# Start GTD in one evening

GTD in practice · 2 min read

Dmytro Sokolnikov, maker of Tasker · November 1, 2026

**In short.** You can start GTD in one evening: an hour to write down everything in your head, an hour to clarify it, and another half hour to put things in their places and schedule your first review. The next morning you are already working from a list for today.

## Before you start

- pick an evening when nobody will interrupt you;
- make some tea and have your phone or computer at hand;
- don’t aim for perfect: you will polish the system over the first weeks.

## Hour one: get everything out

Write down everything that comes to mind: tasks, promises, ideas, worries. Walk through the areas of your life — work, home, money, health, family, shopping — and through the places where papers pile up: the desk, the drawers, the fridge door.

No sorting and no dates. The goal of the first hour is to leave nothing in your head “just in case”.

## Hour two: clarify

Take the items one by one. Under two minutes — do it right away. Has a day — give it a date. More than one step — start a project and write down its first action. Not needed — delete it.

Can’t get through everything? No problem: clarify at least what is urgent, the rest can wait until tomorrow.

## Half an hour: put things in place

Set up 3–7 areas and put projects into them. Look a week ahead: is any day overloaded? Mark separately what you need to keep an eye on.

And last — schedule the weekly review as a recurring task: without it the system stalls within a month.

## The first week

- every morning — the list for today: what has a time and what matters most;
- everything new — straight into one place for capture;
- every day — a few minutes to clarify;
- at the end of the week — your first review: what works and what to simplify.

> Not perfect, but done today!

## How it works in Tasker

The same evening in Tasker:

1. If you are still in basic mode, turn on advanced mode — the rocket at the end of the section menu (on a phone — bottom right). It has the Inbox, Today and Areas.
2. Dump everything into the Inbox: “+” at the top, the thought, “To Inbox” — or just type them one after another into the “Add to Inbox” line.
3. Clarify: tap an item in the Inbox and in the “Sort out” window choose a date, “Keep track of”, “Remember”, “Done” or “Delete”.
4. In Areas, add 3–7 areas, and in them — projects with a first task, using the “Add item” line.
5. Create a “Weekly review” task for Friday or Sunday and choose “Weekly” instead of “Don’t repeat” in the date window.
6. In the morning, open Today — and get going.

To capture on the go, keep Tasker at hand: in Telegram — the “Tasker” button in the bot’s menu, on your phone — install Tasker as an app, on a computer — tasker-me.app in the browser.

[All Tasker features](https://tasker-me.app/#features)

Previous: [Reminders and recurring tasks](https://tasker-me.app/gtd/reminders/)

## Try GTD in Tasker

Write your first thought into the Inbox — the rest gets easier.

[Start for free](https://tasker-me.app/app/)