Thursday, February 2, 2012

How I'm Expanding My GTD Daily Review Checklist To Get EVERYTHING Out Of My Head

In my last article, I showed a snapshot of my daily review checklist and mentioned the first five sections of my checklist were for the five phases of GTD workflow. Those were, collecting, processing, organizing, doing and reviewing. I have started building out the steps I take in those areas and have expanded my checklist to include a few more areas for me to build out.

The first three sections I added were for a morning routine, afternoon routine and evening routine. In each of these sections, I am going to outline the steps I take to do the routine items like getting ready in the morning, walking and things like that. To complement those sections, I've added additional sections for meals and snacks. Those are breakfast, lunch, dinner and three snacks. I will use these sections to put in healthy meal plans I would like to follow each day with a few different options as well.

The next sections I added were ones for a daily review, weekly review, monthly review, quarterly review and yearly review. In these sections, I will record the steps that I want to take for reviewing at each of those time. From the way I like to set up my day, I will set up slots for two daily reviews. Once in the morning and once in the evening.

I considered adding sections for each day of the week but at this time opted not to do that. Instead I will use my calendar for weekly related actions that need to be completed. I may change my position on that but that is what has always worked for me in the past. One additional step that I do take when I record steps is if it something I want to do on certain days I will put the initial of the day of the week in front of it. For example: M:Walk at 65% of maximum heart rate. The "M" in this situation is for Monday. If I want to do this for specific multiple days, I will put SWF for example. in front of the task.

The final sections I added to my daily review checklist are GTD related sections. These are projects for personal and professional, areas of focus, reference, goals and visions.

I also added a slot for my thirty day challenges.

Some things I have learned so far are to leave enough room to add and subtract items from your list and to also move items around. I have also numbered each step.

The final part of my checklist that I expanded is to keep track of time it takes to complete sections. I haven't started timing these yet but will here soon. My goal here is to get these items done as quickly and efficiently as possible.

One additional point. Once I fine tune each of these sections, the steps involved along with the most efficient and fastest way to complete these tasks, I will assign these routines to times on my calendar to follow at specific times. I will do that so I can control my day and what happens during each section of it.

If you are a member, you can watch my checklist evolve by clicking the link in my signature to my Daily Review Checklist. If you are not a member, I encourage you to join today.

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Michael Kuhn

Black Belt Project: Build Mental Strength


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