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GTD-on-Tracks.md

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+# GTD on Tracks
+
+[Getting Things Done](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done) (GTD) by David Allen is a personal time management method to organize and manage all the things to do in your private and professional life.
+GTD could be implemented with a pen, paper and folders, but using a tool like Tracks automates many tedious tasks and is very recommended.
+
+This tutorial gives a short overview of core concepts of GTD and how they relate to Tracks.
+A great resource to learn more about GTD is [GTD for Hackers](https://gtdfh.branchable.com/).
+
+## Core Concepts
+In GTD "ToDo items" are called *Actions*.
+Every action that comes up and takes less than 2 minutes to resolve should be dealt with right away.
+If it requires more work, write it down to get it out of your head.
+
+Actions should have a clear wording that is actionable!
+Write it down in a way that you really know what the first step to start would be.
+
+> Order pirate puzzle for Grandma online
+
+is much clearer than
+
+> Grandma present
+
+If you don't know what to buy for your Grandma, you could write a "meta" action like
+
+> Think about presents for Grandma
+
+When writing down actions, they should get a *Context*.
+The context defines where you can actually execute the action.
+Common examples are:
+ * @Computer
+ * @Home
+ * @Car
+
+If you expect to order Grandmas pirate puzzle online, put it into the @Computer context.
+
+You may be responsible for an action that other people have to execute.
+In this case you can put them in a "Waiting for" Context once the task has been handed off to the other party.
+An example could be:
+
+> Plumber came by and fixed the pipes
+
+Actions can have due dates.
+You may want to get the birthday present in time, so make sure to define the due date accordingly.
+Additionally, actions can have "Show from" dates.
+Set a "Show from" date if you know that you don't can/want/need to deal with it until a certain day.
+Deferring actions to another day removes them from your current list of actions until the specified day.
+
+If something requires multiple actions, put them into a *Project*.
+When defining the project itself requires work already, you could create a "plan project XYZ" action.
+
+The idea behind all of this business is to reduce the mental overhead.
+Writing it down gets it out and writing it down in an actionable way reduces the effort to get to it later.
+Contexts and dates allow you to hide all the things you cannot deal with right now.
+It decouples "planning time" (defining actions) from "doing time" (checking off actions).
+
+## Review
+
+A **key factor** for this to work is that you personally trust your system!
+This is also why it is good to have one system for work and private matters.
+To make sure that the system ages well, you should plan regular *Review*s.
+
+During a review, make sure that all actions are actionable and still relevant.
+Throw out unnecessary, completed or duplicate actions.
+You are likely to take on more work than you can actually get done, so this clean up process really helps to commit to either doing something or not.
+
+Daily review:
+ * Go through visible actions and defer everything that is not relevant today
+ * Check that really important actions are listed
+
+Weekly review:
+ * Cleanup of actions, projects and contexts
+ * Get an overview of what you committed to
+ * Think about what became irrelevant
+ * Make sure everything in your head is also reflected in Tracks
+
+
+## First Setup
+It is worth to take a weekend and gather everything that you consider "something I need to do".
+Once you've identified all the things, even those you wont get into for the next 3 years, put them in your system.
+This doesn't only apply to Tracks or GTD in general, but every personal time management system, si
+
+
+## Tips & Tricks
+ * Use repeating actions to schedule a weekly review
+   * e.g. every Friday
+ * Use repeating actions to establish (daily) habits
+   * Habits are ideally connected to some other regular behavior, e.g. "Take a run after getting up"
+ * Use multiple projects for long term planning, e.g.
+   * "Long Term Goal: PhD 2020" to keep track of generic things for that project
+   * "PhD: Write Thesis" for everything you have to do to deal with the thesis
+   * "PhD: ..."
+
+## Relation to Other Methods
+Orthogonal methods:
+ * Pareto principle (80/20 Rule)
+ * Eisenhower Matrix
+ * Not-to-do list
+
+## Where Tracks & GTD Does Not Help
+ * Not a good calendar
+ * Bad for things that should happen multiple times per day
+ * Not for note taking (other than notes belonging to Actions)