The GTD Flowchart: A Visual Guide to Processing Your Inbox

One of the most useful artifacts from David Allen’s GTD methodology is the processing flowchart. It gives you a clear, visual decision tree for handling every item that enters your inbox.

Here is the flowchart in plain text:

Item enters inbox →

• Is it actionable? → NO → Trash / Reference / Someday-Maybe
• Is it actionable? → YES → What is the next action?
  • Less than 2 minutes? → DO IT NOW
  • More than 2 minutes? → Am I the best person?
    • NO → DELEGATE (track on Waiting For)
    • YES → Is it time-specific?
      • YES → Put on CALENDAR
      • NO → Put on NEXT ACTIONS list
  • Multi-step outcome? → Add to PROJECTS list (and identify next action)

Making the Flowchart Practical

The flowchart is elegant in theory. In practice, people get stuck at three points.

The “Is it actionable?” decision. Many items feel like they might be actionable someday but are not clearly actionable now. The temptation is to keep them “just in case.” A better filter: what happens if I ignore this entirely? If the answer is nothing meaningful, it is not actionable. Eliminate it.

The “Who should do it?” decision. People often default to doing things themselves when delegation would be more appropriate. Before you add something to your own next actions list, ask whether someone else would handle it better or whether it is actually their responsibility.

The “Organize” step. People spend too long deciding which list or context an item belongs to. Speed matters more than precision here. Pick the most obvious home and move on. You will have a chance to reorganize during your weekly review.

The Nix It Flowchart

Nix It simplifies the GTD flowchart by reducing the number of destinations and adding elimination as a first-class option:

Item enters inbox →

• What happens if I ignore it? → NOTHING → Eliminate
• Can I handle it in 2 minutes? → YES → Do it now → Eliminate
• Who owns the next action?
  • ME → Card on canvas, state: Owned, visible
  • SOMEONE ELSE → Card on canvas, state: Delegated, hidden with trigger
  • AN EVENT → Card on canvas, state: Pending, hidden with trigger
• Weekly review: Does this still deserve space? → NO → Eliminate

The key differences from the traditional GTD flowchart: elimination is the first and most frequent outcome; there are three states instead of multiple lists and contexts; and visibility is controlled by the system rather than requiring you to manage multiple lists.

The result is the same clarity GTD promises with less structural overhead to maintain.

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Nix It is a work management system that supports GTD and other productivity methodologies. Learn more and try it free.