The five stages of Getting Things Done
Getting Things Done (GTD) is a personal productivity method created by David Allen and described in his 2001 book of the same name. Its core workflow has five stages: capture everything that has your attention into trusted containers, clarify what each item means and whether it is actionable, organize the results into lists and a calendar, reflect by reviewing those lists regularly, and engage by choosing what to do in the moment.
The central idea is to get tasks out of your head and into an external system so that mental capacity is freed for actual work rather than for remembering.
Key rules within the flow
During the clarify step, GTD applies a few well-known rules. If something is not actionable, it is trashed, filed as reference, or parked on a someday or maybe list. If it is actionable and takes less than two minutes, the two-minute rule says to do it immediately. Larger commitments become projects with defined next actions. The weekly review is the maintenance ritual that keeps the whole system trustworthy, since the method only works if you actually believe the lists are complete and current.