The Getting Things Done method created by David Allen rests on the principle that a person needs to move stuff out of the mind by recording them externally.

David Allen defines “stuff:” anything you have allowed into your psychological or physical world that doesn’t belong where it is, but for which you haven’t yet determined the desired outcome and the next action step. [pg. 17 – Getting Things Done book]

Here’s how you go about doing using this app to systematically stick to these fundamental principles by:

1. Collect basket:

• Collect everything (stuff) that catches your attention.
• Remember that “Stuff” is a catchall word, which can refer to an email, something at the back of your mind, a note, a voice-mail, a scrap from a newspaper, etc., i.e. any item that has been collected.

2. Process basket:

• To gain control over the collected materials, you need to empty collected items regularly.
• Emptying means deciding what to do with—not actually doing— by processing and organizing the items one by one.

When processing a bucket, a strict workflow is followed:

1. Start at the top.
2. Deal with one item at a time.
3. Never put anything back into where you 1st collected it.
4. If an item requires action:

• Do it (if it takes less than two minutes), OR
• Delegate it, OR
• Defer it.

5. If an item does not require action:

• File it for reference, OR
• Throw it away, OR
• Incubate it for possible action later.

If it takes under two minutes to do something, it should be done immediately. The two-minute rule is a guideline, encompassing roughly the time it would take to formally defer the action.

For example: The item “plane tickets for Sydney” was initially in the Project Plan “Travel to Sydney”, reminding you to order the tickets; now you are Waiting for them to arrive by post; if they don’t arrive, it will become a Next Action to call the company about the tickets; after you have used them, you may store the tickets as a Reference, so that later you could potentially use them as proof of expenses made.

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