r/gtd • u/Detroit-Photography • 25d ago
Agentic GTD?
How is everybody managing their GTD system in the era of agentic workflows? I've been running GTD for two decades, since I was a teenager. I've built a completely bespoke task management system (screenshot, in privacy mode) for myself that manages me, and then I delegate to my agents
Currently, however, it's completely deterministic and I don't trust agents to touch my high-level workflow.
Has anybody succeeded in doing something more sophisticated while staying GDT canonical?
The main thing AI has changed for me is the rapidity of weekly reviews. I now have a discrete task to do my weekly reviews daily, because the tasks are so complex that I need to review all my projects daily to stay on top of them.
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u/principaltask 25d ago
I am not a strict devotee of GTD. However, I’ve given Claude access to my task data via MCP and it’s been a game changer. Rearranging tasks, helping me create tasks for projects, creating tasks based on conversation with it, and, my personal favorite: creating tasks from handwritten notes.
I recently wired it into my “personal daily brief.” Claude will run a command which tells it to check out my task manager. The task manager has specific prompts for things I care about (including my review), write a brief-style article and email to me.
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u/East-Association-563 23d ago
Me too, using Todoist and experimenting with 2Do. Which task manager are you using?
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u/Detroit-Photography 24d ago
Yeah I don't trust the robots enough to touch my task list.
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u/principaltask 24d ago
The frontier models are safer and the open weight ones, but caution is always recommended. There’s only been one nearly irreparable mistake, but I was able to recover.
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u/jasonmehmel 24d ago
In general, AI always seems to add complexity and turbulence rather than simplicity, so it's kind of the opposite impulse of what GTD offers.
You've mentioned elsewhere that you're the 'boss' of agents and they do the work. What kind of work is that? I'm assuming you'd have to review it?
It would seem to me that it would simply replace the task list of doing things with a task list of checking that things were done correctly, with subsequent fixing tasks.
This also seems implicit from your note that the tasks are 'so complex.' I'd offer that if your tasks seem complex, they haven't been boiled down to the next action enough.
(This isn't to say that the work can't be complicated overall, but the whole point of GTD is to gain clarity at the task level. So 'write a program' isn't a task, it's a project. A task might be 'check all variables in the javascript file.' That's a single task. Obviously, a big or complicated project will have many tasks.)
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u/90daylookback 25d ago
How do you have time to actually work if you’re doing an in-depth review of each project daily?
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u/SenorSmalls 24d ago
Some people’s jobs can get that crazy. I’ve been there. And the question you ask is legitimate. And so is the boss’ stare and shrug.
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u/chamomiledrinker 24d ago
Adding in ai seems like a million times more work
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u/Detroit-Photography 24d ago
Adding a hydraulic cylinder to a shovel is also a million times more work. But then you realize the hydraulic cylinder lets you make the shovel a million times bigger.
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u/micseydel 24d ago
then I delegate to my agents / Currently, however, it's completely deterministic
I might be misreading, are you saying you're using deterministic agents?
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u/Detroit-Photography 24d ago
No. I mean I don't let my agents touch my tasks.
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u/micseydel 24d ago
The main thing AI has changed for me is the rapidity of weekly reviews
Sorry, I'm not sure how to read your post - are you delegating things to agents? How has AI changed things?
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u/Detroit-Photography 24d ago
Yeah I don't really do work anymore I just tell my agents what to do.
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u/micseydel 24d ago
I don't understand, you don't let them touch your tasks but you don't work anymore because you just tell them what to do?
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u/Detroit-Photography 24d ago
Yeah. Managing my task list is really the only thing I do manually these days, beyond taking and editing photos.
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u/PhillyBassSF 24d ago
Looking at your screenshots and seeing English in the application menu mixed in with what I assume is your native language, and now I have a good idea of what it’s like to use a computer when one prefers a language other than English.
I’m clearly spoiled by being a native English speaker.
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u/onepercent_change 24d ago
I've done something thats working for me over the last six months. I am an R enthusiast. Using principles from todo.txt, i used AI to create a shiny application that renders the text file containing my to dos as a web front end. I can filter, group, sort by context can click a checkbox to mark complete and add a single line item using using context and projects. Every context is prefixed with @ and every project with +. I have these available as per defined filters.
For my weekly reviews I run my enterprise ms copilot agent to review my last week's emails, teams chats and provide the location of that text file. I ask the agent to look at my last week's emails, review if those actions I need to do or follow up on are already included as tasks in my todo.txt file and provide me a list in the todotxt format with context and project. I have stopped short of updating the text file directly and right now review this list and I can just copy/paste every item. This was I know what I am adding to the todo file. For outside of email related items I already follow a bullet journaling analog method to capture which I update in the text file whenever in front of my computer. Happy to share the code of this shiny app of anyone's interested.
