily; whenever a question about what to do next
(Gracie’s Gardens: “Draft plan for wholesale division, email Sandy re: bookkeeper recommendations, call Brandon re:
lunch meeting, review Acme purchasing history, surf web for competition ads” etc.)