Getting Things Done (GTD) is a productivity system built on one principle: your brain is for having ideas, not holding them. When you trust an external system to capture and organize everything, you free up mental bandwidth for the work itself. Todoist is one of the best apps for implementing GTD because it's flexible enough to match GTD's structure without forcing you to reinvent how you use the app.

This guide walks through a complete Todoist GTD setup: the inbox, project structure, labels for contexts, filters for focus modes, and the weekly review. Each section maps directly to a GTD step so you can build the system incrementally rather than overhauling everything at once.

Key Takeaways

• Todoist's Inbox maps directly to GTD's capture step: the key is emptying it daily, not letting it become a second task list

• Use Todoist Projects for GTD Areas and Labels for GTD Contexts (@home, @computer, @errands, @calls) to build a real context-based workflow

• The weekly review is the part most people skip and the reason most GTD setups fail within a month. Schedule it like a meeting

Step 1: Set Up the Capture System (Inbox)

GTD's first step is capture: getting everything out of your head and into a trusted system immediately. Todoist's Inbox is your capture bucket. Anything you need to remember, do, or decide goes there without categorization. Speed matters here: the faster you can capture something, the lower the friction and the more likely the system actually works.

Configure Todoist's quick add shortcut on every device you use (keyboard shortcut on desktop, widget on mobile). The two-second rule applies: if something takes less than two minutes to add, add it. If you're in a meeting and can't reach Todoist, use whatever is fastest (voice memo, notes app) and batch-import to the Inbox later.

The Inbox is a temporary holding area, not a task list. A full Inbox means you haven't clarified and organized yet. Empty it every day or every other day during your process step.

Step 2: Clarify During Inbox Processing

GTD's clarify step answers one question for each captured item: what is the next physical action? "Finish the report" is not a next action. "Write the executive summary section of the Q3 report" is. Todoist works best when task names are specific enough that you can start without thinking about what to do first.

During Inbox processing, make one of five decisions for each item:

• Delete it: Not actionable, not useful. Gone.

• Do it now: If it takes less than two minutes, do it immediately and delete the task.

• Defer it: Add a date and move it to the appropriate project.

• Delegate it: Assign it in Todoist (if using shared projects) or note it in a Waiting For project.

• Incubate it: Not actionable now but worth revisiting. Move to a Someday/Maybe project.

Processing the Inbox is not the same as doing the work. You're making organizational decisions, not acting on tasks. Keep them separate.

Step 3: Build Your GTD Project Structure

GTD organizes work into three tiers: Areas of Focus (the big categories of your life), Projects (multi-step outcomes that require more than one action), and Next Actions (specific tasks). Todoist's hierarchy maps onto this cleanly.

A standard Todoist GTD project structure:

• Inbox (built-in, your capture bucket)

• Work (top-level project, then sub-projects per active project)

• Personal (top-level project, with sub-projects for health, finances, home, etc.)

• Waiting For (tasks delegated or dependent on others)

• Someday/Maybe (ideas and deferred intentions (not active, not deleted))

• Reference (for tasks that link to reference material; many people prefer Notion or a note app here instead)

Keep active projects at one level of nesting. Deep hierarchies create cognitive overhead when processing. If a project has more than 15-20 tasks, break it into phases or sub-projects. For a complementary approach to structuring your work, see our guide on calendar-based time management.

Step 4: Add Contexts with Labels

GTD's context system is one of its most valuable features and the one Todoist implements most naturally through Labels. A context is the physical environment or tool you need to complete a task: @computer, @phone, @errands, @home, @office, @email.

Add context labels to every task during the clarify step. Then create saved filters in Todoist to pull up tasks by context on demand: when you have 20 minutes before a meeting, open your @email filter and knock out three email-based tasks. When you're running errands, open @errands.

