Whenever this happens to me, I try to put myself in a different mindset with two powerful commands: Now! and Action! They bring me back to the current situation, the current reality, and they remind me to be action-oriented in order to accomplish something… anything! These two simple commands I use on myself actually embody more elaborate feelings and principles of course.

Now!
You have tens and tens of thousands of thoughts every single day. Your mind simply won’t shut up. Chances are many of your thoughts either dwell on the past or dream (or worry) about the future. In many cases this is very useful and necessary of course, but to feel really calm and peaceful you need to focus on the present, the now. Really use your eyes to look at things around you. What color do they have, what texture do they have, what shape do they have? Really use your ears to listen to the sounds around you. Use all of your senses to really feel, enjoy and appreciate the present, your current state of being and your surroundings. Let go of the past, forget about the future, feel that you are alive right now!
I’ve found this deliberate focus on now to be very powerful. Your mind is at ease, and you just are. Of course, being a GTD-er makes this process a little bit easier. Just knowing that all of your open loops have been captured in a trusted system makes it easier to let go of the past and the future and focus on the present.

Action!
Being a GTD-er also means I know exactly what I could and should be doing at any given moment in time. It’s the doing-part that sometimes fails to kick in! Whenever I don’t really feel motivated at all to do something, I force myself to pick any action from my next action list, usually a simple or unimportant one, and just start doing it. Many times this approach gently but surely puts me back in a productive state of mind. First I pick a few minor next actions, finish them successfully and accomplish some part of my many projects at the very least! I feel like I’m doing something. Certainly not the most important thing I should be doing right now, but on some level I’m accomplishing something anyway. Slowly I work my way to more important next actions, the ones that are part of projects I really should be making progress on. This ‘bootstrapping’ principle usually succeeds in making me feel productive again and doing the things I should be doing. Basically, just stacking action upon action, no matter what the action really is, slowly coerces your mind back to a productive state!

What do you tell or command yourself in order to focus on the here and now and to take action?

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!

Sorry, I simply couldn’t resist publishing this article. You may have noticed that I’m a big fan of top 10 lists; in fact, my previous post was a top 10 list… and this post is a top 10 list as well!

So, just for fun I compiled a top 10 list of top 10 GTD lists! Doing a quick search on the internet, I was pleasantly surprised that almost half of these top 10 lists are actually written by me. In reality, there really are some gems in these lists, so enjoy!

Top 10 of Top 10 GTD Lists

(actually in no particular order)

1. 10 Simple Tips to Start Getting Things Done
2. The Top 10 GTD & Productivity Sites/Blogs
3. 10 Tips For Pruning Your Next Action List
4. My top 10 GTD tips
5. Top 10 Benefits Of GTD
6. Top Ten Signs You’re a GTD Disciple
7. 10 GTD Jargons that every GTD Afficiando knows and loves [sic]
8. 10 Useful Tips for Optimizing Ubiquitous Capture
9. GTD Top Ten Tips
10. 10 Beginner Behaviors

Do you know any other great top 10 GTD lists? Share them with us in the comments!

Perhaps you know the familiar phrase from the field of computer science, “Garbage In, Garbage Out“? Well, the same goes for your GTD system. Here’s a big surprise: if you feed your GTD system incomplete or incorrect input in the Collection phase, you will never get reliable or useful output in the Doing phase (next actions).

Ubiquitous capture is a well-known principle in the collection phase of the GTD workflow. If done well, it helps you to generate useful, complete and correct input for your GTD system. To help you optimize your ubiquitous capturing, I have compiled a list of 10 useful tips from my own experience.

10 Useful Tips for Optimizing Ubiquitous Capture

Before I give you my list of 10 tips, I would like to share the evolution of my ubiquitous capture tool (UCT) with you. I probably forgot some of the things I used as UCT, but here are a few. At one point I bought a stack of expensive Moleskines and used several of them as my UCT. This violates several of the rules described below: it’s expensive and it doesn’t invite you to create quick and dirty notes. Then I started to collect digital notes on my laptop (e.g. plain text files). Violations: not really portable, not simple and not quick. I used the same principle with my Windows Mobile PDA. Though portable, it’s not quick enough and certainly expensive. I finally settled on a small set of UCTs: scraps of paper (could be anything ripped to small pieces) and a simple pen; and sometimes voice notes with my mobile phone. It’s simple, cheap, quick, fun and they complement each other perfectly!

1. Use simple and quick tools
If it takes too much hassle or time to even whip out your tools, you’re definitely not going to use them in the heat of the moment when inspiration strikes and you need to jot down something quickly. The same goes for cool but complicated tools, for instance a PDA. If it takes 3 minutes to jot down an idea because you insist on using a stylus to tap-tap-tap your note on your PDA, then pretty soon you will resist doing it at all!