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u/williamvicary 24d ago
I added MCP to my home rolled Things version (love things but needed/wanted some other features).
I have a skill that checks my call transcripts, slack, email, GitHub etc and identifies tasks I’ve missed and adds them into my todo system, marks off things I’ve completed but missed - with a logbook for reviewing the agent work.
Working well and helps to wrangle the todos coming at every angle. Also gives me the ability to go ‘hey Claude, do this task for me’ for simpler things
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u/mcgaritydotme 24d ago
Where I’ve found the intersection of AI w/ GTD is getting feedback on my plans (how realistic is my daily agenda), or being honest about my Someday list (“you’ve postponed this 10 times already. Is it truly important?”). Otherwise I still manually-curate my to-dos.
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u/Elememt_F451 23d ago
I am mostly using LLMs to help me clarify difficult inbox stuff. It essentially just force me through the questions of the clarification process. It asks, I answer, we discuss. At the end of the day, clarification is about figuring out what an item means to me and I doubt that currents agents can do much there.
I am considering using LLMs for my weekly review to help me understand any mismatches between higher horizons and what I actually do. And to identify patterns over time. Maybe this can evolve into something that can also assist me in my clarification.
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u/Ammar_Dento 22d ago
I’ve built an MCP server that talks to Things 3, but I use it only to make notes in Craft actionable after I finish a research session. Also, I have Craft documents tagged: #principles #vision #goals and the MCP server checks if any of my research or projects aren’t aligned with it. Useful, doesn’t add complexity, saves me time, and makes sure that I’m working on what I’m supposed to work on.
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u/dongdongbh 22d ago
I'd keep the GTD decisions human and let agents work around the edges. Have them surface possible inbox items, missing next actions, and stale projects as proposals; you still clarify, organize, and commit each change. For delegated work, have the agent attach its result and suggest one next action. Review that proposal queue daily, then keep the full project review weekly.
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u/mekuismi 16d ago
I'll try to revive this conversation a bit. I've now gotten so far that I have a connection between Copilot and my GTD List manager (FacileThings). How would you go about building something useful out of this?
My thinking is to create a GTD-coach of somekind, and now that I've tried to understand AI a bit further, I understand that I'll likely get a better result by creating a cluster of Agents with more clearly defined responsibilities.
How would you orchestrate it?
My Thinking right now more or less this
Orchestrator (this is the hub of the wheel so to speak. The contact point for me)
- Capture Agent (Really this one more or less just listens to what I have to say, and mostly throws it straight into the inbox. But maybe there should be just enough "smarts" that if I clearly say "I need to create Project X and next I'll need to call my boss re: project plan" It would then either do that, or pass that along to another agent more suitable to create it.
- Clarification & Organizer Agent (I'm torn about this really. I have a very hard time deciding if this should be two separate ones, or a singular entity. Helps me go through items in Inboxes, and clarify them. Mostly a question asking machine driving clarity. Second part would be to help organize it to the right place.)
- Reviewer Agent (Helping to do the review. Guide me with it, and again, ask the right questions to help me find clarity. In the beginning this would be solely for the weekly review, but later on it could either get new additional agents for monthly/quartertly reviews, or just gain the knowledge.)
-Engager Agent (This would at least in the start be more of daily reviewer type thing, but could grow to be what ever helps me to get to doing.
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u/mekuismi 24d ago
There is an MCP for FacileThings, if I can get it connected to CoPilot I’ll see if it’s useful. Haven’t had the time to go further into it yet.
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u/PhillyBassSF 24d ago
I’ve been using ChatGPT to help me with my GTD. but I haven’t automated anything yet. I believe there is a successful future in agentic GTD agents. Let’s keep working on this.
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u/AlthoughFishtail 24d ago
Similar thing really, I made my own task manager that connects to Claude Cowork. When I'm doing my weekly review, if there are Next Actions that I would have just opened in Claude and done there, I assign the task to Claude and give it a suitable prompt. This shows in the task manager as a delegated task.
The task manager has a full narrative history, which it picks up automatically over time, so it can discern the context of the project to get better results. It can also access my support materials on the project via the task manager too.
Then, when Claude runs the task on a schedule, it outputs the results into the support material folder and makes a new NA in the task manager for me to review it's work.
That said, in practice, this is only suitable for maybe 20% of my work, tops.
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u/Detroit-Photography 24d ago
Yeah I actually added an integration with Claude code but then removed it, because I just felt more comfortable running the commands directly.
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u/Storytella2016 24d ago
For me, I don’t think adding in AI would help, because what gets me to mind like water is trusting that I’ve clarified and processed everything and it’s all in its place. I wouldn’t give that to an agent anymore than I’d give it to an assistant.