Get Stuff Done (GSD) Days

What to Do

Clear your email inbox

What you can do at a GSD Day is practically limitless. Here are a few examples:

• Process email inbox completely down to zero
• Prepare job applications
• Read through backlogged documents
• Write out life plan and life goals
• Begin tackling a life goal (e.g., learning a new language or writing a book)
• Advance a work project
• Set up financial accounts
• Take practice exams

Examples of what people have accomplished in previous GSD Days can be found on the GSD Day Wins wiki.

Schedule

Concentrating in a coffee shop

Any quiet venue that can support 2 – 15 people may work. Offices, co-working spaces, homes, and coffee shops with enough power sockets for laptops are ideal. Internet capable is ideal, but not always necessary. In general, the less noise and people moving about the better. If possible, arrange tables and chairs in an inward facing circle, with some physical separation between participants.

You may decide to set up a highly visible “Wins Board” for participants to record their accomplishments throughout the day. Or if you have access to a projector, you can record accomplishments on the GSD Day Wins wiki in real-time.

What to Bring

Although none of the following supplies are required, they can be helpful to have on hand:

• Egg-timer
• Power strip(s)
• Large sheet of construction paper and markers (for creating “Wins Board”)
• Projector (for displaying GSD Day Wins wiki)
• Healthy snacks and drinks

Participants will need to bring everything they need to be productive, including laptops and chargers, headphones, to do lists, scheduling book, paper and pens, etc.

One participant who chose to GSD Solo

How to GSD

There are two ways to GSD: Collaborative or Solo.

Collaborative participants follow most or all of the following productivity principles together and diligently stick to the schedule.

Solo participants work on their own without necessarily following the productivity principles or schedule. They’re just there to work, in their own way and on their own time.

Productivity Principles

1. Preparation: Get enough sleep the night before, bring everything you need to succeed, and leave your non-work problems at the door.
2. Planning: Fill out the GSD Day Preparation Worksheet [XLSX] beforehand or plan out your workflow on paper on an hour to hour basis. Keep in mind how your energy will fluctuate throughout the day. Estimate how long each task will take and verify your assumptions after the day is over.
3. Chunking: Break down larger, more complex projects into smaller chunks. Often the more complex or difficult the project, the smaller the chunk required.
4. Most Important Things: Work on your most important or most difficult task first thing before other less important tasks begin to distract you. Practice the Eisenhower Method, which categorizes tasks into four quadrants. Tasks which are important but not urgent (Quadrant II) work especially well at a GSD Day. Tasks which are both important and urgent (Quadrant I) often do as well. Ignore unimportant and not urgent (Quadrant IV) and unimportant and urgent (Quadrant III) tasks.
5. Emotional High: Choose the most emotionally-sensitive tasks you have. This may include tasks you’ve procrastinated on for some time and are urgently due. Aim to reach an emotional high by the end of the day. This is usually compatible with your “Most Important Thing”.
6. Partner: Choose a partner to help you stay accountable to your objectives. Support each other in staying focused throughout the day.
7. Work Exchange: Exchange work with your partner if you both have work you don’t want to do yourselves. For an equivalent amount of time, you do their unwanted work and they do your unwanted work.
8. Visualization: Before you begin your first work cycle, mentally prepare yourself to deeply focus, much as a runner would mentally prepare for a race. Visualize yourself being as productive as you possibly can.
9. Mindfulness: Practice mindfulness throughout the day. Mindfulness is a special way of paying attention: on purpose, in the present moment, and without judgement. Be particularly mindful of your focus and energy levels as you work. You may choose to track your focus and/or energy every 30 or 60 minutes and visually see how your day progresses.
10. 

    Don't distract people when they're trying to finish something before a cycle ends!

    Timeboxing: Use timeboxing. Timeboxing is setting a specific time period (e.g., 15 or 60 minutes) to work on a single task or project without stopping until the time is up. A version of timeboxing is Pomodoro technique where you work diligently for 25 minutes, then rest for 5 minutes, and repeat. By default, a GSD Day follows 90 minute timeboxed cycles.

11. Ultradian Cycles: Follow your body’s ultradian rhythm by working for 90 (or up to 120) minutes and then resting for 20 to 30 minutes. By default, a GSD Day is aligned with most people’s ultradian cycle.
12. Single-handling: Practice single-handling. Single-handling is when you touch a task only once. You start working on it and finish it in one sitting, without any switching to other tasks. Avoid multi-tasking. This applies when you’re focused enough to efficiently finish the task; in some cases if you’re too low energy it is prudent to consciously switch tasks.
13. Limit Internet: Disconnect from the internet, even if you “need” it to work. Try to refrain from using it for at least the first two hours if not the entire time period. This doesn’t apply to individuals who can use the internet in a strictly professional, productive capacity. But for people that find it hard to disconnect, it is likely they will be more productive if they temporarily work offline.
14. Public Wins: Publicly declare all accomplishments every work cycle and document the successes on a group board. Post the “wins” on the GSD Day Wins wiki and/or on Twitter with the #gsdday hashtag (Self Spark Twitter).
15. Prize: Offer a small prize for whoever is the most productive. Ask everyone who participates to pitch in $1 (or $10) to the “productivity pot” and award the sum to the democratically declared winner. Or agree to buy dinner for the winner afterward. If it’s hard to determine a winner, everyone can privately rate each other’s productivity on a 1 – 7 Likert scale (1 = very unproductive, 4 = neutral, 7 = very productive) and average the ratings. If there’s a tie, the pot can be split.