GTDGmail

GTD - Getting Things Done - is a simple and effective productivity concept: designed so that even the laziest and most scattered of people can be organised and stress free.

It is a way to get things done with "less effort, more ease and elegance".

GTD focuses on Contexts and Next Actions. A Context is the best place to achieve something, and a Next Action is the thing you think is most important to do next.
Projects and complex priorities are strongly devalued as they are rarely the answer to organisational problems.
As a very simple example, a to do list might have the Context 'At Computer', with the Next Actions being 'Visit GtdGmail.com' and 'Download GtdGmail'. Thus, when you are next sat at the computer, you know exactly what is most effective to do next.

The emphasis is on the fastest, easiest way to clear your task list.
A primary example being the 2 Minute Rule: any task that can be done in two minutes should be done straight away.

GTD is built on the notion that a person's mind is a very ineffectual place to store their todo list. It aims to move these lists somewhere else, freeing the brain to concentrate on the task at hand.
Enter Gmail...

GTD originated in David Allen's best selling book that promises to boost your productivity and open up your creativity; not to mention adding six months to your life.
Allen is in an excellent position to identify 'the way' - a Zen Budhist before even going to college - he has spent over two decades dedicating himself to making people more effective.

It strives to be simple and fun.
GTD asserts that we never just 'do' projects, instead we complete a series of very smaller steps that move us closer to the goal of completing multiple projects.
Hence the concept of Projects - and unrealistic priorities - are pushed to one side.
Instead, we focus on task lists that are grouped by context - i.e. what tasks can be best done where?
For example, a list of Phone tasks are those tasks that can be achieved when you are near a phone.

There is also the 'reminder' element. Rather than doing whatever comes first into your mind, you have the 'Next Action' for a given Context (or possibly Project) readily labelled.

In short, you keep nothing in your head; and whenever you think "What should I do now?" GTD has the most appropriate 'Next Action' ready for you.

The Process

This is derived from GTD's page at Wikipedia

Collect

Capture everything that you need to track or remember or act on in into a Bucket.
In this case, the Buckets are your Inbox and Archive.
Aim:

• Get Everything Out of your Head
• Minimise the collection buckets: your Inbox should be emptied once a day.

Process

When you process your inbox, follow a strict workflow:

• Start at the top.
• Deal with one item at a time.
• Never put anything back into 'in'.
• If an item requires action:
  • Do it (if it takes less than two minutes),
  • Delegate it, or
  • Defer it.
• If not,
  • Make it a Reference
  • Throw it away
  • Incubate it for possible action later - add it to the Someday / Maybe list

The 2-minute Rule: If it would take less than 2 minutes to do something, just do it right away.

Organize

• Decide on Context
  For any Actions in your Inbox, choose the best place/way in which you'll do them - i.e. the best context. For example, if a task is to call someone, then the Context is phone. If the Task is to pick something up from a shop, then the Context would be Car (or maybe Offsite/Onroad).
• Next actions
  For every item requiring your attention, decide what is the next action that you are effectively able to do. For example, if the item is 'Write project report', the next action might be 'Email Fred for meeting minutes', or 'Call Jim to ask about report requirements', or something similar. Though there may be many steps and actions required to complete the item, there will always be something that you need to do first, and this should be recorded in the next actions list. Ideally, your Actions should be ordered in the Context (e.g. phone, email, work desk) in which they are done.
• Projects
  Every process in your life or work which requires more than one physical action to achieve becomes a 'project'. These are tracked and periodically reviewed to make sure that every project has a next action associated with it and can thus be moved forward.
• Waiting For
  When you have delegated an action to someone else or are waiting for some external event before you can move a project forward, this must be tracked in your system and periodically checked to see if action is due or a reminder needs to be sent.
• Someday/Maybe
  Things that you want to do at some point, but not right now. Examples might be 'learn Chinese', or 'take diving holiday'.

Now you're organised, you can pull up a list of Next Actions based on different criteria - such as by Context if you are a specific situation (e.g. on the road), or by Project if the project is urgent, or simply by a general view of all Next Actions in chronological order.

Review

The lists of actions and reminders will be of little use if you don't review them at least daily, or whenever you have time available. Given the time, energy and resources that you have at that particular moment, decide what is the most important thing for you to be doing right now, and do it.

At least weekly, the discipline of GTD requires that you review all your outstanding actions, projects and 'waiting for' items, making sure that any new tasks or forthcoming events are entered into your system, and that everything is up to date.

Do

Any organizational system is no good if you spend all your time organizing your tasks instead of actually doing them! David Allen's contention is that if you can make it simple, easy and fun to take the actions that you need to take, you will be less inclined to procrastinate or become overwhelmed with too many 'open loops' (aka entire Projects).