My personal time management system is a combination of GTD and Franklin Covey and involves a weekly review, inbox, planner, and email. For a time management system to be optimally beneficial, it must be personal. I have taken the aspects from Allen and Covey that work for me and implemented them to play off of each other’s strengths. Here’s how I keep myself organized:

Weekly Review

Once a week, I go through my physical inbox, my planner, my action lists, my goals, and my projects to see how I am progressing and what I need to focus on that week. This is known as the weekly review and is one of the most important tools in the GTD system.

When I have a task that I wanted to complete the previous weeks doesn’t get done, I will take a look as to why it was not done and see what I can do to fulfill that task or project in the new week. I also plan the coming week by checking which tasks from my action lists and projects I can and want to get completed, while being mindful of my schedule. If I have a time sensitive task, I will write it on the task list on the day it must be completed. Things that I need to do that week, but are not time sensitive are written on my “Weekly Compass” so that I will be reminded of them each day when I compose my daily task list.

Physical Inbox

This is a capture tool for papers, bills, reference items, and various actions I need to take. Whenever I have something that I can’t immediately deal with, such as a form that needs to be filled out, mail, or information that must be processed, I put it here. During my weekly review, I decide what needs to be done with the item and process it. (If my inbox saw more traffic, it would need to be dealt with more regularly. At this point, once a week is often enough). If there is a piece of reference material that I will need in the future, I put it in my alphabetized filing system. Items that will not serve me as reference and do not need to be acted upon are thrown away. Paper work and other actions that must be completed are processed and I add a task in my planner to complete them.

The Planner

My Franklin Covey planner is my primary organizational tool and I use it regularly throughout the day. The planner contains monthly calendars, daily schedules, daily tasks, a section for goals, and five personalizable blank tabs.

Each monthly calendar tab has a master task list for personal and business goals that are to be met that month. During the last weekly review of the month, I go through all of my projects, goals, and tasks and decide which ones I want to do in the next month and place them on this list. In my regular weekly reviews, I check this list and see which of these goals I can get done that week. Ultimately, I end up getting all of them done.

The “Prioritized Daily Task List” is located on the daily calendar next to the appointment schedule. It’s pretty clear what this is for — daily tasks. I design this list every evening before bed or each morning after waking. I refer to the list and check off things that I have completed during the day. The feeling of accomplishment that is accompanied by checking off a task in my list is one of my favorite rewards.

I have made a slight modification to my “Prioritized Daily Task List”, a sort of GTDification, if you will. Instead of prioritizing my tasks ABC and 123, as recommended by Stephen Covey, I leave them all un-prioritized. David Allen believes that if you have a task to do that day, you want to do it and you want to get it done as soon as you can. Priorities are not needed. Just get the task list done. I’ve found this to be a more effective method to completing my tasks than prioritizing.

While writing about the Weekly Review, I mentioned the “Weekly Compass”. You may be asking yourself “What the heck is that?” Each Franklin Covey planner contains a page finder. This is a clear, pocketed bookmark that tracks the current day. The Weekly Compass is placed inside the page finder and is used to list my bigger to-dos for the week that are not time sensitive (this is another GTD modification on my part).

As I stated before, there are five tabs that can be used in whichever way you wish. I use my first tab for notes. The second is my action list. When something that I need to do pops in my head I write down here. During my weekly review, I decide when I’ll do it. My projects and their various tasks are kept behind my third tab. Someday/Maybes, such a travel destinations and reading lists, are organized in the fourth tab. My fifth tab is devoted to uplifting and thoughtful quotes that I have collected from various books and lectures.

E-mail

E-mail can be a very messy business if left unorganized. Of course, there are many ways you could order your system, but this is how I do mine and it works quite well. I believe I got this idea, based on GTD, from Merlin Mann of 43 Folders.

It is best to keep the inbox empty and to process it as often as possible. Most time management folks recommend that you set your e-mail client to check for new mail every hour, not every 10-15 minutes, so as not to distract you from your work and to avoid e-overwhelm. David Allen believes if you have something that needs to be acted on that can be done in two minutes or less, do it. Otherwise, file it accordingly and process frequently.

Here are my e-mail files:

Action: Items that involve work or an action outside of email.
Respond: Emails that need to a response on my part.
Waiting on: Delegated tasks or other items such as amazon.com orders that don’t directly involve me, but I am waiting for.
Reference: Important information that I will need to reference later. I have this further subdivided into Home, Coaching, and School.

That is the basics of my personal organization system. It sounds much more complex that it really is. Once you implement something of your own, it quickly becomes effortless and automatic. The key is to make your time management system something that will cater to your needs while retaining the optimization benefits taught by the masters such as David Allen and Stephen Covey.

Recommended Reading

• The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, by Stephen Covey
• The Eighth Habit, by Stephen Covey
• Getting Things Done, by David Allen