The GTD method
Getting Things Done: a practical summary
GTD is a productivity method created by David Allen. The core idea: get everything out of your head and into a system you trust. Here is how it works.
Just because a system works does not mean it is the best possible system. A trusted system is only trusted if it stays out of your way. Every extra decision the system asks you to make, every vague open-ended review, every clunky capture is a small tax on your attention. The method is the job; the system is the hammer. Method-portable does not mean system-irrelevant. Over weeks, those frictions add up to a system that costs more energy than it saves.
The five steps: a getting things done summary
GTD is built on five steps. You do them in order, and you repeat them regularly.
Capture
Write down everything that has your attention. Tasks, ideas, reminders, commitments. Get it all out of your head and into one place: your inbox. The only rule is: capture it now, decide what to do with it later.
In tingdo: Capture happens through a single input field. Type + and a title, hit enter. That is it. The task lands in your inbox. You can add project, context, and deadline inline, but none of it is required.
Clarify
Go through your inbox one item at a time. For each item, ask: is this actionable? If yes, decide the very next physical action. If no, you have three choices: delete it if it is irrelevant, put it on your someday/maybe list if you might want to act on it later, or file it as reference material if it is information worth keeping. Reference material is not a task. It is a note, a document, a piece of information that supports your projects without cluttering your action lists. The goal of clarify is to turn vague stuff into either clear next steps or clearly filed reference.
In tingdo: You process your inbox by assigning a status to each item: next action, waiting for, scheduled, someday/maybe, or reference. Items marked as reference become project notes. They stay in the system, visible inside the project where they belong, but they never appear on your action lists. This is how tingdo keeps tasks and reference material in one place without mixing them up.
Organize
Put each clarified item where it belongs. Next actions go on your next actions list, grouped by context: things you can do at your computer, things that require a phone call, errands to run. Multi-step outcomes become projects. Items with a hard deadline get a date. Everything else is organized by context, not by urgency.
In tingdo: tingdo organizes next actions by context, exactly as GTD prescribes. There are no priority levels. In GTD, priority emerges from context, energy, and time available, not from a number or color code. tingdo follows this principle: if you are at your computer, you see your @computer tasks. The decision about what to do next is yours, not the app's.
Reflect
Once a week, do a weekly review. Go through all your projects and make sure each one has a clear next action. Check your someday/maybe list. Clear your inbox completely. The weekly review is what keeps the system trustworthy. Without it, you stop trusting your lists and go back to keeping things in your head.
In tingdo: The weekly review is a guided, step-by-step process. The app walks you through each phase: clear your inbox, review every active project, check waiting-for items, revisit someday/maybe. You cannot skip ahead. One thing at a time.
Engage
Now you work. Look at your next actions list, filtered by where you are and what tools you have. Pick something and do it. No guilt about what you are not doing, because your system has everything. You already decided during clarify and organize. Now you just execute.
In tingdo: The home screen is your next actions list, grouped by context. There is no 'today' view, no calendar, and no overdue counter. You open the app and see what you can do, right now, where you are.
The GTD decision flowchart
When something lands in your inbox, this is the thinking process. One question at a time, until the item has a clear home.
In tingdo: This is what happens when you process your inbox. Each item gets a status (next action, waiting for, scheduled, someday/maybe, or reference) and optionally a project and context. The flowchart is the thinking; the status is the result.
Key concepts
Inbox
Where everything lands first. Unprocessed, unsorted, uncategorized. The inbox is a temporary holding area, not a to-do list. The goal is to empty it regularly.
In tingdo: Every new task starts in the inbox unless you assign it a status during capture. The weekly review begins with clearing the inbox to zero.
Next actions
The single next physical step you can take to move something forward. Not 'plan the event' but 'call the venue and ask about availability'. Concrete, doable, no ambiguity.
In tingdo: Next actions are the core of the app. The home screen shows only tasks with status 'next', grouped by context. Every project must have at least one next action, or it is flagged as stalled.
Projects
Anything that requires more than one action step to complete. 'Fix the kitchen faucet' might be a single action. 'Renovate the kitchen' is a project with many next actions.
In tingdo: Projects can be nested (subprojects), but tasks are always flat within a project. If a task needs subtasks, that is a signal to create a subproject instead. This keeps things simple and avoids hidden complexity.
