Recently I have had the pleasure of teaching and coaching other people (mostly consultants and entrepreneurs) on Getting Things Done. I’ve been using GTD for about 2 years myself, mostly teaching myself how to become better and more effective at it. Occasionally I would inspire friends or colleagues to read David Allen’s book or to start experimenting with GTD in their own life. However, training entire groups of people and coaching several colleagues and clients is a whole different, but very exciting game!
I’ll probably be writing more about these particular experiences in future posts. In this post I would like to discuss one common theme I’ve noticed when ’students’ start asking questions about the newly acquired principles and tools of GTD.
I would frequently get a remark or question along the lines of “What am I doing wrong? My next action list is only growing and never seems to become empty!”
Think about this. Your life is a mess. You start using GTD to organize this mess and to finally get some things done. And then you notice your list of things-to-do is growing at an alarming rate and in fact doesn’t seem to become empty at all, no matter how hard you work!
This frightening observation can easily deter or discourage a GTD ’student’, until I explain there is a logical and simple explanation for this counterintuitive phenomenon.
It may seem overwhelming but you have to accept the fact that your next action list will never be empty! Consider this. You have a number of values, roles, responsibilities and goals in your life. These translate into a number of projects. A project is defined according to the GTD principle that any multistep action is in fact a project that needs to go on your project list. If you apply GTD correctly, every project on your list has a next action, that is, the number of next actions is at least as big as the number of projects (since some next actions don’t require a project). On average I’ve found that I have about 200 ‘current’ projects on my project list. This means my next action list is about the same length! In your daily or weekly GTD review you remove the finished actions and select the next next action for each project. Finished projects tend to be replaced with new projects (perhaps from your someday/maybe list). On average, a couple of hundred projects (and therefore a couple of hundred next actions!) will be very normal!
In fact, to turn the whole thing around: an empty next action list would imply an empty project list, which would in turn imply that you’re either not using GTD or you’re dead! Also, people with very short next action lists make me very suspicious. They cannot be applying GTD in the correct and intended way in my not so humble opinion 
Perhaps they’ve only added the things they have to do right now, but not the things they should do or want to do in their life. In other words, their next action list has deteriorated into a common to-do list.
Some GTD ’students’ think they can ’solve’ this situation by simply not writing down all of their projects and/or all of their next actions. Of course, this is not a real solution at all. Not writing down your projects and actions doesn’t mean they’re not there! It’s better to face the reality of things and get into the flow of handling your (large but specific and complete) next action list with ease.
I’ve accepted the fact that my next action list will never be empty. In fact, I welcome a long, varied, rich list of next actions! I have learned to apply a little trick to make the list seem less overwhelming though. I make a point of looking at all of my finished next actions and/or projects and the end of each day while doing my daily mini-review. I do not strive for an empty next action list, I ‘reward’ myself for accomplishing as many important next actions as possible each and every day!
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A huge next actions list was a mental block for me after 3 months of GTD. So I created a Today list that I populate with next actions every morning. I make it my goal to empty my Today list every day. It helps me focus first thing in the morning and it makes me feel accomplished at the end of the day!
@Stuart:
I like to do the same thing. Every morning I do a bit of mini-planning for the current day and try to finish my Most Important Tasks at the very least!
Recognizing that the list is not likely to be a zero is a good start. Possibly even more important is to learn what to accept and what not to accept … that is to say learn how to surf across the possibilities and say no to some things. That may be the essence of focus.
I recognize that as well, but there is something what can help. It is “context”. In paper system it is a little bit more complicated then in electronic, but still possible. When you put next action on your list, specify context as well. In any electronic system you can filter based on your current context (office, home, computer, etc.). In paper system i recomend to use notepad with bookmarks. Just write your next action in appropriate section. At present I have about 15 contexts. It means devide number of next actions by number of contexts and you will get much shorter list. Then when I am in “office” I just open “office” bookmark. I do not need to look at other next actions, because I cannot do them.
Merson calls this a “touch down,” and says that it happens only once or so in a career.
http://matthewcornell.org/blog/2006/07/some-thoughts-on-book-instant.html
> Here’s something I’d certainly never thought of, the idea of completing all active tasks up to that moment. Apparently it only happens once or so in a career, and he offers a reward if you have one, but it’s hard to get my head around the idea. I guess the GTD equivalent would be completing all of your projects and next actions, but that would mean that at some point stopping adding new ones. In that case I suspect the real next action would be something like “call funeral home to schedule internment.” On second thought, that might be a good one to delegate.
Isn’t the whole point of having an action list is organizing your life and making sure you are on track. As you make list making a habit it should grow on a daily basis, however if your list is full of the same tasks then you really need to get stuck into it.
It is called an action list for a reason.
Great article, I usually write down my daily tasks in a notebook, however I found at http://www.ataglance.com/GTD a bunch of GTD products.
I recently bought the weekly / monthly planner that has a daily actions section, which is great. http://www.ataglance.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product3_10052_10002_141648_-1_false_10052
They have other items but I don’t think they would be as useful for my needs.
I’ll comment even if the post is no longer current.
In my blog post; http://www.glennbech.com/getting-things-done/2009/12/28/the-weekly-review-how-ill-stay-proactive-in-2010.html I address the problem of growing lists.
Of course the lists should not be empty, but they should not be constantly growing either! I’ve found that one cause of growing todo lists, at least for me, is my tendency to apply the system without thought. I do it “by the book”.
It is actionable? Yes! Can I delegate it? No! Does it take less than two minutes?! Hell no! Well I guess I should put it either in my calendar, or on one of my lists then? Wrong!
Does the item push your projects forward? Does it align with your priorities? Is it something you should be doing? I’m inserting that decission point ito my GTD workflow for 2010
Oh… And just for the record; I don’t imply that the GTD book suggests that you should do everything your inbox tells you to … .-)
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