Getting Things Done (GTD), developed by David Allen, is a personal management system designed to clear your mind, focus on what is most important, and get things done. My big aha moment was Allen's approach to the masses of information we receive in a day. Much of it is FYI or for reading/reference later. It is important to separate this stuff from actionable items. And Allen has a great method of organizing and managing those actionable items.
What if you were to adopt GTD; what would be the impact on your records system? First of all, the great majority of incoming information won't hit the records system at all. All that great reading/reference will be organized in a personal management system and disposed of if not referenced regularly. This leaves the smaller volume of actionable items to be managed and controlled. All of a sudden, records become manageable again, in this ballooning information age.
Allen provides only sketchy suggestions on how to organize records. He does suggest a Dumpster Day to purge unneeded stuff (p. 102). As long as he is referring to the reference collections, my Records and Information (RIM) hackles aren't raised. What warms my cockles is his description of an organized office, which those of us in the industry will quickly recognize, "I especially noice this when I walk around organizations where in-baskets are either nonexistent, or overflowing and obviously long unprocessed. These cultures usually suffer from serious 'interruptitis' because they can't trust putting communications in to the system. Wher cultures do have solid systems, down through the level of paper, the clarity is palpable. It's hardly even a counscious concern, and everyone's attention is more focused" (p. 234).
The principles outlined in GTD highlight the criticality of personal management in the successful implementation of any records system. If a corporation structures iteslf well and promotes a culture of personal organization, their information systems will serve them well and serve them long.
