Getting Things Done: stop using your head as a to-do list

Getting Things Done, usually shortened to GTD, is a personal productivity method created by David Allen. He set it out in his 2001 book, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, and released a revised edition in 2015.

The core idea is simple. Your brain is good at having ideas and bad at holding them. Every "I must call the bank", "we need a new kettle" and "I should look into that course" that lives only in your head keeps nagging at you. GTD's answer is to get every one of those open loops out of your head and into a system outside it that you trust, so your mind is free to focus on what you're doing right now.

Allen breaks the method into five steps:

1. Capture: collect everything that has your attention
2. Clarify: decide what each item means and what to do about it
3. Organize: put each item on the list where it belongs
4. Reflect: review the lists often enough to trust them
5. Engage: use the lists to choose what to do next

You don't need special tools. Allen's method works on paper or in any task app. What matters is that every item goes through the same five steps.

Capture means writing down anything that has your attention, the moment it shows up. Big or small, work or home, finished thought or half an idea: it all goes into one place, which GTD calls your inbox.

Start with a mind sweep. Sit down for twenty minutes and write every open loop you can think of: bills, repairs, birthdays, half-finished projects, the email you've been avoiding, the holiday you keep meaning to book. Most people are surprised by how long the list gets, and how much lighter they feel when it's on paper.

After that, keep capturing as you go. The rule is that nothing stays in your head. Capture it when you think of it.

Keep as few inboxes as you can. A notebook, a task app and your email is plenty. Five places to check is five places to forget.

Capturing only collects. Clarifying is where you decide, one item at a time from the top of your inbox, and the first question is always the same: is this actionable?

If it isn't actionable, it goes one of three ways: the bin, your reference files, or a someday/maybe list for ideas to come back to later.

If it is actionable, apply the two-minute rule. Anything you can finish in under two minutes, you do right away, because tracking it would take longer than doing it.

Anything bigger needs a next action: the very next physical thing you'd do to move it forward. "Car" isn't a next action. "Call the garage to book the service" is. And if the outcome takes more than one step, Allen calls it a project, and the project gets its own entry with the next action written under it.

The next action is the most useful idea in GTD. Vague tasks are easy to put off. A next action is so specific you can start it without thinking.

Every clarified item now gets parked in the right place. A basic GTD setup has these lists:

• Projects: every outcome that needs more than one step, such as "move flat" or "plan Mum's 60th"
• Next actions: the single next step for each project, plus one-off tasks
• Waiting for: things you've handed to someone else and need to chase
• Calendar: only what has to happen on a specific day or at a specific time
• Someday/maybe: ideas you're not committing to yet
• Reference: information worth keeping that needs no action

Allen also groups next actions by context, meaning the place, tool or person you need to do them: calls, errands, at the computer, at home. When you're out with twenty minutes to spare, you look at your errands list and nothing else.

Keep the calendar strict. If something doesn't have to happen on a set day, it goes on a next-action list instead. A calendar full of "maybe Tuesday" tasks is a calendar you stop believing.

Lists you don't look at go stale, and stale lists are where GTD falls apart. Allen's fix is a weekly review: a fixed slot each week where you bring the whole system up to date.

His own checklist has three parts. Get clear: gather loose papers and empty every inbox. Your head counts as one. Get current: go through your action lists, your past and coming calendar, your waiting-for list and every project, so each project has a next action. Get creative: look at your someday/maybe list and add any new ideas worth keeping.

Block an hour for it, on the same day each week. Friday afternoon and Sunday evening are popular slots. Our weekly review guide walks through a version you can do in thirty minutes.

Engage is the payoff. Once the earlier steps are done, you no longer have to guess what to do next. You look at your calendar first, then at the next-action list for where you are, and pick based on the time and energy you have.

The lists were never the goal. They exist so that when you sit down to work, you can trust that you're doing the right thing and that nothing else is quietly slipping.

GTD works because it stops you using your head as a to-do list. An idea you haven't written down keeps coming back, at the wrong moment, and you never know if you've forgotten something else. Once it's captured and has a next action, you can stop thinking about it.

It also turns fuzzy worries into actions. "Sort out the car" is a weight. "Call the garage" is a two-minute job you can do at lunch.

And the weekly review keeps the whole thing honest. You see every project once a week, so nothing important sits ignored for a month.

GTD has a reputation for being hard to keep up, and it's earned. Most people who drop it hit one of these:

• The setup takes too long. A full mind sweep plus a dozen lists can eat a weekend. Plenty of people quit before they get any benefit.
• The weekly review slips. Miss it twice and the lists stop matching reality, and then you stop trusting them.
• Too many lists. Context lists made sense when every call meant a desk phone. If you can do most things from anywhere, four contexts is plenty.
• The system becomes the job. Reorganizing lists feels productive. It isn't the same as doing what's on them.
• Long tasks get no protected time. GTD tells you what's next, but it doesn't make room in your day for two hours of deep work, and time blocking fills that gap.

You don't have to adopt the whole book on day one. This version keeps the parts that do the most work and takes a few hours to set up:

1. One inbox. Every task and idea goes there first.
2. A twenty-minute mind sweep to fill it.
3. The two-minute rule while you clarify.
4. Three lists: projects, next actions and waiting for.
5. Four contexts at most, such as home, computer, errands and calls.
6. A thirty-minute weekly review, same time every week.

Run that for a month. If it holds, add a someday/maybe list and a proper reference system. For notes and files, the PARA method is a simple way to sort reference material.

GTD sorts everything you've committed to. It pairs well with methods that decide what matters most and when it gets done.

• Use the Eisenhower matrix during clarify, to decide which next actions deserve your best hours.
• Use time blocking during engage, to give your most important next actions a fixed slot on the calendar.
• Use a weekly review as the reflect step. It's the same habit, and GTD is where it comes from.
• Stack the daily inbox check onto something you already do, like your first coffee, so clarifying happens without a reminder.

GTD needs one trusted place for tasks, notes and your calendar. Palby Planner keeps them in one account, and it's quick to set up the lighter version above.

1. Create a project called Inbox, and send everything there first with quick add. Add the date and a label in the same line when you already know them: "call the garage tomorrow @calls".
2. Capture when you're away from the app too. Send a Telegram message and it becomes a task, which the chat capture page explains. Record a voice note when typing is too slow.
3. Clarify the Inbox once a day. Move each task to its project, give it a context label such as @home, @computer, @errands or @calls, and delete what doesn't matter.
4. Break a project into tasks, and give its next action a @next label.
5. Use filters to see one context at a time, so @errands shows only errands when you're out.
6. Connect Google Calendar so dated commitments sit beside your tasks. Upcoming shows the days ahead.
7. Keep reference material in notes, with a folder for each area of your life.
8. Create a repeating task for your weekly review, with a clock reminder for the time you've picked.

Start with one project and the Inbox. The to-do list page covers the rest of the task features when you're ready for them.