GTD Workflow
Getting Things Done (GTD) is a productivity methodology created by David Allen. The core idea: capture everything on your mind, clarify what each item means, organize it into actionable lists, and review regularly. Pulse brings this methodology to life with purpose-built views and classifications.
How Pulse Implements GTD
Pulse organizes your tasks across three time-based views that map directly to the GTD workflow:
- Inbox — Unscheduled tasks with no date assigned. This is your capture zone. Anything you add without a date lands here, ready to be clarified and scheduled.
- Today — Tasks scheduled for the current day. This is your daily action list.
- Tomorrow — Tasks scheduled for the next day. Use this to plan ahead without cluttering today's view.
Tasks flow naturally from Inbox to a scheduled date, then to completion.
Urgency and Importance
Every task in Pulse carries two classifications that determine how it appears in the Eisenhower Matrix:
Urgency
| Value | When to use |
|---|---|
| Urgent | Time-sensitive — must be handled soon or consequences follow |
| Not Urgent | Important but not time-pressured — can be scheduled deliberately |
Importance
| Value | When to use |
|---|---|
| Important | Meaningful impact on your goals, projects, or well-being |
| Not Important | Low impact — could be delegated, batched, or dropped |
| Moved the Needle | Reserve this for tasks that genuinely advanced a goal when completed |
| Habit | Recurring habit-linked tasks — tracked separately in the habits engine |
Eisenhower Matrix
The Eisenhower Matrix view arranges your tasks into four quadrants based on their urgency and importance:
| Urgent | Not Urgent | |
|---|---|---|
| Important | Do First — Crisis tasks, pressing deadlines | Schedule — Strategic work, planning, growth |
| Not Important | Delegate — Interruptions, some meetings | Eliminate — Time-wasters, busywork |
Access the Eisenhower Matrix from the main navigation to see your tasks distributed across these quadrants. This view helps you quickly identify where your energy is going and whether you are spending enough time in the "Schedule" quadrant — where the most impactful long-term work lives.
Context-Based Views
Beyond urgency and importance, Pulse supports a state field that describes the context or energy level a task requires:
| State | Description |
|---|---|
| Flow | Deep focus work — needs uninterrupted time and high cognitive effort |
| Quick | Can be knocked out in a few minutes — good for between meetings |
| Easy | Low-energy tasks — suitable for end-of-day or low-focus periods |
| Personal | Non-work tasks — personal errands, family, self-care |
Filter your task list by state to match your available context. If you have 15 minutes before a call, filter to Quick. If you have a two-hour focus block, filter to Flow.
Matching Energy to Tasks
Use context states to batch similar-energy tasks together. Process all Quick tasks in one burst, then switch to a Flow block for deep work.
Task Lifecycle
A task in Pulse follows a simple lifecycle:
Create → Classify → Schedule → Work → Complete
- Create — Add a task with a title. It lands in the Inbox if no date is set.
- Classify — Set urgency, importance, and optionally a state and project.
- Schedule — Assign a date to move the task out of the Inbox and onto a daily list.
- Work — The task appears in your Today view on the scheduled date.
- Complete — Mark the task as done. A
completedAttimestamp is recorded.
You can also assign a time label (e.g., "Morning", "Afternoon") and an estimated duration in minutes to help plan your day.
Optional Fields
| Field | Purpose |
|---|---|
timeLabel | Label for when during the day to tackle the task |
minutes | Estimated duration in minutes |
projectId | Link the task to a project for grouping |
assigneeId | Assign to a family member in shared projects |
sortOrder | Manual ordering within a day's task list |
Tips for Effective GTD in Pulse
The Golden Rule of GTD
If a task takes less than 2 minutes, do it immediately. Everything else goes into Pulse for classification and scheduling.
- Process your Inbox daily. Tasks without dates are invisible to your daily workflow. Clarify and schedule them or delete them.
- Default to Not Urgent. Most tasks feel urgent but are not. Be honest about urgency to keep the Eisenhower Matrix useful.
- Use states for context switching. Tag tasks with Flow, Quick, Easy, or Personal so you can filter based on your current energy and available time.
- Review weekly. The weekly review is where GTD comes together. Use the Reviews feature to reflect on what you accomplished and what slipped.
- Keep projects lean. A project in GTD is any outcome requiring more than one task. Create projects freely, but archive them when done.
- Leverage the MCP server. If you use an AI assistant, the Pulse MCP tools let you create tasks, trigger reviews, and get daily briefs without opening the app.
- Trust the system. The power of GTD is that your brain stops tracking tasks once they are captured. Put everything in Pulse and let the system remind you.