Getting Things Done, summarized The five steps, in plain words.

Getting Things Done is a method for getting what is on your mind into a system you trust. Here is the whole thing in about seven minutes: the five steps, the small rules around them, and where people get stuck.

Jacky Fakkeldij Building Driftto, on his own · Updated 23 October 2026

I build Driftto, an iPhone app for getting a thought into the list app you already use. That is the first step of Getting Things Done, so I wanted to set out how the whole method works. I wrote this summary so you can read it without the book. If you want apps for it, I compared them in the best apps for GTD.

In October 2026 I went through David Allen's own site, gettingthingsdone.com: the What is GTD, About and FAQ pages. The five steps and the books below come from there. That site doesn't explain the two-minute rule, contexts or the weekly review, so I describe those the way the method is commonly practiced, in my own words, and I say so where it matters. This is a summary, not a copy of the book, and I leave out his lists and diagrams. GTD and Getting Things Done are registered trademarks of the David Allen Company.

The short answer

Getting Things Done is David Allen's method for getting everything out of your head and into a trusted system. It has five steps: capture what has your attention, clarify what each thing means, organize reminders in the right places, reflect on the whole system often, and engage by choosing what to do now.

Who David Allen is

David Allen is a productivity consultant and author. His site dates his consulting practice to 1981. The book Getting Things Done came out in 2001, and he rewrote it completely for a second edition in 2015. He also wrote Ready for Anything (2003) and Making It All Work (2008). With his wife Kathryn he runs the David Allen Company, which oversees the courses and coaching given by GTD partners around the world.

The idea underneath

The whole method rests on one claim, which the company uses as its tagline: "Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them." (gettingthingsdone.com). In my words: every open loop you carry around in your head, an unanswered email, a call to make, a half-formed plan, takes a little attention, whether or not you are working on it. If you get each one out and somewhere you will see it again, your head is free to think about the thing in front of you.

That is why the method is mostly about trust. A system only frees your mind if you believe the thing in it will come back to you at the right time. When you stop believing that, you start holding things in your head again.

Step 1: Capture

Capture means collecting everything that has your attention in one place, before you decide anything about it. Big or small, work or home: a task, a worry, an idea, a thing someone asked of you. You don't sort at this point. You only get it out of your head.

The place can be a notebook, an inbox in an app, or a few of those, as long as you empty them. Fewer places are easier to keep up. Speed matters more than neatness, because a thought you can't write down in a few seconds often doesn't get written down.

Step 2: Clarify

Clarify means going through what you captured, one item at a time, and deciding what it is. The first question is whether you can act on it. If you can't, you have three choices: throw it away, keep it as reference, or put it on hold for later.

If you can act on it, you decide the very next physical thing to do. Not "taxes" but "find last year's return". If the result needs more than one step, it is a project, and the project goes on a list of its own with the next step beside it. This is the part of the method that does the most work, and the part people skip first.

The two-minute rule

While you clarify, the two-minute rule saves you time. If the next action would take about two minutes or less, do it now instead of putting it on a list. Replying with one line, paying a small bill, sending a file: the effort of tracking the item would cost more than doing it.

The two minutes is a rule of thumb, not a law. Its job is to keep small things from piling up. If you are clarifying a long inbox and two minutes each adds up to an hour, it is fine to leave the quick ones for a later block.

Step 3: Organize, with next actions and contexts

Organize means putting a reminder of each item where you will meet it at the right moment. In practice you end up with a handful of places: a list of next actions you can do, a list of projects, a calendar for things that must happen on a certain day or time, a list of things you are waiting for from other people, a someday list for ideas that aren't a commitment, and reference material that lives apart from all of those.

Many people split the next actions by context: the place or the tool you need. Calls to make with your phone, things to do at the computer, errands for when you are out, things to raise with a certain person. The idea is that you don't read a list of forty actions to find the three you can do right now. Allen's own site doesn't describe contexts, and today many people use a tag or a short label in their list app instead of a separate list for each.

A list app does this job well if it has projects, due dates and some way to label. I wrote down how to build it in Todoist in how to set up GTD in Todoist.

Step 4: Reflect, and the weekly review

Reflect means looking over your system often enough that you keep trusting it. The core habit is the weekly review: a regular pass, usually once a week, where you empty your inboxes, look at the calendar behind and ahead, go through every project and make sure each has a next action, check what you are waiting for, and glance at the someday list. Allen's site names the weekly review as one of its trademarks but doesn't describe it, so this is the common shape, not his wording.

Most people say the review is what makes the rest hold. Without it, the lists go stale, you stop looking at them, and the mind starts holding things again. If you want a form to follow, there is a plain one in a weekly review template.

Step 5: Engage

Engage means choosing what to do, and then doing it, from the system you built. There is no perfect answer, and the method doesn't claim one. In practice most people weigh where they are, how much time and energy they have, and what matters most today. Then they act, without second-guessing, because everything else is written down somewhere they trust.

What people find hard

• The review slips

  A weekly review takes real time, and it is the first thing to go in a busy week. After two missed weeks the lists don't match life anymore.

• Clarifying takes effort

  Deciding the next action for each item is thinking work. People capture everything, then let the pile sit because clarifying is slower than collecting.

• Too many places

  An inbox in email, one in a notes app, a paper pad and a list app each need emptying. The more places, the more likely one is neglected.

• Over-building the system

  Elaborate labels and filters can take over. A simple setup you actually use beats a clever one you maintain.

• The first pass is large

  Getting everything out of your head the first time takes a while, and it can feel worse before it feels better.

If you are starting from scratch, a trigger list can help with the first capture. I wrote one in a GTD trigger list, with prompts that jog loose what you forgot.

Where Driftto fits

In 2026 the capture step often happens on a phone, standing in a queue or walking. Driftto is one tool for that step, and not the only one: a notebook, your list app's own quick add or a voice note do the same job. What matters is that it takes seconds and you empty it.

Driftto is an iPhone app that opens to a capture field with the keyboard up. You type or speak, tap where it goes, and the thought is sent to the list app you already use: Todoist, Notion, Apple Reminders and others. It only adds new items. Clarifying and organizing still happen in your list app, and that is the part of the method you do yourself.

Questions

Driftto is in the App Store now. The yearly plan starts with a free week.