I recently reread Getting Things Done for the first time in ten years.
What struck me again was this:
The core idea behind GTD still feels remarkably relevant today.
At the same time, I also felt that applying it exactly as written can be difficult.
The book was first published in 2001.
Since then, the way we work — and the amount of information we deal with — has changed dramatically.
Slack. Teams. LINE.
And endless conversations that never quite seem to end.
Modern work is not exhausting simply because of the amount of work.
More often, it is the feeling of mental occupation that wears us down.
Over the past nine years working in human development and consulting, I have delivered more than 400 training sessions and worked with over 40,000 participants.
One thing I have repeatedly observed is this:
People are often less exhausted by the workload itself than by unprocessed information.
So rather than writing a summary of Getting Things Done, I want to share what still feels useful from GTD — and how I personally think about and apply these ideas today.
Who This Article Is For
This article may be helpful if you:
- Always have tasks sitting in the back of your mind
- Remember work or responsibilities even while trying to rest
- Constantly feel like you might be forgetting something
- Feel overwhelmed by endless messages and notifications
- Struggle to make progress on important work
- End up spending entire days dealing only with small tasks
If any of these sound familiar, Getting Things Done may have something worth exploring.
What Is Getting Things Done?
Getting Things Done, written by David Allen, is often considered a classic in task management.
At its core, GTD is built around one simple idea:
Use records, not memory.
We try to manage more things in our heads than we realize.
I need to reply to that.
Someone asked me about this.
I should look that up later.
These unfinished thoughts quietly consume attention and mental energy.
Getting Things Done encourages us to move them out of our heads and into an external system where they can be organized and reviewed.
The framework itself consists of five steps:
- Capture
- Clarify
- Organize
- Reflect
- Engage
The goal is not to remember everything.
It is to create a system where you can retrieve what matters when you need it.
Why Getting Things Done Still Matters
What makes Getting Things Done valuable is that it is not simply a book about efficiency.
Its deeper message is this:
Your mind should not be your workplace.
Today, we lose energy not only to work itself, but to things like:
- Notifications
- Messages and chat
- Small requests
- Tasks waiting for decisions
These forms of unfinished information quietly occupy mental space.
The moment we think, I must not forget this, part of our attention remains tied to it.
That is why I see GTD less as a productivity system and more as a way of protecting mental bandwidth.
In that sense, Getting Things Done feels even more relevant now than when it was first published.
Modern work has made the problem bigger.
But GTD Is Not Perfect
That said, I do think Getting Things Done can feel difficult to apply exactly as written.
And the reason is fairly simple:
Modern work has introduced problems that come before organization itself.
GTD offers an excellent framework for processing tasks.
But today, many of us struggle even earlier in the process.
Think About the Issue Before the Task
One of GTD’s core ideas is to write down everything that has your attention.
I think this is incredibly useful.
But in today’s environment, I believe we need to ask one more question first:
“Is this actually something I should be doing?”
With constant messages and incoming requests, the challenge is often not that we have too many tasks.
It is that other people’s priorities flow into our lives too easily.
That is why I believe task management should begin with something deeper:
purpose and issues.
What problem am I actually trying to solve?
What really matters here?
Because once the purpose changes, the tasks themselves change as well.
Before organizing tasks, we need to understand what deserves our attention in the first place.
This is the part I think modern productivity conversations sometimes miss.
We do not simply need better systems.
We also need better questions.
Busy People Should Not Rush Into Work
Many people wake up and immediately start working.
At first glance, this looks productive.
But in reality, it often creates countless small decisions throughout the day:
What should I start with?
What was I supposed to do next?
Airbnb founder Brian Chesky has spoken about organizing tasks into larger groups and processing them strategically.
His approach is roughly:
- Write down everything you want to accomplish
- Group similar tasks together
- Ask how they can be processed more efficiently
- Continue simplifying until they become two or three larger priorities
I find this way of thinking highly practical.
The point is not:
I’m busy, so I need to move faster.
It is:
I’m busy, so I need to organize first.
And in many ways, that aligns closely with the spirit of Getting Things Done.
What I Actually Do
Rereading Getting Things Done reminded me of something important:
Task management is not simply about managing schedules.
Personally, I reserve the first part of my morning for what I think of as thinking work.
This is time I use to reflect on questions like:
- What is the real issue?
- What problem actually needs solving?
- How should I approach it?
And this applies to more than work.
I think about relationships with family and friends.
I think about basketball.
I think about card games.
These topics may seem unrelated, but for me they are connected.
They are all part of asking:
What do I genuinely care about?
Tasks tend to multiply endlessly if we let them.
Messages.
Requests.
Small obligations.
Before we realize it, an entire day can disappear into managing other people’s priorities.
That is why I try not to fill my schedule first.
Instead, I try to decide what deserves my time.
And I protect that thinking time early in the morning.
Not because I enjoy planning for its own sake.
But because without that space, it becomes easy to move through the day reacting rather than thinking.
A Quiet Moment That Often Appears in My Vlogs
This is also why my vlogs often include these quiet morning moments.
Studying.
Writing in a notebook.
Thinking over coffee.
They are not dramatic moments.
But for me, they matter.
They help determine the direction of the day.
If you’re curious about how I think through problems and organize ideas in daily life, I often share those moments there as well.
Perhaps what Getting Things Done ultimately taught me was not simply a productivity technique.
But something else:
the importance of creating mental space.
A Book Worth Exploring If You’re Curious
To be honest, Getting Things Done can feel somewhat complicated if followed too strictly.
Still, I think the book offers valuable ideas, particularly around:
- Externalizing tasks
- Defining clear next actions
- Creating space by getting things out of your head
If these ideas resonate with you, the original book may be worth exploring.
Check current price on Amazon
Getting Things Done is not a perfect system.
And I do not think productivity is simply about doing more.
But the idea of not using your mind as storage still feels deeply valuable.
Especially now.
Because making space to think may be one of the most important forms of productivity we have left.
