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How do you know when you’re done?

The first thing you’re supposed to do when you start the GTD system is to collect all the ‘open loops’ in your life - everything at work, at home, and anywhere in between that you have to do; everything that occupies any space in your mind at all. The collection phase consists of gathering physical representations (even if it’s just a scrawl on a piece of paper) of all these projects and todos and dumping it all into a a physical inbox. Processing is verboten during the collection phase; you only get to start deciding what to do with each piece once you’ve gotten everything.

But how do you know you’ve gotten everything? How do you know when you’re done?

One of the biggest obstacles to my personal productivity has always been internal distractions. I’ll be working on something, and some trivial aspect of the task at hand will remind of something completely different that I need to do. This phenomenon is most pronounced when I’m reading something that I’m not completely absorbed in - I’m reading about Frodo climbing Mount Doom, and *wham!* I remember I need to get the car washed, I need to pick up the dry cleaning, I have to write another test case for the new code in the Porthole application, and … I’ve read the same paragraph eight times without absorbing any of it.

For me, then, the mark of doneness - the point at which I know I’ve collected everything - is the point where I stop experiencing these distractions. It’s like magic, in that one minute I’m gathering stuff left and right (and being distracted by other things I need to gather), and all of a sudden I’m at peace. When I hit that stage it takes a real effort to come up with some project or task that I haven’t already dropped into my inbox, and I know that I can devote my full attention to whatever task I decide to pursue next. It’s a great feeling, and one of the most addictive (to me) aspects of the GTD system.