GTD: Getting Things Done

I have been using processes like GTD to organize things I have to do for work, school, and others for a long time, but in a method that I devised myself that works well for me. I use google docs as my collection and organization utility. I love the fact that google docs can be accessed anywhere at any time as long as an internet connection is available, which tends to be most of the time for me these days anyways. Every so often, especially when I am getting overwhelmed, I will collect my thoughts by collecting everything I have to do and making a google doc out of it. I will then look through my collection of tasks and organize them based on importance, due date, etc by processing the information. I then will organize the information into tiers based on my analysis of them and set a rough timetable of my future actions to most efficiently use my time to get these things done. Then, I do what I need to to get these individual, and now thoroughly organized tasks, completed based on the timetable that I made.

I find that I often become very anxious when I do not organize my thoughts and tasks. This anxiousness leads me to become less productive because concentration becomes difficult on the task at hand as I begin bothering myself with what else needs to be done. Having a place to organize my thoughts, like in google docs, and then act on the tasks at hand and actually have a visual representation of things getting done, serves to calm my nerves, keep down stress, and make me sleep better at night. I used to be highly unorganized in high school and the beginning of college, but I realized that once I became organized, school, work, and life overall became easier and more enjoyable, which is why I continue to use my own method of GTD.