Getting Things Done

My workplace is quite fond of the idea of Getting Things Done, David Allen's one man quest to end procrastination and improve productivity everywhere. The idea is to adopt new habits to be more productive. Even adopting one habit can change a person's like, such as "If it takes less than 2 minutes, just do it!"

I recently completed a big chart of my art backlog, which goes back years. The trouble is not that we don't want to do something sometimes, but that we don't know what the next step is. An example of mapping the flow of steps would be:

Photograph reference picture
Print reference picture
Decide size of finished artwork
Cut paper
Sketch picture
Transfer picture to paper

and so on. Breaking something down into steps, even if they seem obvious, often makes a task more manageable and easier than it seems. This is how traditonal to-do lists fail, because we might not be sure of the next action and they don't capture that. Essentially my chart is a big "mind sweep" of all the things I'd like to get done. Crossing things off this chart makes me happy, because, well, I'm getting things done! It can work, honestly, even for you champion procrastinators out there :-)