I have never asked that question before. But suddenly I felt like I was overwhelmed and that I was spending too much time and energy to manage my lists. So this year I decided to sit down and write a description of my GTD system to understand what was going on.

The inspiration came from a post from Cal Newport in which he describes his “Rooted Productivity“ document. For him, it's a one page document that he keeps in a plastic sleeve on his desk. The idea is to have a “root commitment” that includes all your productivity habits.

GTD is based on 5 steps, which are:

1. CAPTURE: Collect (Inbox)

2. CLARIFY: What is it?

3. ORGANIZE: Put it where it belongs

4. REFLECT: Review and Update

5. ENGAGE: What is the next action? Do it!

Based on Cal Newport's idea, I came up with a description of my system based on the following questions:

• Which tools do I use for each of the 5 GTD Phases?
  • What are my Inboxes? Where are they?
  • What are my list managers? (including tasks and project lists)
  • How do I organize the stuff that comes into my inbox?
  • What is on my Calendar?
  • What is my reference system? How do I file non-actionable things?
• Core habits and routines: what are the habits that are important to me?
• Periodic Reviews: what are the reviews I have scheduled to keep the system up-to-date?