If your workload is so overwhelming that you’ve forgotten the color of the sky. If daily routine has taken over all your mental processes, leaving no room for new ideas. It’s time to bring GTD (Getting Things Done) technologies into your life.

Most of us know how a car works better than we understand how a person or human personality functions. A lack of awareness of our own plans and priorities slows us down, forcing us to pause and remember—what’s the next task? How much energy is wasted on constantly adjusting work and life processes to fit updated circumstances?

The answer is clear: a lot… We constantly waste ourselves on self-organization.

Breakthroughs Require Mental Space

The goal of each of us, from a corporate executive to a first-year student, is to use our resources as effectively as possible for business and life. Breakthroughs require ideas, and ideas require freeing up mental space. This was realized by David Allen, an American productivity consultant, back in the late 1980s. He created the GTD (Getting Things Done) system, which literally means “bringing things to completion.” The main goal of this system is to help people do what needs to be done and leave more time for what brings joy. David Allen wrote several books on this theory and made his breakthrough.

Creating Mental Space

David Allen concluded that time management does not provide maximum efficiency. The desire to manage time comes to those who have inappropriately focused their tasks. Efficiency emerges when there is mental space. To create this space in your mind, you need to discard the unnecessary without harming the process. To do this, the implementation plan must be moved from your head to another place: a notebook or a mobile app. This allows a person to look at their tasks from the outside, rising above the processes. From the observer’s perspective, orientation in the task space happens instantly. Mental energy is not wasted on controlling and holding a pile of tasks in your head that must be done.

Principles of GTD:

• To “get things done” the American way, you need to carefully write down all your tasks (both small and priority) at least in a notebook. At first, it may seem that note-taking takes more time than it frees up after such GTD. But as practice has shown, much less time is spent on writing things down than on remembering. The main thing is to always have your notebook with you;
• For each task, be sure to write explanations, break large tasks into small, gradual steps. With a regular task list, we spend more time deciphering than executing;
• Combine your task list with a calendar, create a reminder system, and set deadlines for specific tasks;
• Update your lists, cross out tasks that have lost relevance;
• Take action! Choose a task, look at the specific steps you need to take.
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Transferring Tasks to Schrift

Inspired by David Allen’s books, we tried GTD on ourselves. As a result, free space for creativity appeared in our heads. The idea came to modernize GTD technology and transfer it to the digital world. We created the electronic document management system Schrift, which allows managers and executors to view their work from a bird’s-eye perspective. Schrift provides native electronic document management, tailored to your company’s needs. With Schrift, business processes are managed effectively, and a secure corporate communication system facilitates teamwork.

More About Schrift’s Features

The conditions of any production task change during execution. The creators of Schrift took this into account. Using the system allows you to:

• Organize your work and life in one digital space by creating your own tasks;
• Assign tasks to other employees and monitor their progress;
• Set unlimited reminders for tasks, focusing them on the exact day and time they need to remind you;
• Set task deadlines, and if more time is needed, request an extension;
• Set open-ended tasks that guide creative thinking;
• Comment and discuss tasks, add files, link tasks to other system objects (documents, chats, folders with file collections);
• Specify observers who need to be informed about the task or who can assist in the work;
• Monitor the execution of tasks that interest you.

At any time, you can see all the company tasks available to you that require your action on a specific day and time, or only your own tasks. Schrift makes it easy to organize the activities of a large number of people. The system is also perfect for individual work. Thanks to Schrift, you’ll free up mental space for new business ideas.