Getting Things Done: The Science behind Stress-Free Productivity

In 2001 David Allen proposed ‘Getting Things Done’ (GTD) as a method for enhancing personal productivity and reducing the stress caused by information overload. This paper argues that recent insights in psychology and cognitive science support and extend GTD's recommendations. We first summarize GTD with the help of a flowchart, and then review the theories of situated, embodied and distributed cognition that purport to explain how the brain processes information and plans actions in the real world. The conclusion is that the brain heavily relies on the environment to function as an external memory, a trigger for actions, and a source of ‘affordances’, disturbances and feedback. We show how these principles are practically implemented in GTD, with its focus on organizing tasks into ‘actionable’ external memories, and on opportunistic, situation-dependent execution. Finally, inspired by the concept of stigmergy, we propose an extension of GTD to support collaborative work.