How to Use GTD for Your Creative Process
Don't let opportunities to create slip through the cracks.
Note to subscribers: This is a detailed and somewhat technical post, fyi.
In my last post, I discussed how writer’s block can stem from trying to cram the entire creative process into one sitting. To un-block your creative workflow, it can be helpful to distribute your creative process across multiple sittings. In this post, I’ll explain how to do that, using David Allen’s model for workflow management in general, as detailed in his bestselling book Getting Things Done.
Capture
The Capture Tools
Always be prepared to make a note about any content idea you have. As the prolific journalist and author Henry Hazlitt wrote:
“...every serious thinker, especially if he hopes to be a professional writer, should keep a notebook or a journal. I pointed out, in the first edition of this book, that good ideas are often elusive and must be captured in flight—in other words, that it is excellent practice always to have a pencil and pad handy, so as to jot down a good thought the moment after it lights up your mind. The complacent assumption that once a bright idea or happy phrase occurs to you it is a permanent acquisition, to be called upon only when needed, too often proves false. Even Nietzsche, one of the great seminal minds of the nineteenth century, found that: ‘A thought comes when it wishes, not when I wish.’”
David Allen also stressed the importance of having:
“…a ubiquitous idea-capturing tool. Something to write or record things on, whenever they occur to you. You need something that’s always with you—on the beach, in the health club, at your desk, out for dinner.”
A note-taking app on your smartphone is great for this. Most modern phones even support voice-to-text input and voice memo apps.
It’s also really helpful to have an in-tray to collect any ideas you capture on stray pieces of paper.
The Capture Practice
Whenever you have an idea, capture it immediately.
In that moment, you may not have the time, tools, or mentality required to develop the idea into a piece of content. Capture it anyway, so it will be available to you later.
Don’t assume you’ll be able to recall the idea later when you’re ready to write. Capture it now while you’re thinking about it, so you’ll have a reminder. As the prolific author Leonard Read wrote:
“So far as the memory is concerned, writing aids indelibility. However, it is the capturing of the idea for subsequent use or reference that counts. All of us have had thousands of ideas about which we are now totally unaware or, to quote Russell Dicks, ‘The infant mortality of newborn ideas is enormous.’”
David Allen wrote about how it’s easy to deceive oneself about not needing to capture really good ideas:
“But the tricky thing is that when I’m having those thoughts, I often don’t think I need to do anything with them, to make use of them. There’s something so ‘of course’ about them while I’m having them that I’m sure I’ll never forget them and that I’ll have them when I need them. Of course, two minutes later, when I’m thinking about the next positive, useful thing, which I’m sure I’ll never forget, I’ve forgotten the first one!”
Don’t assume you’ll be able to come up with a similarly good idea later when you’re ready to write. You may not be in as creative a head space then as you are now. So seize the moment, be kind to your future self, and take advantage of the creativity you have now by collecting its fruit.
Don’t assume that an idea isn’t worth capturing just because it isn’t a grand one. As Read wrote:
“Do not pin your expectations on some big idea and by so doing miss the importance of its seemingly insignificant parts—the tiny idea. The grandiose idea, like the brain itself, is but the flowering of its little components. In short, count as success the discovery of a word or the shaping of a phrase that will improve understanding and communication.”
And remember that capturing an idea doesn’t mean you’re committing to it. Later when you’re processing what you captured, you can always toss or cross out any note you capture. So don’t be dissuaded from capturing an idea by fear of over-commitment or uncertainty over whether the idea is actually good enough to write about.
Out of ten ideas you have, one might be good enough to write about. But which idea is the good one might not be evident at the outset. So it’s important to capture all of your ideas as you have them, so you can pick out the good ones later.
As Linus Pauling wrote, “The best way to get a good idea is to get lots of ideas.”
In addition to capturing ideas as they come to you, it can be helpful to capitalize on your creative moments by brainstorming content ideas in a digital document, on a sheet of paper, or on a whiteboard. After your brainstorming session, be sure to capture the results for later use. (Put the paper in your in-tray. Take a photo of the whiteboard. Etc.)
