increased productivity.
GTD for Designers: Stage 1 (Collecting)
Distraction is the natural enemy of creativity. Left unchecked, distraction can paralyze and destroy any chance for inspiration. Clearing mental fog is the first step towards Getting Things Done.
Start by writing down everything that’s on your mind. Everything. Don’t organize. Purge. Flush out the clogged drains of creativity and get some persective. In the GTD world, this is called the mind dump.
The first mind dump is the worst mind dump because there’s more… well… to dump. Might take a while, but afterwards weekly reviews and daily collecting will help the mental warehouse from getting overstocked.
Keep some recording device, such as a notepad, with you at all times and whenever an unfinished task or idea strikes you, put it down for later processing. Get into the habit of collecting and out of the habit of expecting you’ll remember it – extend that unreliable brain of yours. Even if you are gifted enough to “remember everything”, why waste that space and energy when you could be focusing more on the task at hand? A clear mind makes for a clear goal.
Some collecting happens for you through the inboxes of your world (email, voicemail, texts, etc,) but collecting does not have to only be a do-as-you-go activity. Nudge and lure your creativity into focus with a few brain empowering methods and strategies:
Mind maps
This method helps me get my head straight about nearly anything. See: GTD and Mind Mapping.
Mood boards
Outside of presenting ideas to others, I often use mood boards for collecting ideas and analyzing competition. See Mood Boards.
Cornell note taking method
This sort-as-you-go technique has literally has saved me hours. See The Cornell Note Taking System (pdf).
Reduce inboxes
Inboxes are like voices. The fewer people speaking, the quieter the room. Leo Babauta touches on this in Simplifying David Allen’s Complicated GTD setup.
Use tools you like
Creativity begins with the little things, such as that pen you look forward to using.
Remember that a busy mind is not ready for inspiration. Drain the power of your mental frenzy by getting all that energy out into the open. Like all battles, you plan and perform better when you know what you’re up against.
For implementing GTD you can use this web application:
http://www.Gtdagenda.com
You can use it to manage your goals, projects and tasks, set next actions and contexts, use checklists, schedules and a calendar.
Syncs with Evernote, and also comes with mobile-web version, and Android and iPhone apps.
Thanks for dropping a link for GTD Agenda. I definitely going to take a look!