In 2015, I discovered Getting Things Done (GTD) by David Allen. It completely changed my life.

I learned GTD by enrolling in Tiago Forte online course called Get Stuff Done Like a Boss. I highly recommend it, it’s much more approachable than the David Allen book.

This post is not meant to be a GTD deep dive, but the summary of GTD is that it teaches you to (thanks to pk14wb from Reddit for the ELI5):

  • Take ambiguous inputs (email, conversations, whatever’s on your mind, etc, etc), figure out what they mean, and turn them into concrete things that can be done.
  • Track all those ideas in a trusted system.
  • Manage and make decisions about all your commitments and responsibilities from a variety of angles.

From 2015 to 2020, I was using Todoist for GTD. However, I always felt limited in connecting my non-actionable and actionable information in one system. That’s where Roam Research came in.

Benefits of using GTD with Roam Research

  • Can quickly connect my non-actionable information (research, notes about people) with actionable information.
  • Can easily see my TODOs alongside my notes.
  • Can query the system which allows me to go back in time easily and keep the context of where I was at or what was happening at the time.

How it’s structured in Roam

I have a page called Vault where I have a list of Areas and a list of Projects.
An area is “a sphere of activity with a standard to be maintained over time”.
A project is “a series of tasks linked to a goal, with a deadline”.

Image from "How I'm using GTD in Roam Research to stay productive and have fun!"

In Roam I try NOT to be too strict on following a specific structure, so TODOs will be under:

  • The main headers in Vault when it’s not a big project or it’s one-off actions.
  • Within a page of a Project.
  • Within the Daily Notes page with a reference to the project.

Here’s what it looks like:

Image from "How I'm using GTD in Roam Research to stay productive and have fun!"

In my case, p1 is typically within the day, p2 within the week, p3 within the month and p4 is someday/maybe. I also have the #waitingfor, that I periodically review.

How I use it in Roam

Once I have created or updated my tasks / projects, I will work on my tasks in two places: a page called Action List and in my Daily Notes.

In my Action List page I also have an Inbox section where I add tasks that are unrelated to an area or a project.

Image from "How I'm using GTD in Roam Research to stay productive and have fun!"

In my Daily Note page I use Roam templating system to show my priorities 1 and 2.

Image from "How I'm using GTD in Roam Research to stay productive and have fun!"

Finally, if I want to connect non-actionable with actionable information I will do it:

  • under the task.
  • within a specific page where the task is referenced as a block.
  • i’ll transform the TODOs into a page.

You can find the templates and the demo database here.