One of the things that impacted me the most about GTD is lists. It’s such a ridiculously simple concept, but it’s incredibly powerful. I was reminded of this recently when I saw an article at Boxes and Arrows called Check It Twice: The B&A Staff Reveals the Way They Make Lists. It isn’t about GTD at all really, but it’s useful nonetheless. It includes things like “Holiday cookies”, “Refrigerator lists”, and even included a bit about Backpack, but the one that I found most interesting was called Mantras:

• Simplify
• Smaller, smaller
• Do only what you love, love everything that you do
• Embrace constraints
• Less
• Honor your mistake as a hidden intention
• Disrupt business as usual

…And so on.

I like that, I think I’m going to add that to my lists.

Back to my original point, one of the first things I started doing when I implemented GTD, was to start keeping reference lists. I use the “Memos” section of my Palm T5 to store them. I was first inspired by The David’s tip, but I’ve gone on to create some of my own.

Here’s a sampling:

• Fun Projects – Little programming things I may want to do some day.
• Model numbers – This is a list of model numbers for much of what I own. That way when I’m out shopping and I remember that I need to buy furnace filters, I don’t have to try and remember what size I have, it’s right there in my list.
• Blog topics – Things I may want to write about here someday. * Music – Various albums, songs, and artists I may want to buy.
• Books – Books I want to read
• Gift ideas – Throughout the year, when my wife mentions something she’d like, I jot it down in a list with her name. When it comes time to buy gifts, I’ve got a list to choose from. I have one of these lists for everyone I buy gifts for. My kids, parents, in-laws, etc.
• Checklists – I keep checklists for certain things I have to do regularly, like “Project startup”, “New employee”, etc.

This is only a few of my lists, I probably have 50 or so.

Do you have any lists like this? Share in the comments, I’m always looking for new ideas.

Tags: getting things done, Organization, GTD, Lifehacks