Getting Things Done: The System That Actually Works

David Allen published Getting Things Done in 2001. Since then, it has sold over 2 million copies. Executives, engineers, and students swear by it. But most people who start GTD don't stick with it. And almost nobody has figured out how to make it work for teams.

Let me break down what GTD gets right, where it struggles, and how to adapt it for leadership.

The core insight

GTD is built on one observation: your brain is terrible at remembering things. It's great at having ideas, making connections, and solving problems. It's awful at holding onto to-do items without dropping them.

Allen calls these open loops. Every commitment you've made, every task you've thought about, every project you haven't finished: they all take up mental space. Your brain keeps pinging you about them at random times. Usually the wrong times.

The fix is simple in concept. Get everything out of your head and into a trusted system. Once it's captured, your brain can let go. You free up mental RAM for actual thinking.

The five steps

GTD has five stages:

Capture. Get everything out of your head. Every idea, task, commitment, or nagging thought goes into an inbox. Email, notes app, paper. Doesn't matter. Just capture it.

Clarify. Process your inbox regularly. For each item, ask: What is this? Is it actionable? If yes, what's the next physical action? If it takes less than two minutes, do it now. Otherwise, delegate it or defer it.

Organize. Put clarified items in the right buckets. Next actions go on your action list. Multi-step outcomes go on your projects list. Things you're waiting on from others go on your waiting-for list. Things with specific dates go on your calendar.

Reflect. Review your system regularly. Daily reviews keep you focused. Weekly reviews keep you on track. Allen considers the weekly review the critical practice.

Engage. Do the work. With a clear system, you can make better choices about what to do right now.

What GTD gets right

First, capture works. The relief of getting things out of your head is real. People who try it feel it immediately.

Second, the two-minute rule is powerful. Doing small tasks right away prevents them from clogging up your system. It builds momentum.

Third, weekly reviews create accountability. Most people never pause to look at their commitments. The weekly review forces that pause.

Fourth, the next action concept is underrated. Vague tasks like "work on presentation" create friction. Specific next actions like "outline three key points for Q1 review deck" create clarity.

Where GTD breaks down

GTD was designed for individuals. It assumes you control your own work. For leaders, that assumption falls apart.

Your commitments come from meetings. Other people make promises on your behalf. Context shifts constantly. You're responsible for work you don't personally do.

Here's where GTD struggles for leaders:

Meeting capture is hard. GTD assumes you'll capture things as they come up. In a fast-moving meeting, that's difficult. Important commitments get lost.

Team visibility is missing. Your GTD system is private. But leadership work is collaborative. You need to see what your team committed to, not just what you committed to.

Delegation tracking is clunky. The waiting-for list is a good idea. But it doesn't have context. When did you delegate it? What was the original commitment? Who else is involved?

Weekly reviews don't scale. Reviewing your own commitments takes an hour. Reviewing an entire leadership team's commitments takes much longer. Without a shared system, you're relying on status meetings to surface problems.

Adapting GTD for teams

The principles of GTD work for teams. The implementation needs to change.

Automated capture. Meeting transcripts with AI extraction can capture commitments without manual effort. This solves the meeting problem.

Shared visibility. A team GTD system lets everyone see relevant commitments. Not everything. Just what affects your work.

Delegation with context. Link commitments to their source. Who made the promise? In what meeting? What was the exact wording? Context prevents confusion.

Async weekly reviews. Instead of one person reviewing everything, each person reviews their own commitments. A digest surfaces what's on track, at risk, and overdue.

The bottom line

GTD is one of the best productivity frameworks ever created. Its core insight, that you need to externalize commitments, is correct.

But GTD was designed for a world where individuals control their own work. Leadership requires adaptation. You need capture that happens automatically. Visibility that's shared appropriately. Accountability that doesn't require more meetings.

The system matters. But the system needs to match how leadership teams actually work.