I consider myself an organized person but since I started to build up my own company a couple of months ago, the number of To-Do Lists significantly increased to the unmanagable. I needed a tool to get the best out of myself and maximise my work flow. That's why, I started this course.

I could not get into it at first, so I watched all the videos and decided that it's not for me. A week later - after trying to keep even more business things in mind -, I finally decided to take the effort and energy and go through the course.

My GTD Test results were not that disappointing but as I work as an entreprneur, dancer, writer, trainer and researcher, I just couldn't wait longer. I was simply unable to keep one more task in my head and my processor was getting slower and slower.

So, this is how everything started...

STEP 1: Collecting Open Loops

Getting into entrepreneurship - maximising my work efficiency - image 1 - student project

And this is how I ended up after 2 hours of collecting open loops in my life. 99 just by collecting everything from Notes and Reminders, without even thinking in details about it...

Getting into entrepreneurship - maximising my work efficiency - image 2 - student project

STEP 2: Clearing my e-mail inboxes

The second challange was quite challenging --clearing up my e-mail inboxes...

Well, it took me 3 weeks to eventually clear two gmail accounts with more than 4000 e-mails in the inbox. I cannot describe the joy I felt when I looked at my account and it said: 'Inbox 0'

I created several notebooks in Evernote during the cleaning process and eventually I had to upgrade to Premium for a month to be able to download all the documents. To tell the truth, I fell in love with Evernote. It is such an easy way of having my documents organized without trying to find them in my inbox.

Getting into entrepreneurship - maximising my work efficiency - image 3 - student project

STEP 3: Creating actionable steps in Todoist

Finding the right Action Steps wasn't that difficult after I put all the readings 'I have to do in the future' to the Someday/Maybe map.

Getting into entrepreneurship - maximising my work efficiency - image 4 - student project

My Todoist list felt a little bit overwhelming, so I needed another 2-3 weeks to start acting on them and reduce it to a managable size. After taking my time, I started to watch the video about the next step.

STEP 4: The Weekly Review

Daily checkilist:

Collect every open loop into Todoist
Review Todoist next actions and decide on the day's task

Weekly checklist (Sundays):

Empty mind for open loops
Collect calendar open loops (last 2 weeks, next 4 weeks)
Empty e-mail account
Review overall productivity and additional tasks
Empty Notes on MacBook

Monthy checklist:

Strategize
Review areas of Responsibility-
Review Goals
Be creative and courageous

The biggest issue for me was to stay gentle with myself and just accept if I cannot finish the tasks on the given day. I started to postpone a couple of tasks (mainly reading and checking out articles) and re-designed my productivity based on a reasonable speed.

All in All, the course gave me a big boost in productivity. Although I finished it in two months, it helped me to structure my duties, the areas I feel passionate about, the actions I need to take in the near future and just introduced an overall system to be able to manage my everyday operations. Thanks, Tiago for the opportunity! :)

Dóra Belme

Cultural Entrepreneur, Researcher

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