Getting Things Done
Also known as: GTD, GTD method
Getting Things Done (GTD) is a full workflow for managing commitments: capture everything that has your attention into a trusted external system, clarify what each item actually is, decide its very next physical action, organise those actions into lists, and review the whole system weekly. It attacks procrastination at the vagueness stage: you never face 'sort out the website', only 'email Dan for the login'.
| Origin | David Allen, Getting Things Done (2001, revised 2015) |
|---|---|
| Time required | A weekend to set up; 1–2 hours weekly to maintain |
| Best for | overwhelm, many projects, mental clutter, managers |
| Difficulty | Hard to maintain; the system fails without the weekly review |
How to use getting things done
- Capture: collect every task, idea and commitment into one inbox, digital or paper. Empty your head completely.
- Clarify: for each item ask 'is it actionable?'. If not, bin it, file it, or park it on a someday list.
- Decide the next action: the specific next physical step, in verb-first form ('call', 'draft', 'buy').
- Organise: next actions onto context lists, multi-step outcomes onto a projects list, date-bound items onto the calendar.
- Reflect: do a weekly review to empty inboxes, update lists and keep the system trusted.
- Engage: work from your lists, choosing by context, energy and priority.
GTD as a complete system has little direct experimental research. Its central claim, that unfinished tasks intrude on attention until externalised, matches the Zeigarnik effect literature and, more precisely, Masicampo and Baumeister's finding that making a specific plan for an unfulfilled goal eliminates its intrusive effects even before the task is done. An analysis by Heylighen and Vidal argued GTD is broadly consistent with cognitive science on distributed cognition, but that is a theoretical review, not a trial.
Masicampo, E. J., & Baumeister, R. F. (2011). Consider it done! Plan making can eliminate the cognitive effects of unfulfilled goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101(4), 667–683.
Heylighen, F., & Vidal, C. (2008). Getting Things Done: The science behind stress-free productivity. Long Range Planning, 41(6), 585–605.
Common mistakes
- Skipping the weekly review. An unreviewed system stops being trusted, and an untrusted system stops quieting your head.
- Writing projects on action lists. 'Plan the launch' is not a next action; 'draft launch date email' is.
- Spending more time tuning apps than doing tasks. GTD works on paper; tool-fiddling is procrastination in a productivity costume.
Related techniques
Ivy Lee MethodTwo Minute RuleTime Blocking
Frequently asked questions
What are the 5 steps of GTD?
Capture, clarify, organise, reflect, engage. Collect everything, decide what each item means and its next action, sort actions into lists, review weekly, then work from the lists.
Is GTD overkill for personal use?
Often, yes. If you have under a dozen active commitments, a nightly six-task list gives most of the benefit at a fraction of the overhead. GTD earns its cost when open loops number in the dozens.
Where does the two-minute rule come from?
From GTD's clarify step: if a captured action takes under two minutes, Allen says do it immediately, because filing it would cost more than finishing it.