Tag: “Clarify”

Have you tried to implement Getting Things Done in your life and you don’t manage to do it in a consistent way? Have you had some crazy months, full of urgent things, and have you been slowly leaving your personal organization aside? No matter how hard you try, after a period of control, do you always end up overwhelmed and everything goes back to the original chaos?

In knowledge work the tasks are not evident, they must be defined. It is essential to specify what each thing is, what must be done (or not) with it, when it is necessary to do it and what is needed for it.

Process and clarify are the two names by which the second stage of the GTD workflow is known.

In GTD we name those things we have captured and are still not processed as “stuff”. And we do it on purpose, to denote their abstract nature, since we haven’t yet paused to think what they really are—although we may have a preconceived idea. Then, when you are processing or clarifying your stuff, the key question is “Is there any action required?”

When you are processing your inbox, that is, clarifying the meaning of those things you have captured before, you will probably find some that don’t need any action right now but might need it in the future. They are actions like the following: