A Stupid Simple Flowchart

When Getting Things Done made its debut in 2001 one of the most popular aspects of the program was a flowchart.

This chart walked people through “processing” stuff that comes into their lives. The idea behind the chart was to help you organize all the stuff in your life and put it into systems where it fit. It was all about taking the chaos that you’re encountering and making order out of it.

That’s why it was so attractive.

It gave people a map for navigating what is essentially the hero’s journey. Sure, paying your bills doesn’t always feel heroic, but sometimes it is. And when it is, it does feel good. Besides, if you can’t get the little things in order, why should you expect to tackle something really challenging, like starting a company.

So it resonated.

And it was complicated. That very complexity is part of what made it attractive. It felt like a solution to a hard problem.

Imagine working through this whole chart for every piece of mail, every email, every random idea that pops into your head. I did that. I got a kick out of it. But it just doesn’t make sense.

Over time, it was this complexity that sparked the large movement toward simplicity that rose up in the wake of GTD. It wasn’t that the GTD system was complicated, it’s that life had gotten too complicated. The Getting Things Done approach was just one that gave people complex tools for managing the complexity.

So it didn’t take long for the GTD itself to be simplified. Eventually, people just talked about “Inbox Zero” or having “43 Folders” (i.e. a tickler file). Many of the ideas in the flowchart were forgotten, or at least disconnected from the GTD process.

Implicit in the whole system, but not talked about as much, was that you had to build some habits.

You had to have a habit of processing your inbox,
a habit of reviewing your next action lists,
a habit of looking through your projects,
a habit of checking your calendar,
a habit of doing a weekly review,
a habit of following up on your “waiting for” lists.

Assuming you can actually put that all in place, you’ll most likely be deep into masturbatory planning, where you get a kick off the planning itself, but at the expense of not really getting much done.

As with the flowchart itself, the whole system needs to be simplified.

Start with one habit: daily planning.

Start with one tool: a digital tickler file.

Start with one process:

Review the last day’s plan
↓
Review the tickler file for the next day
↓
Write out your plan for the next day
↓
Move any unplanned ticklers forward (or delete them)

It’s simple, it’s doable, and it’s a start.