Getting Things Done is a simple but powerful system, built around five core actions of Capture, Clarify, Organize, Review and Engage.
The core ethos of the methodology is that you unload all of the tasks and ideas buzzing around in your mind into a system, such that it clears and frees your mind.
Hence why the first Capture step is so important. When you know that a particular task has been added safely to the system, your mind no longer feels the urge to hang on it like a loose end.
When you have repeated this for all possible tasks your mind is free from all possible loose ends and it’s like a weight lifted from your shoulders.
In this video Matt the Collaboration Coach explains how to perform the capture phase using Microsoft 365, demonstrating how to retrieve tasks from the different apps like Outlook and Teams.
To Do Tasks
From 1m:30s Matt stresses the importance of capturing tasks quickly and easily, as this maximizes the success of your GTD system. He begins to demonstrate how to use Microsoft To Do for this, which is as simple as going to the Tasks section and adding them.
He also highlights how complex tasks can be broken down into a number constituent sub-tasks, and also how you can create your own Task Lists for containing different types of tasks.
At 2m:08s he describes how there is a To Do app for Android, IOS, Mac and Windows, and is available across any browser. Data is stored in 365 so it is synchronized and available whichever you use. Matt sometimes uses his phone to dictate his tasks, a very simple and quick way of capturing tasks.
Outlook
From 3m:00s Matt then demonstrates how to capture tasks in other apps, like Outlook.
This highlights how 365 is ideal for implementing a system like GTD, with simple but powerful features for boosting your productivity. For example an email can be captured as a task simply by flagging it, which adds it as a task in To Do for you, where you can move it to any of your other task lists. It retains a link to the original email so it opens it back up in Outlook.
Teams
At 4m:00s Matt then moves on to Teams. Like the email flagging feature you can also capture chats as To Do tasks. (This requires the Task App for Teams).
Again you can insert it into any of your task lists, setting it’s priority, due date and so forth, and you can add further steps to it.
