_Ready to design your perfect productivity system in Notion? Our upcoming course[Supercharge Your Productivity]() is your first step to transforming your life and career._ Do you prefer video instructions to a written blog post? No worries, we’ve got you covered: In 1996 I sold my _Magic the Gathering collection_ for $7,000 and bought shares of the Vanguard S&P 500 Index Fund (today worth $28,516). But that __wasn’t best investment I ever made.__ What was? Reading David Allen’s [Getting Things Done]() as a college grad and learning his GTD method for productivity. (And yes, two decades later [GTD still holds up]().) I recently implemented GTD into [my Notion workspace]() and will take you through a step-by-step demonstration of setting up Inboxes, Contexts, Quick Capture, [Weekly Reviews]() and Next Actions using the Notion app. (And stay until the end of the post, we’ve got a _free template_.) ## A Getting Things Done (GTD) Refresher [Getting Things Done]() is a 5-step method to capture, triage and organize the various tasks activities in your life. GTD is [a system (as opposed to a tool)]() that can be implemented via analog (pen and paper), dedicated apps ([Omnifocus](), Things 3 or [Todoist]()) and no-code apps ([Notion](), [Coda]() and [Airtable]()). The five steps are as follows: * Capture * Clarify * Organize * Review * Engage While Allen is very specific about the actions and data that accompany each step, in my 19+ years of using GTD, I’ve come to believe that the two most critical parts steps are: [__Capture__ and __Reflect__](). Our Notion GTD template consists of the following components: * One Master Task __Table__ (called _GTD_Tasks_) * A series of tasks (each a __Page__ within _GTD_Tasks_) * Each page having a series of __Attributes__ (complete, flag, tags, due date, etc) * A series of __Views__ (to emulate perspectives) Watch a full demonstration on the __pillars__ and __implementation__ of GTD in Notion: ## Step 1: Capture On the [Tim Ferriss podcast]() Allen famously said: > “Your mind is made for having ideas, not holding them.” Yet I know you probably leave the shower with 5 fresh new ideas and 3 new people you need to call. Not having a standard place to put them becomes an inevitable source of anxiety. He recommends you pick one place, to capture these thoughts and tasks, such as: * The native task app on your phone * Emailing yourself (yes, that’s ok if it’s the ONLY place you capture tasks) * A notebook or post-it note * A blank OneNote/Evernote/Notion note A dedicated capture inbox will give you the confidence that __nothing will fall through the cracks.__ In our Notion GTD template, you’ll be able to input tasks in two places from within your _GTD_Tasks_. ## A few words about quick capture Now hardcore GTD fanatics will obsess about a phrase called __Quick Capture__. They’re referring to the amount of time it takes an idea to travel from their heads to their digital screens. And if that time exceeds 1 second, for this group of productivity fanatics (and I’m one of them) it becomes too slow. This isn’t an issue for 99% of the population, but still worth acknowledging. In the post [Why Superhuman and Notion reduced my productivity and focus](), Fletcher Richman calls out the number of taps to “add and complete a task” as well as Notion’s poor performance on mobile. Earlier this year, Notion re-architected their infrastructure to [improve page load times by 50%](). And with the launch of [the Notion API](), you can now use your favorite app (personally, I love [TickTick’s Siri feature]()) to enhance any Quick Capture behaviors. ## Step 2: Clarify The clarify step involves accurately defining tasks. People often make the following mistakes: * The task isn’t well defined (“Mom”) * The task is actually a series of tasks (“Taxes”) You can get improve the accuracy of your tasks with two best practices. First, __start each task with a verb__. So “Mom” would become “Call Mom” and “Photos” would become “Organize Photos.” Next, you can apply the [S.M.A.R.T. goals approach](), which consists of: * __S__ -pecific * __M__ -easurable * __A__ -chievable * __R__ -elevant * __T__ -ime-Bound In practice, this means that as you move through your day, you’re __Capturing__ (Step 1) tasks into your Notion Inbox. At the end of the day, you review this Inbox and decide if your tasks are well-defined and still relevant. During this step, GTD would also recommend that if you can complete a task in under two minutes, than you should (The [two-minute rule]()__.__) ## Step 3: Organize The next step is to add additional information (known as _meta-data_) to each task. Project is the only metadata is required and the full list consists of: * Project * Due Date * Context * Flags * Duration * Repeat Frequency The only required meta-data is __Project__ , which will “clear” a task from your Inbox. Here’s the list of options (assigned to a specific _Property Type_) in our Notion database. ## A word about Due Dates and Contexts GTD is very strict in its [treatment of due dates](). It’s anti-due dates with one exception. __If failing to do a task by a certain date has serious repercussions then it should have a due date.__ Otherwise, it shouldn’t. The following tasks __should have due dates__ : * Paying your rent * Buying a gift for your son’s birthday * Finishing a client presentation These tasks should __not have due dates:__ * Taking your son to the museum * Reading _Thinking Fast and Slow_ * Flossing before bed This is possible thanks to Step 4 (the weekly Review) which we’ll address shortly. GTD also loves to layer on meta-data to each task, known as __Contexts.__ An easy way to think of contexts is as _tags_ (and in Notion-speak, _multi-select fields_). Contexts can be __many__ of the following: * Person (Spouse, direct report, parents, kid’s teacher) * Place (Home, office, grocery store, parents’ home, church) * Thing (iPhone, notebook, desktop) * State of mind (High energy, Low energy) The beauty of Contexts is that they can span __all the tasks in your life__. Here are a few examples: * Call my accountant (Phone, Low Energy) * Review homework packet (Home, Child, High Energy) * Return Webcam to Amazon (Home, Desktop, Low Energy) ## Step 4: Reflect The fourth step of GTD is the most critical: __Reflect.__ It can also be known as the __Weekly Review__. Put simply, it requires you to examine all of your projects on a schedule, then determine the following: * Is the task still relevant? * Does the task need new meta-data? * Does the project need to be re-prioritized? In our frenetic world of “do, do, do” we often miss the forest from the trees. We’re obsessed with _getting things done_ (no pun intended), without asking __are we working on the right things?__ The review is here to bring intentionality back into your workflow. A well-designed review process will resurface projects with different frequencies. You may have the project __Manage Direct Reports__ which deserves a weekly review; however, __My Bucket List__ might only require a semi-annual review. Notion is the perfect candidate for variable review frequencies, but it requires using __Related Tables__ (an advanced topic taught in [Supercharge Your Productivity]()). In our template (given the constraints of downloadable templates), we’ll have to “hack” the review process to the task level and pre-set it to 7 days. ## Step 5: Engage The last step is actually the most straightforward one. Get it done! In our template we’ve added additional views using Boards (view __By Status__) and Calendar (view __By Due Date__). Now your Notion Workspace is set up to implement the GTD methodology. Use this setup in combination with our [13 tips for getting more things done today]() to supercharge your workflow. The next stop in our tutorial is [PARA using Notion.]() Or jump ahead and [learn how to use Notion to run your entire business](). [![Blog post image](/images/blog/Copy-of-Copy-of-Copy-of-Copy-of-BASICS.png)]() [![Blog post image](/images/blog/Copy-of-Copy-of-BASICS.png)]() [![Blog post image](/images/blog/Copy-of-Copy-of-Copy-of-BASICS.png)]() [See all Notion Guides]()