2. Use tools that are fun
If you really enjoy using your tools to capture thoughts, ideas and other “stuff”, it is much more likely that you will actually do so when it is most needed. Using a nice pen, nice looking paper, or whatever floats your boat, will definitely motivate you to capture everything.

3. Use cheap or dispensable tools
I told you about my Moleskines. They are really, really nice! However, they are so nice that you want to write something nice into them as well. You start resisting jotting down a quick note or two, because after all a Moleskine deserves better, right? Wrong! You need to start using tools that are cheap and dispensable so you won’t resist taking any kind of note that crosses your mind, when it crosses your mind. If I use simple scraps of paper and a very cheap pen to capture my “stuff”, I don’t really care about losing my pen or writing neatly.

4. Use compact and portable tools
Remember the principle is actually ubiquitous capturing. That means you want to use tools that can be carried with you anywhere. When I was still using my PDA for capturing things, I didn’t take it with me everywhere. Sometimes it just didn’t fit my pocket or I was worried it would get stolen. Once you catch yourself leaving your UCT at home once in a while, it will be the beginning of the end to ubiquitous capturing!

5. Start building in redundancy
My ubiquitous capturing has become so convenient and so simple since I started using a simple pen and some scraps of paper, that I can’t really imagine using something else anymore. What’s more, I started building in redundancy by leaving scraps of fresh paper and some pens around the house, in my car, at my office, in my pocket and in my bag. You will not ever catch me without a pen and paper, either on me or very near to me!

6. Create a small set of tools that complement each other
Don’t use too many different UCTs. However, sometimes different situations call for different UCTs. You won’t catch me writing down stuff in my car, well, not very often anyway! The funny thing is that in my car I have time to think or make a few phone calls and I actually need to capture a lot of “stuff”. Here’s my solution. I created a small set of tools that complement each other. I’ve mentioned pen and paper a couple of times for ordinary situations, but in my car I use my mobile phone to record voice notes. Now I have truly ubiquitous capture (except for the shower!).

7. Process what you captured frequently
Now that your capturing phase of the GTD workflow is starting to become really smooth, you don’t want to create a new bottleneck downstream. Make it a habit to process all the stuff you’ve captured at least once a day. If you collect too much before actually processing it, you will start resisting taking more notes!

8. Use your own shorthand to speed up writing stuff down
In order to optimize your capturing experience even further, it might be very useful to create your own (simple) notational system, consisting of symbols, abbreviations or any other thing that speeds up writing stuff down. For instance, I use the @-sign to indicate that I need to email something, I use an arrow to indicate actions or commitments, I use “vm” to indicate a voicemail, et cetera, et cetera. Use what works best for you!

9. Datestamp everything, and I mean everything
This little tip is going to save you more than once, believe me. Most of the time it is not important when something happened, but there will be occasions when you will be glad you can faithfully reproduce the exact date when something was promised, decided, or even given to you. The effort of writing down the current date on your note is small compared to the huge, potential benefit of this. Try it and let me know if it works for you too!

10. Tell other people why you are writing things down
My final tip for now has to do with people who give you a funny look when you whip out your UCT in the middle of a conversation. I can imagine a few situations in which I would feel awkward or inhibited to use my UCT. Explaining GTD is sometimes uncalled for or simply too much work. What works for me is the following. If I get a funny look when I whip out my UCT and take a quick note, I always tell them: “Hold on, what you’re telling me now is so funny/important/interesting that I don’t want to forget it!“. It works every time!

For additional tips and information, please see my following articles:
* 18 Tricks to Instantly Improve your GTD System
* Ask the Reader – Best GTD Tip? Plus: My Best GTD Tip
* How To: Fix Leaks In Your GTD System
* Ask the Reader – Favorite Ubiquitous Capture Tool?
* Quick Note-taking Tip
* Mobile Phone as GTD Inbox

If you liked this post I would definitely appreciate it if you shared it on del.icio.us, StumbleUpon or on Digg!

This 112 page ebook contains nearly 40 of my very best GTD blog posts from 2007. As a special bonus it includes my set of GTD worksheets for free!

Now why on earth would you buy this ebook when you can read all of the posts right here for free?
Let me answer that question with the following 11 good reasons why you should purchase this ebook:

1. Read my best posts offline in one document
2. Handy PDF document: portable and easily printable
3. Most valuable posts hand picked by the author (me!)
4. Find specific content easily (chronological, alphabetical and by topic)
5. Easy reference and backup
6. Always access to these articles even if the online version would be gone somehow
7. Internal and external (hyper)links are all working
8. No ads or other distractions in blog posts
9. Direct support for the author (consider it to be a donation with something in return!)
10. Free GTD worksheets (worth $10)!
11. It makes a wonderful gift for someone you want to introduce to GTD

Convinced? Purchase this wonderful ebook for yourself or as a gift for someone else right now!

