One of the hardest parts for me about the "collect" phase of GTD is having a system wide integration of this at my offices. Not all of my employee's and co-workers use, know, or care about a specific system for management so it's hard to make them understand why they need to put things in by Inbox instead of on my keyboard or chair.

I've found that if you let people know that by putting something in your inbox that you're much more likely to deal with it in a timely and proper fashion then incentivizes them to start using your system.

It's also important for those first few times that they do make sure of your system that you don't abuse that trust and you properly process and execute on those items, the positive reinforcement and results will solidify their reception.

Kelly,

I love that you are writing about best/worst practices for the workflow process. However, the "worst practices" for this post are more "what it isn't."
It would be interesting to hear what you've seen people do thinking they are following GTD, but upon closer examination aren't or that they are missing a key principle behind the practice.

Skylar--you're totally on track with that. Positive reinforcement and redirecting them to what works better for you (and ultimately the result they are seeking) are key.

Hi Mike--In my experience, the single-most valuable best practice people can adopt with GTD is to collect outside of their head in trusted buckets. I see people create great lists, but still keep things they have their attention on tracked only in their head.

My biggest problem with my inbox is the overflow... I believe its because I don't have enough time to process it all unless I dedicate huge chunks of my time to do so! I look forward to the next article about best and worst practice processing, maybe that will have some hints on where I'm going wrong.

I'm also looking forward to the best/worst of process. My issue is how do I maintain all of my "current" information for working projects, vs storing stuff for "reference". I do have alot of working material, some of which might fit into folders or a binder. Looking forward to more articles like this one.

Hi Kelly,

Great post and summary of the collecting phase. I couldn't find your email or system for trackbacks on the site, so wanted to let you know that I referenced this article in a recent posting on my blog that talks about the challenge of collecting and processing with news readers (and Google Reader in particular):

http://www.kenclarksblog.com/2008/11/why-google-reader-and-gtd-dont-mix.html

Thanks and keep up the great content!

Ken

Hi Ken,

Thanks for weaving this into your blog post. Nice article.

I used to post my email address/mail-to link on my blog, but some people abused it by spamming me and/or soliciting me about their products, so I took it down.

Commenting through the blog is always a good way to reach me though.

Cheers,
Kelly

Kelly:

I'm sure you get this all the time, but we have a family member (my sister in-law) who despite my wife and my adherence to all good things GTD, she is not interested in any of it. Not that we care per se, but it encroaches into our lives with the sea of messy papers, clothes, etc, that she leaves in our wake. How can we proceed? Please advise.

Dave

Hi Dave,

We do get this all the time, and best I can tell you is to lead by example and hope it rubs off. There's really no way to "get" someone to do GTD.
Hopefully the edges to her stuff have fences so you can at least know what is hers versus yours.

Sorry, wish I had a magic answer for you on this one!

Kelly