“The whole point of getting things done is knowing what to leave undone.” –Oswald Chambers

When people first learn the Getting Things Done (GTD) method of productivity, they think it is all about…well…getting thing done. On the surface, it is about doing stuff, cranking widgets, etc. But the real gem that lies beneath concepts like Ubiquitous Data Capture, In Box Processing, and the Weekly Review, is that GTD is as much about getting things done, as it is about not getting things done.

There are times when a person does not want to do anything. Those lazy weekends where the weather is either too wonderful or too awful to contemplate doing more than reading a good book or watching a movie. We all have those times, where our bodies and minds call for a vacation day, and we heed them. Those days are totally necessary for gathering our energies and getting perspective from a normal hectic life.

For many people those lazy days often come with the hangover of what my wife affectionately calls “The Sunday Feeling.” It is that feeling that you got as a child, after spending the weekend having fun, only to remember that you had a book report due on Monday morning that you never worked on. Think on that for a moment and that sickly feeling will return to the bottom of your stomach. That is the Sunday Feeling.

If you are not organized in what you have to do, and when it has to be done, you run the very realistic risk of finishing your lazy weekend and running right into The Sunday Feeling, because over the weekend you should have done something, but it slipped your mind, during your marathon stretch of Everyday Italian, or a few hundred pages of that new book you got your hands on. Now you are in a scramble to cover for the thing(s) that did not get done, your nerves are aching with the Sunday Feeling, and that recharged feeling you had just minutes before is gone, and you are cursing yourself and/or your creator for letting this thing slip by. What should have been gained by your lazy weekend, is now ruined.

The GTD methodology, on the other hand, is designed to avoid this feeling. The main tool for accomplishing this is the Weekly Review. For those of you who are not using GTD, the Weekly Review, is time that you set aside at the end of the week to review your list of things you need to do, and to strategically plan the upcoming week. Through a process detailed in the book , you clear your mind, arrange your priorities, and organize your list of Next Actions. When it is done, you have a clear idea of what is looming on your horizon for the upcoming week, and what things have to be done, and the steps you need to take to get each of them done.

For many newcomers to GTD, the weekly review seems elusive or not necessary. When I first started using GTD, I was not even doing a weekly review, I was thrilled enough to just have all my Next Actions on a to do list.  When I eventually started the weekly review, I tried to do it on Monday mornings, but it was not that productive for me.  I was spending an hour or more on Monday morning arranging my priorities and to do lists when I should have been actually doing work. I went back to the book, and re-read the Weekly Review section and re-committed myself. I moved my review to Friday afternoons, and used the guidelines in the book to guide me through the process. The rewards were immediate. I moved beyond just having a list of things to do, and into a place where I could strategically plan my actions for the upcoming week, in the context of my priorities and my calendar. It was a pivotal step in my own personal productivity.

With my weekly review done on Friday afternoon, I can leave the office knowing what I am planning on doing over the weekend, and how important it is that I get it done.  Then if I am home and that lazy feeling strikes me on Saturday morning, and I compelled to watch all three Matrix movies back to back, or a marathon of the complete second season of So You Think You Can Dance, I can do so knowing that I am not  going to miss a commitment or not do something that needs to be done.

Suddenly Getting Things Done becomes all about Not Getting Things Done….for just a little while.