My point is: don’t just rely on one approach to self management. Combine best practices from bottom-up and top-down approaches and adapt them to your personal situation! The bottom-up approach is useful for the operational level of your life, but it’s useless without a sound top-down approach for the strategic level of your life.

One top-down tool that can guide your strategic decisions in life is your personal mission statement. Now, here’s the irony: one part of my work consists of encouraging and aiding businesses in determining their mission statement, but I don’t have a personal mission statement (yet)! Of course I understand how important a (personal) mission statement is, but at the same time I realize how hard it is to come up with one that really resonates with who you are and where you want to be!

So, I’m still working on discovering my life’s purpose, my personal mission statement and the corresponding goals. I guess this is true for a lot of people. For those of you who have already found or determined their personal mission statement, I would like you to share it with us in the comments section for inspiration! As an additional request, please share your favorite articles, books or methods for determining your personal mission statement.

Stephen of Productivity in Context came up with the idea of “collecting” personal mission statements.

I’ve recently created some handy GTD worksheets that are perfectly suited for creating or enhancing your own paper-based or hybrid GTD system. They are handcrafted by me based on my own experiences with paper-based GTD systems. Click the image to the left for a slightly larger preview of these GTD worksheets.

If you enjoy thinking and working on paper but at the same time you’d like to have professional looking GTD lists, then these GTD worksheets are definitely for you!

As of today I’m selling these GTD worksheets in one handy PDF in my online GTD shop.

The current version contains the following worksheets:

• GTD workflow overview (diagram)
• Calendar 2008 – 1 page overview
• Calendar 2009 – 1 page overview
• Next Actions list (2 different styles)
• Waiting For list
• Projects list (4 different styles)
• Someday/Maybe list
• Empty list (general purpose)
• Mindmap template (for brainstorming, project planning)

The PDF format ensures ultimate portability and flexibility. You can easily print each worksheet on any kind of paper in any size required.

I encourage you to provide me with feedback about these GTD worksheets so I may continue to improve them for the next version of this set. If you have special requirements or wishes for a GTD worksheet, please contact me directly at gtd [at] marvelz [dot] com to discuss the possibilities.

Don’t wait, purchase my GTD worksheets today and create your own professional paper-based GTD system!

Much like my post “GTD Gems – Part 1” I want to present a few interesting GTD articles from the past 2 or 3 months, especially from some lesser known blogs.

I have hand-picked the list of GTD articles below for your reading pleasure. Have a nice weekend!

GTD Gems – Part 2

The GTD Resource Motherload: 100+ Links [Bootstrapper]

Setting up GTD Contexts… [Driven to Develop]

The GTD Habits: Part 1 [Organize IT]

Techie goes analog again: comparison of paper based planners [How to Be an Original]

When Your GTD System Crashes [Encoded Designs]

Five Steps to Get Back on the GTD Track [7P Productions]

When I do my Weekly Review – How I do my Weekly Review [Stuff for Getting Things Done]

The when and how of weekly reviews [Hack Your Day]

GTD: The weekly review [Proto-Scholar: From Student to Scholar]

Basic GTD [Unapologetic Genius]

2008: A revised GTD system [Lineage and Escape]

The GTD Starter Kit [sfp101: Stress-Free Productivity]

Practicing Simplified GTD [lifehacker.com]

My New Moleskine GTD System [The Creative GTDer]

12 Ways to Upgrade Your Weekly Review [lifehack.org]

GTD (Getting Things Done) Roundup – Time To Organize [makeuseof.com]

Getting Organized with Things [Nick DeNardis]

Getting Things Done: The Science behind Stress-Free Productivity (direct link to PDF) [Cogprints]

Getting Things Done (GTD), with David Allen himself (direct link to video) [Random Thoughts from Joel's World]

David Allen @ The Huffington Post [Stuff for Getting Things Done]

Paper vs Tablet: Why it matters for GTD [reasonablyhuman]

9 Great E-mail Tips [Stuff for Getting Things Done]

Stack model for productivity [PCC]

2008: The Year of the Killer Task Management App [View from the dock]

GTD reversed approach [Greywolf's Journal]

Most Overrated Productivity Strategy? (poll results) [lifehacker.com]

I’m trying something new with my email [I Am A Camera]

6 Productivity Tips to a Stress-Free Life [Litemind]