“Get Things Done” (often abbreviated as GTD) is a time-management and productivity methodology developed by David Allen. It’s outlined in his book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. The method helps individuals organize tasks, projects, and ideas in a systematic way, reducing stress and increasing efficiency.

Core Principles of GTD

1. Capture: Write down or collect everything you need to do, no matter how big or small, in a trusted system (e.g., apps, notebooks).
2. Clarify: Process what each item means and decide on the next actionable step.
3. Organize: Categorize tasks and sort them into lists (e.g., “Next Actions,” “Waiting For,” “Projects”).
4. Reflect: Regularly review your lists to stay on top of tasks and adjust priorities as needed.
5. Engage: Focus on doing tasks effectively by choosing the right action at the right time.

Benefits

• Reduces mental clutter.
• Boosts clarity and focus.
• Increases overall productivity and goal achievement.

How to use GTD

If you have been looking for a tool for a while to help you manage your daily tasks better, you will have missed it, just like me and others:

You’ve been eyeing up different software, hoping it would help you get everything done – only to find that most of the software tools available for purchase didn’t actually make you more productive on their own. Because tools are only as good as our ability to work with them in the most organised and disciplined way possible.

Maybe you have already read David Allen’s book ‘Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-free Productivity‘, but you haven’t found a suitable tool that really helps you to implement his extremely valuable suggestions.

With the Google Sheets ‘GET THINGS DONE’ App, you’ll become more focused and productive in the sense of GTD in the simplest way possible.

So if you already use Google Workspace or even just Google Sheets, it’s worth using this app every day!

The Google Sheets ‘GET THINGS DONE’ App helps you to collect all your important projects, tasks, delegations and meetings in a Google Sheets workbook, document them (with notes), prioritise them, schedule them, mark them as done and archive them automatically for later review. 

The app consists of 10 + 1 spreadsheets (the latter for the codes used):. 

1. Today
2. Projects
3. Projects (P)
4. Next Actions
5. Next Actions (P)
6. Waiting for
7. Agenda with
8. Incubator
9. Projects Archive
10. Actions Archive
11. Codes

​Private or non-business-related projects and actions are stored in the tables with the additional designation (P) and administered accordingly.

​Google App Scripts help you with the daily sorting, duplicating, scheduling and moving of project or action items (e.g. temporarily moving an immature project to the incubator and vice versa).

Get the Google Sheets ‘GET THINGS DONE’ App, which will massively increase your productivity, provided you use it meticulously every day.