Common GTD label setup in Todoist:

• @computer for tasks requiring a laptop or desktop

• @phone for calls and texts

• @errands for tasks that need you physically outside

• @home for household tasks

• @waiting as a label for delegated tasks (alternative to a separate project)

• @focus for deep work items that need protected time

Step 5: Create Filters for Focus Modes

Todoist's filters are its most underused feature for GTD practitioners. A filter is a saved search query that pulls up exactly the tasks you want to see in a given moment. Without filters, you're scrolling through your full task list to find what's relevant right now.

Four filters worth setting up immediately:

• Today + Overdue: (today | overdue) gives you a daily task view

• Deep Work: label: focus & !date: today shows unscheduled focus tasks waiting for a block

• Context view: label: @computer & today for context-based task batching

• Waiting For: label: waiting to review what you're waiting on from others

Save these as Todoist Favorites in the sidebar so they're one click away. This is where the system pays off: you go from "what should I do now?" to "here are the next actions available in my current context" in under five seconds.

For a complementary review of AI-powered productivity tools that can help augment this workflow, see our roundup.

Step 6: Run the Weekly Review

The weekly review is where most GTD systems die. People set up the infrastructure, use it for two weeks, skip one review, and wake up three weeks later with an Inbox full of unprocessed items and projects that haven't been updated. The system becomes untrustworthy, and they stop using it.

The weekly review should take 20-45 minutes. Block it at the same time every week, preferably Friday afternoon or Sunday evening. The checklist:

• Empty your Inbox completely

• Review each active project: is the next action still current? Is anything blocked?

• Review the Waiting For list: do you need to follow up on anything?

• Review Someday/Maybe: anything you want to move to active?

• Look at next week's calendar and identify any tasks that need to happen before or after specific events

• Clear any completed tasks from projects to keep them clean

For more on accountability and review systems, see our guide on the best accountability apps to reinforce habits like this. See also: Do More Better for a lighter take on GTD-adjacent systems.

Best Tool to Pair with Todoist GTD

Todoist GTD handles task capture and organization. What it doesn't do is schedule your tasks onto a calendar around your energy levels. Lifestack connects to your calendar and uses your energy patterns to schedule deep work tasks into your peak hours and lighter tasks into your lower-energy windows. If you're running a GTD system in Todoist and want those tasks to actually get done, pairing it with energy-aware scheduling closes the gap. See our piece on why energy-based planning beats time-blocking for the thinking behind this.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Todoist good for GTD?

Yes. Todoist's combination of an Inbox, nested projects, labels for contexts, and saved filters maps cleanly onto GTD's core structure. It's more flexible than dedicated GTD apps and available on every platform. The main limitation is that Todoist doesn't have a native weekly review workflow, so you need to build that as a recurring task or calendar block yourself.

How do I set up GTD in Todoist?

Use Todoist's Inbox as your capture bucket, create Projects for each active area of responsibility, add Labels for GTD contexts (@computer, @phone, @errands, @home), create a Someday/Maybe and Waiting For project, and build saved Filters for your daily and context-based task views. Process your Inbox daily and run a full weekly review every week. This guide covers each step in detail.

What is the GTD Someday/Maybe list in Todoist?

Create a project called "Someday/Maybe" and move any task or project idea there when it's not currently active but you don't want to delete it. During your weekly review, scan this list for anything that should move to an active project. It prevents the Inbox from becoming a graveyard for deferred ideas.

Should I use Todoist labels or projects for GTD contexts?

Use Labels for contexts. Projects are for GTD's "Areas of Focus" and "Active Projects." Contexts (@computer, @errands, @phone) should be labels because a single task might belong to the Work project and the @computer context simultaneously. Labels let you filter by context across all projects, which is how GTD's context system is meant to work.

Does Todoist have a GTD template?

Todoist offers a GTD template in its template gallery that gives you a starter project structure. It's a reasonable starting point, but you'll need to add your own context labels, build your filters, and customize projects for your actual areas of responsibility. Use the template as scaffolding, not a finished system. For more productivity apps for iPhone that complement this setup, see our guide.