February 17, 2013 
Last week I gave you 5 reasons why I GTD®. But that’s just the start! Here are the other 5 reasons I GTD®.
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(6) Align what I do every day to my higher level goals.
It took me several years to get my runway (projects and actions) functioning well. (But note that I took the hard road – read the book a couple of times but wasn’t part of any GTD communities.) When I finally got to the higher horizons of focus AND connected them to the runway, my vision took off. It is incredible. I started with some 47 items in my horizons of focus mindmap and just three years later I have 756 nodes. Furthermore, they get completed. As of today, 106 of those nodes are completed.
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(7) Use my brain for creativity instead of tasking
I also found, once I got my horizons of focus and weekly review down, that I got far more creative than I thought I could ever be. That’s how my horizons of focus mindmap grew 17-fold. Having a trusted system that held all my wildest dreams … but did not force me to act on them immediately, gave me the feedback to stock up on wishes.
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(8) More effectively plan my time and location
The great thing about having all of your life commitments – big ones, small ones, itty bitty ones – in one system, is that when I sit down in the morning to plan my day, I simply have to look at my calendar and my contexts. Within a few minutes I know whether I have to block out quiet work time on my computer to tackle my @computer list, spend all day at the office because my @office list is too long, or renegotiate commitments because my ^0_Today list is too long given the number of meetings I have.
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(9) Park what I’m doing and not get confused about what I was doing when I get back
I keep a notebook on my workstation. When I get interrupted … as I often do, I listen to what the new input is, do a quick mental check to see whether what I was doing is higher priority or not, and if it is not, I quickly park what I was just doing in that notebook. Then when I get back to my workstation, I look at my notebook and calendar and make a call about what is priority. What I have learnt in years of working in high-activity environments where I have no choice but to context-switch, is that using my notebook as a capture tool during the daily grind allows me to very quickly jump from activity to activity without having to wonder what I was just working on.
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(10) Put everything aside so I can truly switch off
Best of all, GTD® allows me to truly relax when I need to. I make sure that all my ticklers and next actions do not have a ^0_Today or ^2_Tomorrow or ^3_This Week flag by renegotiating those commitments, and then I leave my inboxes to fill up as much as they like. Ah, brain-off time!
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Question:
Why do you, or why would you, GTD®?
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GTD® and Getting Things Done® are registered trademarks of the David Allen Company. http://www.enyonam.com is not affiliated with or endorsed by the David Allen Company.
For implementing GTD you can use this application:
http://www.Gtdagenda.com
You can use it to manage your goals, projects and tasks, set next actions and contexts, use checklists, and a calendar.
Syncs with Evernote and Google Calendar, and also comes with mobile version, and Android and iPhone apps.
Hi Enyo,
I really enjoyed reading your posts. I can completely relate to having your higher horizons of focus connected to your projects, etc. This is an area that I’ve been really struggling with for a long time. While I believe i have GTD down pretty good with projects & actions (using Omnifocus) I feel I really need to have a higher level view with the Horizons connecting down to the projects / actions. I have multiple times tried this with a MindMap but seem to get stuck because I would have so much information on there. I am very much a visual person. I have all sorts of different someday / maybe lists, habits, routines, maintenance lists, etc. for each area of focus. I can’t seem to grasp how to connect all the dots using the 5 horizons of focus along with the 10 or so different area’s of focus I have and then linking them to projects so I can view everything from a higher level.
I have read some of your other posts explaining your mindmap using 10k, 0k nodes, etc. I’m curious as to how your higher level view mindmap looks. Can I maybe see a screenshot of the mindmap or even a partial screenshot? I completely understand if thats not possible.
Thank you and I look forward to following your blog.
Scott Gabel
Scott, I will do a specific blog post on that and hopefully that’ll help. I use a combination of icons, filters, links and even views to keep it in sync. The nice thing is that I’ve found after spending the time to develop it, I’m not referring to it more than once every 2 months or so.
Hi Enyo,
Thank you so much and I really look forward to that blog post! I think the same way and I also have a vision of using icons, filters and links to give me the exact view of what I’m looking for at that moment. There are many times whereas I just want to be able to drill down and just see projects, habits, goals or maintenance items, etc. that I’m committed to across all area’s of focus. Kind of like a dashboard view.
Thanks again!
Scott
Hi Scott, Got it – I’ll be able to cover some of this in my blog post. Should have something out on this in the next week or two.
Hi Enyo,
That sounds great and no rush whatsoever. I can imagine it gets pretty busy keeping up with a blog, etc. I have really been enjoying your posts and learning a lot. I’ve been an on and off member of GTDConnect now for a few years and thats how I found out about your blog. Thanks again!
Hi Scott, fellow GTD Connect member
, the topics are coming up next! Hope you’ll check back in an comment.
Hi Enyo,
I will definitely check back in and comment. I really look forward to the posts coming up! I’ve been doing GTD for a while now, I feel I pretty much understand the GTD methodology. Where I’ve struggled is picturing the higher level view of everything in my life. I do understand the horizons of focus but I’ve always just viewed them as a linear list. That helps me but I still have a very strong need for a higher level visual view with connections of all my stuff because I am very much a visual thinker. I’ve struggled with this and I really look forward to your posts! Thanks again!
Scott
Thanks for the comment Scott. I’ll definitely go through how I visually create my horizons of focus and yet am able to link this to my Evernote GTD lists. Look forward to your questions and feedback about whether it works for you or not.