Leo Babauta has written several useful posts on GTD. This one is about getting email inbox to zero (Leo uses Gmail), and I’ve emphasised one section:

I have only one folder: Archive. When I respond to an email, or finish reading it if it doesn’t need response, or note it on my to-do list, I archive it. Simple as that. You could add a Read folder if you want. I usually print longer ones to read later, like during lunch or while waiting for something. Other people have an Action folder or a Waiting For folder, but I find that that’s just an additional inbox or “bucket” as GTD’s David Allen calls it that you have to constantly check. I don’t like to check extra folders. I have my to-do lists and my Waiting For list, and that’s good enough. So it’s as simple as pressing “Archive” on an email, and if I need to find it later, Gmail’s search is so good that it’s easy to find. I’ve never had any problems with this system.

via » Email Zen: Clear Out Your Inbox :zenhabits.

Braintoniq, creator of a set of instructional videos on using Evernote for GTD, uses 2 notebooks: Action Pending and Completed. Simple, but this only covers actionable items. Perhaps everything else (project support materials, etc.) is just tagged with no notebook, or does he not store non-GTD items in Evernote? Unthinkable!

I had a ton of notebooks which I’m now whittling down to just 3: ToDo, Reference (everything else non-actionable), and Inbox (unsorted). I use tags to assign  contexts and priorities to the ToDos. One of my ToDo’s is to sort through my 148 Inbox items 🙁

Gmail screenshot

Image via Wikipedia

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