---
title: "GTD adaptation"
description: "David Allen's Getting Things Done, mapped onto Obsidian."
source: "Obsidian Academy"
source_url: https://obsidian-academy.pages.dev/bonus/04-gtd-adaptation/
saved: 2026-05-16
tags: [obsidian-academy, saved-from-web, bonus]
---

**TL;DR** — David Allen's *Getting Things Done* (GTD) is a 5-step capture-clarify-organize-reflect-engage workflow. Obsidian + the Tasks plugin + your Inbox Zero skill maps onto it cleanly. More rigorous than just "process my inbox" — every action gets a context (`@home`, `@phone`, `@laptop`) and a project, and your "next action" list is always one query away.

## The GTD loop

```
Capture → Clarify → Organize → Reflect → Engage
```

- **Capture** — get everything out of your head into `00-Inbox/`
- **Clarify** — is it actionable? Is it one action or a project? What's the next step?
- **Organize** — file it into projects, areas, or "someday/maybe"
- **Reflect** — weekly review what's open, what's stalled, what's new
- **Engage** — actually do work, with a clean list of next actions

The Inbox Zero skill handles Capture and most of Clarify/Organize. Weekly Review handles Reflect. GTD's contribution: the **context system** for the Engage step.

## Contexts in Obsidian

Tag every actionable task with a context:

```md
- [ ] Pick up dry cleaning #context/errands
- [ ] Email Alice about Q2 budget #context/laptop @alice
- [ ] Call insurance #context/phone
- [ ] Read Atomic Habits chapter 3 #context/reading
```

Then when you sit down at your laptop, run a Dataview query:

````md
```dataview
TASK
FROM "20-Projects" OR "10-Daily"
WHERE !completed AND contains(tags, "#context/laptop")
SORT created ASC
```
````

You get a focused list. No phone calls in the middle of laptop time, no errands while you're in flow.

## GTD-style project structure

GTD defines "project" as anything requiring 2+ actions. So:

```
20-Projects/
  ├── q2-launch.md
  │     ## Open actions
  │     - [ ] Draft press release #context/laptop
  │     - [ ] Confirm legal approval #context/phone @alice
  │     ## Someday / maybe
  │     - [ ] Localize for German market
  └── ...
```

Every project note has both "open actions" (active) and "someday/maybe" (parking lot) sections.

## How Claude Code fits in

- **`process-inbox`** can be configured to GTD mode — adding a "context" classification step in its plan.
- A new skill **`gtd-next-actions`** could surface your `@laptop` / `@phone` / `@errands` lists on demand: *"what's next for laptop work?"* → returns a filtered list.
- **Weekly Review** can flag projects with no open actions ("stuck") and projects with stale actions (open >30 days).

## Sources

- [GTD workflow in Obsidian forum thread](https://forum.obsidian.md/t/getting-things-done-workflow-in-obsidian/100145)
- David Allen's *Getting Things Done* (the book) — read once, set up your system, then forget it and just live

## Related workflows

- **[Inbox Zero](https://obsidian-academy.pages.dev/workflows/02-inbox-zero/)** — Capture + Clarify + Organize
- **[Weekly Review](https://obsidian-academy.pages.dev/workflows/06-weekly-review/)** — The Reflect step, with extra GTD polish