Organization System Step 4 - Processing

I am spending this blog week on my first-ever series of articles on the same topic.  I implemented a new personal productivity and organization system using Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen.  I have never had more going on in my life, and at the same time I have never been more organized to deal with life.  I couldn’t find a way to limit my description of this time management system so I’ve broken it up into 5 smaller posts.  This post is part 4, processing your pile..  Read Part 1 - Organization System Benefits and Part 2 - Organization System Setup and Part 3- Organization System Collecting Your Life

Hopefully you did not experience too much trepidation while staring at the pile of unresolved items from yesterday.  Fortunately we have reached the heart of David Allen’s organization system, the action phase.  There is one rule, and it is tough to adhere to, but it is crucial.  Whatever you pick up, starting at the top of your pile, has to be processed.  Processed does not mean finished, it just means put into the organization system for future action.   Are you ready?

For each item in your pile, you are going to either do it immediately, defer it until later, delegate it to someone else, throw it away, file it, or put it in your someday/maybe system for future contemplation.   I know it sounds nice to put everything into “someday/maybe” but that is how you got this huge pile to begin with.  So resist that temptation.

When deferring, delegating, classifying as someday/maybe, or filing, if the item is a physical item you will be putting it in your folder system according to the directions below.  But if it is a mental item such as “Research Meditation Tape Marketing Partnerships” you need to capture that somewhere also.  Time to setup your daily planner.

Have your daily planner ready with some blank pages.  Label the pages as listed below, for the following mental placeholders:

• “Emails” – A laundry list of emails you need or want to write.
• “Calls” – Phone calls you need or want to make.
• “Errands” – Random stuff like dry cleaning or getting the dog’s fur cut.
• “Home Projects” – Re-arranging furniture, cleaning out the fridge, etc.
• “Someday/Maybe” – This is a great mental brainpower saver.  When an item from your pile is something you want to do someday, such as “Schedule another psychic reading’, but you don’t know when you want to do such a thing or even think about when you want to do it, put it here.
• “Projects” – A list of any on-going projects, professional, personal, and all in-between.  I have a wedding project, honeymoon project, blog project, Motorola project, and a bunch more for all my side business schemes.
• Each Project gets a page – All the items in your pile, and all future items, related to something on your project list, get listed here. 

Now you are ready to deal with your pile!

Take the first item from your pile.  Ask the big question that determines your next workflow step.  Is this item something I can take action on?  Suppose the top of your pile is “look up mba programs”.  That is something you can take action on.  Maybe not this moment, but it is actionable.  If it is a brochure for a future travel destination on a trip you haven’t even begun to contemplate yet, you can take action on it (believe it or not).  A copy of a paid utility bill is something that requires no action.

If the item requires action -

1. Can it be completed in 2 minutes?  If it can, do it immediately.  This might be something that needs to have a file created and then stored in your general folder storage from Step 2.  If so, make a label, stick in on a folder, put the documents, reference material, etc. in your folder, and file it alphabetically according to the label you gave it.  The item could be a hacky sack from a junk drawer, if so, determine where to put it now.  It could be a box of staples or an old pen, and you have no use for it, so trash it now.  The whole point it that if the action to process the item can be completed in 2 minutes it is done immediately.
2. If it cannot be done in 2 minutes, is it something I can and want to delegate to someone else?  If so, do that now.  For example, the item in your pile is a piece of paper from your mental inventory that says “Have Mark write the business plan for xyz.com”.  You are deferring the action to Mark on project xyz.com.  You would write “Mark do the business plan” on your XYZ.com project sheet in your planner, and on your email or call list “mark to write business plan”.
3. If it cannot be done in 2 minutes, but it is something for you to take action on, assess the item for date sensitivity and how you want to be reminded.   
   • If it HAS to be done on a certain date or time, put that in your planner for that day and time. 
   • If you want to think about the item next week after your big work deadline is met, open up your tickler file, pick a day you might want to deal with it, and toss it in the folder. 
   • If it is a mental item such as “marketing plan for meditation website”, put it on the meditation project page you have in your planner and then throw the page out. 
   • It could be a brochure for a convention that would help your side business, list it on that project page and put it in that project’s folder.

If the item does not require action-

1. Is this an idea or dream you want to keep in your visions, but just not deal with it for awhile?  Put it on your Someday/Maybe list in your planner.
2. A receipt for a bike you just bought that has a one-year warranty or something similar?  File it in your general purpose files.
3. A pen you haven’t used in a year or something else that is useless – stop being a packrat and throw it out already!

Continue mowing through your pile following this process.  Don’t put an item back down just because it is not something fun or pleasant to deal with, follow the process.  It works!  As you start making progress, you will get more and more motivated to finish.  The weight of the world literally lifts off your shoulders as the system processes your life for you.

Expect a good afternoon worth of processing to plow through everything.  I reached a zen-like state where I was burning through items like a man possessed.  Finally the holy grail of organization!