Contexts
Tags that describe where or with what you can do a task. Examples: @computer, @phone, @errands, @home. When you sit down at your computer, you filter by @computer and see everything you can do right now.
In tingdo: Contexts are first-class citizens. You can filter your next actions by context with one tap, or type # in the search bar to jump to any context view.
Someday/maybe
A parking lot for things you might want to do but are not committed to yet. Ideas, aspirations, things that are not actionable right now. You review this list weekly and decide if anything is ready to become active.
In tingdo: Both tasks and projects can have someday/maybe status. They stay out of your daily workflow and only surface during the weekly review.
Waiting for
Tasks you have handed off to someone else or are waiting on an external event. You cannot act on them, but you need to track them so nothing falls through the cracks. The weekly review includes a dedicated step for checking all waiting-for items.
In tingdo: Waiting for is a dedicated status. These tasks are hidden from your next actions list but have their own step in the weekly review, so you are reminded to follow up.
Scheduled
Some tasks have a fixed date: a meeting, a filing deadline, an appointment. In GTD, these go on your calendar, not your action list. They happen at a specific time and do not compete with your next actions.
In tingdo: tingdo has a scheduled status for tasks with a fixed date. Scheduled tasks are separated from your next actions list. Deadlines are optional and reserved for genuine time-bound commitments, not for self-imposed pressure.
Deadlines
In GTD, most tasks do not have a deadline. A deadline is a hard external constraint: a tax filing date, a contract expiration, a flight departure. Setting artificial deadlines on tasks that do not need them creates guilt when you miss them, which is the opposite of what a trusted system should do.
In tingdo: Deadlines are optional. You can set one when a task genuinely has a hard date. There is no prompt or field encouraging you to add a date. The app does not count what is late, because most tasks are not late. They are waiting for the right moment.
Reference material
Non-actionable information you want to keep: meeting notes, account numbers, instructions, useful links. In GTD, reference material is filed separately from action lists so it does not clutter your workflow.
In tingdo: Reference items live inside projects alongside tasks, but they are visually distinct and hidden from your action lists. You can create a reference note with * in the search bar, just like creating a task with +. One note can serve multiple tasks within the same project.
Weekly review
The habit that holds the whole system together. Once a week, you review every project, process your inbox to zero, check your waiting-for items, and look at your someday/maybe list. It takes 30-60 minutes and keeps your system reliable.
In tingdo: The weekly review is guided. The app presents each step in sequence and does not let you skip ahead. Healthy projects get a quick confirmation. Stalled projects require a decision before you can move on.
Recurring tasks
GTD handles recurring commitments through the weekly review: you notice a recurring task is due and create a new next action for it. Some digital GTD tools add automatic recurring tasks as a convenience feature.
In tingdo: tingdo does not have recurring tasks. This is a deliberate choice. Automatic recurring tasks tend to pile up unreviewed and create the same guilt that due-date-driven apps produce. Instead, the weekly review is where you notice what needs doing again and create a fresh next action for it.
Why GTD works
Most productivity systems tell you to prioritize harder. GTD takes a different approach: it removes the mental load of remembering and deciding. When everything is captured, clarified, and organized, your mind is free to focus on the task at hand. David Allen calls this 'mind like water': a state where you respond to what comes at you with appropriate force, then return to calm.
Most task apps work against this principle. Here is how the guilt cycle starts.
Take it with you
A Getting Things Done summary with the five steps and the decision flowchart. Read it online or save it as a PDF, print it, pin it to your wall, or keep it on your desktop.
A GTD app that follows the method
tingdo is built around these five steps. Your inbox, next actions, projects, contexts, and weekly review are all first-class features. Where tingdo deviates from GTD conventions, it does so deliberately: no priority levels because GTD does not need them, no recurring tasks because they undermine the weekly review, no calendar view because next actions are organized by context, not by time. The result is a calmer, simpler tool that trusts the methodology.
See the full overview of tingdo as a GTD task manager: how each feature maps to the five steps.
#errands
- Buy oat milk
- Return package at post office
- Pick up prescription
#computer
- Draft project proposal for Q2
- Cancel that subscription you forgot about
- Reply to Marco's email
Free to use.
Want to go deeper?
The definitive resource is David Allen's book 'Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity'. This page is a summary of the core ideas. The book goes much deeper into implementation, advanced workflows, and the philosophy behind the method.