How To Use Your Task Manager — And Why GTD is severely flawed (Barbell #3)

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Your task manager is the home for everything you must do (obligations) and might want to do (options).

As I mentioned in this article, I prefer Google Tasks. It is by far the simplest and most user-friendly (although Remember The Milk, Todoist, and Things are solid alternatives). On the computer, Google Tasks is accessed via your Gmail, but if you install this extension, you can access your tasks separately.

You add a task by pressing the “+” sign and add to a list of your choice. When you are finished or do not want to do the task anymore, check it off. The task manager should be very close to you at all times.

Write as little as possible, avoid next actions

The famous Getting Things Done system argues for clarifying your to-dos down to the desired outcome and the very physical activity. According to the founder David Allen, if you do not take the extra steps, you have not finished your thinking.

Although this practice is very useful, it has a severe flaw. It presents a ton of friction straight away since you now have to expel brainpower to every single task. After…