How to Set Up GTD in Notion (The Only Guide You Need)

If you’re looking to learn how to implement David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology in Notion, then you’re in the right place.

In this blog post, I’ll share how I’m using GTD in Notion today (including detailed walkthroughs of how I’m using each list).

Let’s take a look.

Notion GTD: Everything You Need to Know

If you want to follow along at home, you’ll need to create a new page in Notion for the following:

1. Inbox
2. Projects
3. Next Actions
4. Read/Review
5. Someday/Maybe

If you prefer, you can also add additional pages for Reference and Waiting for/Review to your workflow. (I have a page for Reference but chose to omit explaining how and why I use it in this post as it’s not as relevant as the other pages.)

For your GTD dashboard to work you’ll need to use linked databases, which let you show, filter, and sort the same database in multiple places as many times as you want.

By the end of the post, you will hopefully end up with something like this:

Inbox

The Inbox is where you capture and collect everything that has your attention, including articles you want to write, purchases you’re considering, projects you might pursue someday, and everything in between.

Anytime you have an idea—add it here. Then, once a week, review and process your inbox. One quick win is if an item is actionable and will take two minutes or less to complete, do it immediately.  

If an item is actionable and will not take two minutes or less to complete, move it to Next Actions. If more than one action is required—as is the case with “Write an Article on How to Set Up GTD in Notion,” a project I’m running currently—move it to Projects.

Using a recent personal example, I noticed I had two similar next actions:

1. “Add Words Into Works Testimonials to Landing Page”; and 
2. “Rename Bullets on Words Into Works Landing Page.”

Rather than complete them both, I added a project to my Someday/Maybe list called “Improve Words Into Works Landing Page.” I then added the two next actions as a reminder for when I scope the project and prioritized the project as high. (More on that shortly.)

Lastly, if something is not actionable—regardless of whether it will take two minutes or less to complete—delete it or move it to Read/Review, Reference, or Someday/Maybe.

Projects

If you’re like most readers, you likely work full time and have extracurricular interests in your free time, such as learning a new language, volunteering for a nonprofit, or building an online business.

Many of my projects are large and require multiple next actions to complete. For that reason, I take time at the start of each month to choose suitable projects to work on and scope them to ensure I finish them as efficiently as possible. (More on that in a moment.)

When considering projects, I first go into my Someday/Maybe page and move any projects prioritized as “High” to “Projects.” As a rule of thumb, I give a project a high priority if I think it will make the highest possible contribution to one of my objectives or key results (OKRs).

One current Objective I have focuses on the total revenue I want to make from my blog in Q1 and Q2. I’m currently behind on that goal, however, and for that reason, I’ve prioritized several “Sales” projects this and next quarter.

Remember: Priority is only one example of what GTD calls “Context.” I also use Size to determine the number of projects I can commit to in a given month and Sprint to estimate when and how long I will run a project.

A project’s sprint is influenced, in part, by its scope, which is an explanation of the project’s goal (increase website traffic, generate more revenue, etc.) and its potential next actions. 

(Note: I write “potential” next actions because some next actions change once starting a project. Rarely can you scope a project one hundred percent unless it’s a recurring project or a project with few next actions.)

Once I’m happy with a project’s list of potential next actions, I copy and paste them into Next Actions and add the appropriate tags. 

Next Actions

Once I move a project’s next actions to this page, I add the following tags:

1. Sprint

Given that most of my next actions have soft deadlines, I give myself a buffer of seven days, running my sprints from Monday to Sunday. However, if an action has a hard deadline, I’ll add it to my calendar. I also add a filter in my GTD dashboard to ensure I only see my next actions for the coming week.

2. Status

Each next action has one of the following tags: 

• To Do
• Doing
• Done 

Once I assign “Done” to a task, it’s filtered out of my GTD dashboard and Next Actions. However, if I ever need to remind myself of a project’s next actions, I can view them in the project page’s list, even if I’ve tagged them as “Done.”

3. Priority

One tip I learned from productivity expert Tiago Forte is to only have high- and medium-priority tasks. High-priority tasks have hard deadlines and must be done this week. Medium priority tasks, by contrast, have soft deadlines and can be deferred to next week, if not later. 

4. Time Available and Energy Available

Imagine finishing work at 16:00, but your bus doesn’t leave until 16:15. Assuming you don’t have any high-priority tasks to continue with or start, what should you work on? 

That’s where Time Available and Energy Available help. With them, you can prioritize tasks, not by urgency—as is the case with time-sensitive tasks—but by the amount of time available and your level of motivation.

5. Related Project (If Applicable)

Like my Next Actions property in Projects, I use Notion’s relations property to link to the project that the next action belongs to, if applicable. You can see an example in the final column in the image below.

Read/Review

When I encounter an article I want to read, I use Notion’s Web Clipper to save it to Read/Review. Then, to ensure I differentiate between just-in-case and just-in-time information, I tag the article as either “Must-Read” or “Nice-to-Read.”

If an article is highly relevant to a project I’m working on or about to start, I’ll mark it as Must-Read and read it at my nearest convenience, either on my laptop or on my phone. 

To borrow a recent example, I’m currently reworking my email automation. As such, I’m reading and tagging articles on that topic as Must-Read as they will inform how I think about and, more importantly, scope the project. 

What’s more, because I want Notion to remind me of these articles each time I view my GTD dashboard, I have a filter in my GTD dashboard to ensure I only see my Must-Read articles.

When I read an article, I like to do it in Notion rather than read it on the website. There’s a good reason for this. If I like an article, I will bold and highlight its big ideas—similar to writing a book summary—and then move it to my Resonance Calendar for future reference.

If an article is Must-Read and time-sensitive—such as an article I need to read before a meeting—I’ll create an event in my calendar with a link to the article in the event’s description.

This is an edge case, but it’s still nice to make life as easy as possible for my future self.

Someday/Maybe

Someday/Maybe is where I save any potential projects I might work on in the future. 

As mentioned before, I assign each potential project as high- or medium-priority. As a result, I sort everything in my Someday/Maybe list in order of priority to save time if/when choosing what to work on next.

One particular advantage of having a Someday/Maybe list is you give yourself time to reflect on your projects. You might think it’s a good idea to start a podcast, launch an Etsy business, or run a marathon. 

But upon careful reflection, you often realize a project that you wanted to pursue—or rather, thought you wanted to pursue—might not be the best use of your time after all.

GTD Notion: Is It for You? 

Learning David Allen’s Getting Things Done methodology has changed my life in ways I can’t even begin to describe. 

But implementing GTD in Notion has allowed me to achieve bigger, more ambitious goals with greater ease.

Granted, it might not be for you—I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of what else is possible. 

But if you’re curious and would like to get lifetime access to my GTD template as well as my best training materials, check out my flagship course: Getting Things Done with Notion.