You first need to set Goals in each of your life categories. Although David doesn’t call them categories and goals, but “levels of focus, altitude views, areas of responsability etc”, it’s the same thing.

Then you create Projects in each goal, these being sub-goals that when completed move you forward to the completion of the goal.

Then you have Tasks, actionable steps in each project. Here you can set the famous Next Actions, and also associate the tasks to your Contexts.

Checklists section is great for your repetitive tasks (daily, weekly, monthly or yearly). It generates a series of checkboxes and you check them off as you do the tasks.

Schedules are for the scheduled blocks of time. Even if GTD does not promote scheduling we all have schedules (at work, at school, self-imposed etc). The activities here can be associated with the existing projects.

Calendar section is for events that need to be done at exactly a specific date.

Dan,
http://www.gtdagenda.com

By studying I don’t mean avoiding reading the material in the first place. No matter how good I am, I still must do that. What I am referring to is the constant re-reading of material.

-Scott

you associate the things in a web that somehow relates to the material…what about the actualy reading? I am reading psychology right now for example…and I am not ‘connecting’…am I supposed to connect as I go?

After a second read, a slow read, with pen and highlighters, it made sense. I did modify it, but not much. My productivity is now beginning to soar.

For those who struggle to keep up, and still fall behind, I say give it a good shot. Once it starts becoming a habit (like excercise did for me two years ago), you’ll be glad you invested the time. The payoff for me has been great.

I suppose optimization will be endless. My issue is that people spend a lot of time thinking about how to optimize a system that should be as simple as possible.

Perhaps it’s a function of my personality as well. I lean more towards the kind of higher level ideas broken down into practical solutions by people like Steve Pavlina, Tim Ferriss and Leo Babauta.

-Scott

I was wondering with all the productivity articles being written and read all over the place – who’s actually doing anything?

I like how you point out to focus on getting things done, not the system.

Good stuff!