Clarify and Organize
To actually make use of the ideas you capture, it is essential to periodically process the contents of your capture “buckets”: your notebook, your digital notes folder, your in-tray, etc.
As David Allen says, for each item, you must answer a basic question: is it actionable? In the context of content ideas, this question means: “Is this an idea I actually want to develop as soon as I’m able?”
Actionable Ideas
Next Actions
If the answer is yes, write down an answer to the question: “What’s the next action?” The more specific and precise you are in your answer to this question, the more likely you’ll actually do it. For example, you might write something like one of the following:
Brainstorm ideas for essay on the opportunity costs of inflation
Draft and publish Substack post about the complex supply chains that contributed to my breakfast
Draft script in Google Docs for TikTok re Robert Reich’s student loan video and the sunk cost fallacy
Tweet about how every writer should keep a note-taking tool handy
Email “Marshmallows and Marxism” pitch to my editor.
For every next action, you have three options: do, delegate, defer.
Do. If the action would take less than two minutes (for example, like the tweet and “email editor” items above) and you are in a position to do it, you should do it immediately. This because it would take more time to track the action than to just do it. David Allen calls this “the two-minute rule.”
Delegate. If the next action is something someone else should do, you still should keep track of it on what David Allen calls a “Waiting For list.” For example, if you followed the two-minute rule and emailed a pitch to your editor, you could add to your Waiting For list: “Editor to respond re: Marshmallows and Marxism pitch.”
Defer. If the next action is for you to do and if it will take more than two minutes, add it to a “next actions list.” You could have one big next actions list. Or you could have context-specific sub-lists. For example, you could have an “At computer” list for actions that are best done on a keyboard, like writing an essay. And you could have a separate “Anywhere” list for actions you could perform on your computer, on your phone, or on a piece of paper: like brainstorming ideas. If you have regular meetings with your editor, you could also have a “Editor agenda” list for items you want to discuss with him or her. And of course actions to be done at a specific time (like a scheduled co-brainstorm with a co-author) should be added to your calendar.
Projects
If the actionable idea will take more than one action to complete, you should also add the final outcome to a “projects list.” Periodically checking that list will remind you to keep identifying next actions to perform until the project is done. For example, you could add to your Projects list: “Essay on the opportunity costs of inflation published.”
Non-Actionable Ideas
Incubate
You might decide that an idea isn’t something you want to develop as soon as possible, but that it’s something you might want to develop down the road. For those ideas, it’s great to park them in what Allen calls a “Someday/Maybe List.”
Reference
General Reference
You might also decide that an idea isn’t something that, by itself, would constitute a theme for a piece of content. However, it might be something that you’d like to look up later in case it’s applicable to a future work. Such items can be great to file in an app like Evernote. Later when you’re writing an essay on virtue ethics, you might think “Oh, didn’t I capture a thought about this before?” Then you can dig it up by searching your Evernote for “virtue ethics.” This can also be a great practice for filing quotes for later reference.
Project Support
Another possibility is that the idea is relevant to a creative project you have listed on your Projects or Someday/Maybe list. In that case, it can be helpful to capture that idea in a file (digital or physical) designated for support material for that project.
Trash
And of course, you might decide that something you captured isn’t useful after all. In which case, feel free to just toss it, delete it, or cross it out.
Review and Engage
At least once a month, it’s a good idea to revisit your Someday/Maybe list in case there are any items you want to upgrade to your active Projects list or downgrade to oblivion.
At least once a week, review your Projects list to make sure each project has at least one next action identified in order to keep it moving forward.
Once every few days, review your Waiting For list in case you need to send someone a reminder.
Every day, review calendar in order to make your appointments. And whenever you have free time, review your Next Actions lists based on your current context (i.e., if you’re at your computer, check both your “At Computer list” and your “Anywhere” list) to take advantage of opportunities to get tasks done.
An Optimized Creative Workflow
Adopting the above system will help unblock your creativity and prevent creative opportunities from slipping through the cracks. For a more complete and less compressed presentation of this process, I highly recommend reading Getting Things Done by David Allen cover-to-cover. Also, here’s a handy diagram of the GTD workflow: