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An AI assistant earns a place in your capture setup only if it beats the alternatives on one measure: the number of seconds between the thought arriving and the thought being safely out of your head. That is the honest test for any ubiquitous capture AI assistant, and it is a much lower bar than the marketing suggests. Voice-to-text is fast and genuinely useful. The rest of what these tools promise, the tidying, the categorising, the guessing at what you meant, tends to create work rather than remove it.

This article treats AI as one capture channel sitting alongside your phone, your wearable and your pocket notebook. The goal is a setup where nothing gets lost, everything arrives in one inbox you trust, and processing that inbox stays under control.

What ubiquitous capture actually demands, and where an AI assistant fits

Ubiquitous capture is the Getting Things Done habit of having a reliable way to record any thought, commitment or idea, wherever you are, without breaking your concentration. David Allen’s argument in Getting Things Done (revised edition, 2015) is that your mind is poor at storing open loops, so you offload them to an external system you check regularly. The capture tool matters less than whether you trust it.

The standard: faster than the thought is worth

Five seconds is a practical working benchmark rather than an official rule. If capturing a small idea takes fifteen seconds of unlocking, tapping and picking a list, you will skip it when you are busy, and one skipped idea is enough to stop trusting the system. Two conditions matter:

• Speed from a cold start. Screen locked, phone in a coat pocket, hands full. That is the real test condition, not a calm desk.
• No second thought. You should never wonder afterwards whether the item actually landed somewhere you will look.

Three jobs AI does well

• Dictation with punctuation. Modern speech-to-text handles sentence breaks, names and numbers well enough that you can talk in full sentences and get readable text back.
• Routing. A voice command or shortcut that drops the text into a specific list or note, so you are not choosing a destination while thinking.
• Condensing. Turning a rambling three-minute voice memo into a short summary plus a list of the things you said you would do. This is the one place AI saves real minutes.

Three jobs to keep human

Clarifying what an item means, deciding the next physical action, and setting priority are all judgement calls that depend on context the assistant does not have. Let an AI tool guess a due date and you get a calendar full of dates you did not choose and no longer believe. Worse, some tools rewrite your phrasing when they transcribe. If “ask Priya about the invoice wording” comes back as “follow up with Priya”, the specific thing you needed to remember is gone.

Choosing your capture channels: voice assistant, phone app, wearable, notebook

Test each channel by time-to-captured

Run the same test on every channel you own. Lock the phone, put it away, then time yourself capturing the sentence “book the MOT before the 14th” until it is visibly sitting in your inbox. Do it three times and take the slowest run, because the slowest run is what happens when you are distracted.

Typical results in day-to-day use:

• Voice assistant (Siri, Google Assistant, Alexa): fastest hands-free option, especially in a car or kitchen. Weakest for anything you would not say out loud.
• Phone quick-capture widget or shortcut: reliable and silent, a few seconds slower than voice, and better for messy multi-line thoughts.
• Wearable (watch, earbuds): good for walks and gyms. Raise-to-speak beats digging a phone out of a zipped pocket.
• Pocket notebook: no unlocking, no battery, no listening. Slower to get into your digital system, faster to actually write.

Voice capture in cars, on walks and noisy rooms

Voice works best where your hands are occupied and the acoustics are reasonable. It degrades in predictable places: open-plan offices where you would disturb people, train platforms and busy streets, and any conversation involving unusual product names, client names or internal jargon. Accents outside the training data get mangled more often, and transcription tends to fail on exactly the words that carry the meaning.

The fix is not to abandon voice, but to speak defensively. Spell an unusual name, say numbers slowly, and add a keyword you can search for later, such as saying “capture note” at the start of every item.

Landing zones for AI-captured text

Whatever tool captures the item, it needs a home:

• Apple Reminders is the low-friction choice on iPhone, because Siri writes to it without setup and Shortcuts can target a specific list.
• Todoist parses typed dates well and accepts items from a range of integrations, which suits people who capture on desktop and mobile equally.
• Obsidian suits anyone who wants captured text as plain Markdown files they own outright, with a single daily inbox note as the target.

If you have not settled on a notes tool yet, our round-up of the best note-taking apps for a GTD workflow compares the realistic options, and desk-bound Mac users will find more capture-friendly tools in our guide to Mac productivity apps that build a working GTD system.

When paper still wins

Paper beats every AI capture channel in four situations. In meetings, writing a note is polite and pulling out a phone reads as disengagement. At 3% battery, paper is the only channel left. In confidential conversations, nothing leaves the room. And when you are thinking rather than recording, a page lets you sketch arrows and boxes at the speed your thoughts arrive.

Keep a notebook and treat it as a capture channel with a processing step, not a filing system. Pages get emptied into your one inbox during your daily or weekly review.

Setting up an AI capture workflow that lands in one trusted inbox

Pick the inbox first

Choose the destination before you configure anything. One inbox, named clearly, checked daily. Every capture channel then points at it. This is the single decision that determines whether the system works, because trust cannot be split across four locations.

The three plumbing options

1. Voice shortcuts. On iOS, an Apple Shortcut triggered by a phrase such as “add to inbox” can dictate text and append it to a chosen list or note. Android’s equivalents work similarly through Assistant routines and app integrations.
2. Email-to-inbox. Most task and note tools offer an address that turns an email into an item. Useful because almost every device and assistant can send an email. Check your current plan, since some tools put per-project forwarding addresses on paid tiers.
3. Share sheets. For links, screenshots and quotes you find while reading. Two taps, no typing, no thinking about where it goes.

Three channels is usually enough. Every extra route is another thing that can break quietly.

Naming and tagging so AI-created notes stay findable

Automated capture produces text nobody titled, which is how inboxes become unsearchable. Two conventions solve most of it: prefix automated items with a marker such as vc: for voice capture, and let the tool timestamp everything. If your task manager supports saved searches or filters, build one that shows only untitled or unprocessed automated items. OmniFocus users can do this cleanly with a dedicated view, as covered in our walkthrough on building useful OmniFocus perspectives.

A five-minute test to prove nothing is dropped

Before you rely on the setup, send one deliberately odd test item through every channel, for example “zebra test 1” by voice, “zebra test 2” by share sheet, “zebra test 3” by email. Wait five minutes, then search your inbox for “zebra”. Anything missing is a channel you should not trust yet. Repeat this test after any phone OS update, because shortcuts and permissions break silently when systems change.

Processing the AI inbox without drowning in it

Why AI capture inflates volume

When capture costs two seconds, you capture more. Some of that is genuinely valuable, and some of it is thinking out loud that would have resolved itself in ten minutes. The volume itself is not the problem. Skipping the daily empty is, because a backlog of half-sentences is the fastest way to lose faith in the whole system.

A practical cap: if you cannot clear the inbox in the time you have allocated, capture less for a week rather than processing less.

Summaries and tags as a first pass only

AI summaries are useful for triage. Read the one-line summary of a long voice memo, decide whether the item is rubbish, reference or actionable, then move on. Do not let the summary replace the original, and keep the recording or full transcript until you have extracted what you need. For anything actionable, you apply the two-minute rule yourself, because only you know whether the task is genuinely two minutes.

Verb-first rewrites

Voice captures arrive as fragments. “Insurance thing” or “the Morrison deck”. Rewriting them verb-first is the step that turns capture into a usable list:

• “Insurance thing” becomes “Email Sarah for renewal quote on van policy”.
• “The Morrison deck” becomes “Draft three slides on Q3 numbers for Morrison deck”.

Ten seconds of rewriting at processing time saves you from a list of items you skip because you cannot remember what they meant.

Weekly review checks

Add three questions to your weekly review:

• What did the assistant capture? Scan the automated items and check the transcription actually says what you said.
• What got lost? Think back to anything you meant to capture and cannot find. One missing item usually points at a broken channel.
• What never needed capturing? If a quarter of your voice notes are noise, tighten what you say into the microphone.

Costs, privacy and reliability trade-offs

Free versus paid

Built-in dictation on current iPhones and Android phones costs nothing and is fast enough for short captures. Paying usually buys three things: longer recording transcription, better handling of accents and specialist vocabulary, and integrations that push text directly into your task manager instead of the clipboard. Pricing and feature tiers change often, so check the vendor’s current plan rather than a comparison article.

Where your recordings live

Assume anything processed in the cloud is stored somewhere until you confirm otherwise. Some dictation runs entirely on-device, which keeps audio off servers, while most third-party transcription services upload audio for processing. Vendor documentation and your organisation’s own policy should decide what you dictate. Under UK data protection law, personal data you record about colleagues or clients is still your responsibility, and the ICO’s UK GDPR guidance is the reference point for what that means in practice.

Practical rule: keep names attached to health, HR, legal, financial or safeguarding matters off cloud assistants. Capture a neutral placeholder instead, such as “HR item re: Tuesday call”, and hold the detail somewhere appropriate.

Offline and dead-battery fallbacks

Cloud transcription needs a signal. Underground, in a lift, on a rural road, your voice capture may silently fail or queue. Test what your setup does with no connection, then keep an offline fallback: a note app that stores locally, and a pocket notebook for when the battery is gone.

Vendor lock-in

Captured text should be exportable as plain text, Markdown or CSV. Before committing to a tool, run one export and open the file. If your notes only exist inside a proprietary viewer, migration later will cost you the archive. Plain files also stay searchable with ordinary tools, which matters when you are hunting a half-remembered idea from two years ago.

Common mistakes that break AI-assisted capture

• Running four inboxes and trusting none. Siri writes to Reminders, the watch writes to Notes, the shortcut writes to Todoist, the notebook stays in the bag. Consolidate to one destination, then delete the routes you no longer use.
• Letting the assistant set projects and due dates. Automated dates you did not choose train you to ignore dates entirely.
• Capturing everything and processing nothing. Capture is the cheap half. Blocking ten minutes a day to empty the inbox is the half that makes it work.
• Skipping the audit. A shortcut broken by an OS update can swallow captures for weeks without any error message. The zebra test takes two minutes.

Treat a ubiquitous capture AI assistant as a fast microphone attached to a system you designed yourself. Point every channel at one inbox, keep paper for the moments a screen is wrong, test the plumbing regularly, and make the clarifying decisions with your own judgement. Do that and the assistant quietly earns its place, and if you want more ideas for building the rest of the system, browse the practical guides at DIGTD.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is ubiquitous capture in GTD?

It is the habit of always having a way to record any thought or commitment the moment it appears, wherever you are. The point is to get open loops out of your head and into a system you review regularly, as described in David Allen’s Getting Things Done. Ubiquitous means the tool is always within reach, not that you use many tools.

Can an AI assistant replace a capture notebook?

For most captures, yes, and often faster. It cannot replace paper in meetings where a phone looks rude, in confidential conversations, when your battery is dead, or when you are sketching rather than recording. Keeping a notebook as backup costs almost nothing.

Which AI assistant is best for capturing tasks on the move?

The one already built into the phone you carry, because it needs no launching. Siri into Apple Reminders is the shortest path on iPhone, and Google Assistant into Google Tasks or Keep on Android. Test any third-party option against those two for time-to-captured before switching, and see our notes on iPhone productivity apps for capture-friendly alternatives.

Where should AI-captured notes end up: a task manager or a notes app?

Actionable items belong in your task manager so they appear on lists you actually work from. Longer thinking, meeting transcripts and reference material belong in a notes app. If you cannot decide in the moment, send everything to one inbox and split it during processing.

How do I stop an AI assistant from flooding my GTD inbox?

Cap the number of capture channels at two or three, and process the inbox daily so volume never accumulates. If items are mostly noise, be stricter about what you dictate: capture commitments and ideas you want to act on, not every passing thought.

Is voice capture safe for confidential work notes?

It depends on whether the audio is processed on-device or uploaded to a service, and what your employer’s policy allows. Treat cloud transcription as storage you do not control, and keep sensitive personal, legal or HR detail out of it. Capture a neutral placeholder and hold the detail in an approved system.

Do I still need paper if I have an AI capture setup?

A small notebook covers the gaps that digital capture leaves: no battery, no signal, meetings where phones are unwelcome, and thinking that needs a blank page. Use it as a capture channel that gets emptied into your main inbox, not as a separate list you check.

A perspective in OmniFocus is a saved query over your single task database, not a separate list you have to maintain. That distinction is the reason this OmniFocus perspectives guide starts with questions rather than settings: once you know exactly what you want to ask (“what could I do in ten minutes right now?”, “who owes me something?”), the rules almost write themselves. Get it wrong and you end up with fifteen sidebar entries you no longer trust, which is worse than having none.

What follows is the reasoning behind six views that answer real questions, the exact rule and grouping combinations to use, and the traps that make a perspective look broken when it is only doing what you told it.

What perspectives do, and where the built-in views run out

Everything you enter into OmniFocus lives in one database. Perspectives are filters and layouts on top of it. Change a task in the Projects view and it changes everywhere, because there is only one copy. That is also why a perspective can never “lose” a task; it can only hide one.

The built-in set does a lot of the work:

• Inbox for capture, kept empty by processing rather than by browsing.
• Projects for structure: the place to reorder, add sequential dependencies and see whole outcomes.
• Tags for context browsing, one tag at a time.
• Forecast for anything anchored to a date, plus calendar events on the same timeline.
• Flagged for a manual shortlist.
• Review for your weekly review cycle, driven by each project’s review interval.
• Nearby on iPhone and iPad, which uses tags with locations attached.

They run out in three predictable places. First, combining conditions: the Tags view shows one tag at a time, so “errands that are not on hold and not deferred” needs a custom rule set. Second, energy and time filtering: nothing built in says “short and easy”. Third, tracking delegated work, where the useful sort order is oldest first, so items you have chased nobody about float to the top.

Custom perspectives are an OmniFocus Pro feature, on Mac and on iOS and iPadOS. Licensing and pricing change, so check the current options on Omni Group’s OmniFocus page before you plan a setup that depends on them. If you decide Pro is not worth it, the built-in views plus disciplined tagging will still run a workable GTD system, and the pruning advice later in this piece applies either way.

How the rule builder actually works

The perspective editor gives you rule groups. A group can require all of its rules, any of them, or none of them. Nesting is where most people trip up: a top-level “all” group containing an inner “any” group means “must satisfy every outer rule, and at least one of these inner options”. That single pattern covers most useful perspectives, including the Today view below.

Availability, in plain terms

The availability rule is the most common cause of a perspective behaving unexpectedly:

• Available: actions you could genuinely start now. Excludes anything deferred to a future date, anything blocked by an earlier step in a sequential project, and anything whose only tag is on hold.
• First available: the single earliest available action in each project or action group. This is the honest definition of a next action.
• Remaining: everything not completed or dropped, including deferred and blocked items. Use this when you want to see the future, not act on it.
• Completed and dropped: for review and archaeology, such as “what did I actually finish last week?”.

The other rules worth knowing

You can filter on specific tags (with the option to include or ignore child tags), on untagged items, on flag state, on due and defer dates relative to today, on project or group status, and on estimated duration where you record it. Text search rules exist too, though they age badly as your wording drifts.

Presentation matters as much as filtering. Choose whether the perspective lists individual actions or whole projects, then set grouping (by project, tag, due date, date added) and sorting. On Mac you also choose a layout, with a fluid list on one side and a columns view on the other, plus an icon and colour and the sidebar position. Grouping by tag turns a flat list into a set of decisions you can scan by context, which is the single biggest readability win available.

Six custom perspectives worth building this week

1. Today: one decision list

Outer group set to all, with availability set to available. Inside it, an any group containing: flagged, due soon, and (optionally) a tag such as Today that you add during your morning planning. Group by project so related work clusters, sort by due date, and set it as your default view on launch.

The point is that this list should be short enough to finish. If it runs to forty items, your flag habit has become a second inbox.

2. A trustworthy next actions list

Set availability to first available, group by tag, sort by project or by date added. Because it shows one action per project, the length of this list tells you how many active commitments you are carrying, which is useful information on its own.

This is the closest OmniFocus gets to a classic GTD next actions list, and it only stays honest if each project’s first action is a physical next step rather than a vague outcome. “Sort out insurance” blocks the list; “email broker for renewal quote” does not.

3. Waiting For

Filter on your Waiting tag, set availability to remaining rather than available (delegated items are often deferred to a follow-up date, and you still want to see them), group by project, and sort by date added with the oldest first. The top of the list is then your chase list.

Add the date you delegated something to the task name if you want it visible at a glance, for example “Waiting: signed contract from Priya (sent 14 Mar)”.

4. Errands and Nearby

An any group containing your location-style tags (Errands, Supermarket, Town, Post Office), with availability set to available. Sort by tag so items in the same place group together. On iPhone and iPad, attaching locations to those tags lets the built-in Nearby view sort by distance, which is the one thing a custom perspective cannot replicate.

5. Low energy

Availability available, plus either a Low Energy tag or an estimated duration rule set to short tasks where you record durations. Keep the list to admin-shaped work: filing, quick replies, ten minutes of tidying. The value is having somewhere legitimate to go at 4:30pm instead of reopening email.

6. Stalled projects

Set the presentation to show projects rather than individual actions, then filter for active projects with no available next action. Your version of the rule builder may offer a stalled option directly; if not, an equivalent view is projects whose remaining actions are all blocked or deferred. Check the options available in your editor and test the result against a project you know is stuck.

Open this once a week during your review. Every entry needs either a next action, a defer date, an on-hold status or deletion. For more advanced variations on these builds, including flagged-plus-context hybrids, there is a longer walkthrough of tricking out your OmniFocus perspectives on this site.

Setting them up on Mac, iPhone and iPad

On Mac, create a new perspective, name it in plain language (name it after the question, not the mechanism), pick an icon and colour, build the rules, then drag it into the sidebar order you want. Adding your two or three most-used perspectives to the toolbar makes them one click away, and the perspective settings are where to look for a keyboard shortcut option if your version offers one.

Custom perspectives sync across devices along with the rest of your database, so a view built on Mac appears on iPhone and iPad without rebuilding, provided you have Pro on those devices. On iPhone and iPad you can reorder perspectives and choose which appear in the tab bar, so put Today and Next Actions where your thumb already is.

Two extras are worth setting up once. OmniFocus supports the Shortcuts app, so you can open a specific perspective from a Home Screen icon or a Focus mode automation. Widgets can surface a chosen perspective on the Home Screen, which suits Today better than anything else. If you are assembling a wider desktop setup around this, the roundup of Mac productivity apps that build a working GTD system covers what pairs well with OmniFocus.

Finally, Focus (also Pro) narrows the whole app to a selected project or folder. Combine it with a perspective and you get a client-only or work-only version of the same view: set Focus to the client folder, open your next actions perspective, and everything else disappears until you clear the Focus. Remember that Focus applies on top of the rules, which explains the occasional empty list.

Why your perspective shows the wrong tasks

Nearly every “broken perspective” comes down to one of five causes.

• Deferred items vanishing. You filtered on available, and the actions are deferred to next Tuesday. Switch to remaining if you want to see them, or accept the hiding as intended and check Forecast instead.
• Sequential projects hiding actions. In a sequential project only the first incomplete action is available. If a project seems to have gone quiet, check whether an early step is waiting on someone else. Making that step parallel, or splitting the project, usually fixes it.
• On-hold tags. A tag set to on hold removes its actions from available views entirely. Handy for Someday and Agendas, confusing when you have forgotten you did it. Review your tag list for on-hold status when a whole category disappears.
• Over-tight or duplicated rules. Two conflicting rules in an “all” group can produce an impossible condition, for example “tagged Errands” and “untagged”. An empty list often means contradictory rules rather than an empty database.
• Focus left on. If a view is unexpectedly short on Mac, check whether Focus is still active from earlier.

A five-minute test routine

Before you trust a new perspective, test it against something known. Pick a project with a mix of states: one available action, one deferred to next week, one tagged Waiting, one blocked behind a sequential step. Open each perspective and confirm the right items appear and the wrong ones do not. Repeat this whenever you change your tag structure. It takes minutes and it is the difference between a system you act on and a system you second-guess.

Keeping the sidebar lean

Perspective clutter creeps in because building them is enjoyable. A working rule of thumb: one perspective per question you genuinely ask, and if two views answer roughly the same question, merge them. Six well-tested views beat twenty you scroll past.

Delete or hide anything you have not opened in a month. Candidates for removal usually include duplicate variations on Today, single-tag perspectives that the built-in Tags view already covers, text-search perspectives built around wording you no longer use, and per-client views that Focus handles better. On Mac you can leave a perspective in place but remove it from the sidebar if you are not ready to delete it.

Rules also age. Renaming a tag, splitting Errands into three locations, or dropping the Low Energy tag will quietly break any perspective that referenced the old structure, so re-run the test routine after any tag reorganisation. Omni’s own support documentation is the place to check current rule options if your editor looks different from what you remember.

One honest caveat: this level of control suits people who like tuning a system. If you keep 25 projects and mostly need a date and a reminder, Apple Reminders, Things or Todoist will get you there with less setup, and pairing a simpler task app with a solid note system (see our tested picks for note-taking in a GTD workflow) may serve you better than Pro features you never configure. For everyone else, working through this OmniFocus perspectives guide once and then pruning quarterly turns a long scrolling list into six views that answer the questions you actually ask.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a perspective in OmniFocus?

A perspective is a saved set of filters, grouping and sorting rules applied to your single OmniFocus database. It does not hold tasks of its own; it decides which existing tasks appear and how they are arranged. Built-in perspectives such as Inbox, Projects, Tags, Forecast, Flagged and Review are pre-made versions of the same idea.

Do I need OmniFocus Pro to create custom perspectives?

Yes. Custom perspectives are a Pro feature, alongside Focus and additional automation options. The standard version includes the built-in perspectives, which are enough for a basic GTD setup. Check Omni Group’s current pricing and licensing before buying, as options have changed over time.

How many perspectives should a GTD system have?

There is no official number, but most people settle at somewhere between four and eight custom views plus the built-ins. A practical test is whether each perspective answers a distinct question you ask during a day or a weekly review. If you cannot name that question, the perspective is probably clutter.

Why does my custom perspective show no tasks?

The usual causes are an availability filter set to available when the items are deferred or blocked, contradictory rules inside an “all” group, an on-hold tag removing items, or a Focus still active from earlier. Loosen one rule at a time and watch when items reappear. That tells you which condition was doing the filtering.

What is the difference between available, first available and remaining actions?

Available means you could start it now: not completed, not deferred to the future, not blocked, not on hold. First available narrows that to the single earliest available action in each project or action group, which is the truest next actions list. Remaining includes everything not completed or dropped, deferred and blocked items included.

Do perspectives sync between Mac, iPhone and iPad?

Custom perspectives sync with the rest of your OmniFocus data, so a view built on one device appears on the others without rebuilding. You need Pro on each device where you want to use them. Device-specific settings such as tab bar order and toolbar placement are set locally.

Can I build a reliable next actions list with perspectives alone?

Perspectives can produce the list, but reliability comes from your inputs. Filter on first available and group by tag, then make sure every active project has a concrete physical next step and that your tag statuses are correct. If the projects contain vague outcomes, no rule set will rescue the list.

The best note taking app for a Getting Things Done workflow is rarely the one with the longest feature list. It is the one you can open in under three seconds on a train platform, dump a thought into, and then empty cleanly into your next actions list on Sunday afternoon. That is a much narrower job than “notes”, and it is the only job this guide scores apps on. Below are seven picks, each with a defined role, an honest cost line, and the point at which it lets you down.

What Makes the Best Note Taking App for Getting Things Done

The five jobs a notes app must do

• Capture in under three seconds from a locked phone, without choosing a folder first.
• Sync everywhere you work, including offline, without you thinking about it.
• Search reliably, ideally inside PDFs and photos of whiteboards.
• Export cleanly to plain text, Markdown, HTML or PDF.
• Hand tasks off to your action list, whether that is OmniFocus, Todoist or a paper page.

Miss any one of those and the app becomes a place where information goes to die.

Capture speed beats feature count

A genuine ubiquitous capture device is one you reach for reflexively. In practice that means a home screen widget, a share sheet extension, a global keyboard shortcut on the desktop, a browser clipper, and voice capture that works while you are driving or walking. If capture takes six taps, you will use your messaging app instead, and your ideas will scatter.

Why lock-in and export matter more than pretty formatting

Notes outlive apps. Before you commit, export ten notes and open the file elsewhere. If what comes out is a proprietary blob, that is a strike against it no matter how nice the typography looks. The best note taking app is one you could leave next year with a morning’s work.

The one rule that stops your notes app becoming a graveyard

Notes are reference. Actions live elsewhere. The moment your app holds both, you have two competing lists and you will trust neither. Capture freely into the notes inbox, then during processing turn anything actionable into a next action in your task manager and leave the supporting material behind as reference.

How We Tested and Scored Each Note Taking App

Each app was used as the single capture tool for a normal working fortnight: notes from a phone lock screen, a desktop while on a call, a browser while researching, and forwarded email. Every note was then processed into a next actions list during a weekly review.

• Sync lag: how long before a note typed on a phone appeared on a laptop.
• Search accuracy: including text inside scanned PDFs and photographs.
• Offline behaviour: whether capture worked with no signal, and whether it merged cleanly afterwards.
• Export format: what you actually get out.
• Cost in pounds: free tiers, device limits and upload caps, checked at the time of writing.

Deliberately ignored: AI summary gimmicks, template galleries, and anything that only helps once you already have a thousand notes you have never reread.

The 7 Best Note Taking Apps, Ranked by Job

1. Microsoft OneNote: best all-rounder and best free tier

Free with a Microsoft account, with sync through OneDrive and no artificial note limits, OneNote is the strongest genuinely free option and often the best note taking app for people who already have Microsoft 365 through work. Handwriting, audio, tables and file attachments all live in the same page. Where it fails: the notebook, section and page hierarchy encourages over-organising, search is good but not excellent, and export is page by page rather than elegant.

2. Google Keep: best for fast ubiquitous capture on iPhone and Android

Free, instant, and the closest thing to a sticky note on your lock screen. The widget drops you straight into a blank note or a voice memo, which is exactly what a ubiquitous capture device should do. Where it fails: it is a capture layer, not an archive. No real hierarchy, thin formatting, and long reference notes become unmanageable.

3. Drafts: fastest capture on Apple devices

Drafts opens with the cursor already blinking in an empty note, then lets you send that text onward to a task manager, email or file. Free tier covers capture; the Pro subscription (a few pounds a month, billed through the App Store) adds actions and themes. Where it fails: Apple only, and it is a staging area rather than somewhere to keep things.

4. Evernote: best reference archive for scans, receipts and web clippings

For finding a hotel receipt from 2019 by typing three words, Evernote’s search inside images and PDFs is still the benchmark, and the web clipper remains the best in class. The free plan is now heavily restricted and paid tiers sit at the expensive end of the market, so treat it as a paid archive rather than a free scratchpad. Our longer Evernote note taking application review covers how it holds up as a reference store. Where it fails: price, and years of accumulated clutter if you never process the inbox.

5. Obsidian: best for structured thinking, outlining and linked notes

Plain Markdown files in a folder on your own disk, with links, backlinks and outlining on top. Free for personal use; official sync is a paid add-on billed in US dollars, or you can use iCloud, OneDrive or Dropbox instead. Where it fails: mobile capture is slower than Keep or Drafts, and the plugin rabbit hole can eat the time you meant to spend working.

6. Notion: best for meeting notes and shared team knowledge

Databases, shared pages and comments make Notion strong for project wikis and recurring meeting notes several people need to read. There is a usable free personal plan; team workspaces are priced per user per month. Where it fails: it is slow to open, weak offline, and tempting to turn into a task manager it is not very good at being.

7. Apple Notes: best Apple-only option

Free, fast, on every Apple device, with lock screen and Control Centre capture, handwriting on iPad, decent scanning and surprisingly good search. For many Mac and iPhone users this is quietly the best note taking app available, because it is always there. Where it fails: no proper Windows or Android app, and export is awkward beyond a handful of notes.

Which Note Taking App Suits Your GTD System Setup

If you run OmniFocus or Todoist

Keep the task in the task manager and the material in the notes app, joined by a link in both directions. Paste the note’s share link into the project’s notes field, and put the project name in the note title. If you are already deep into custom views, our guide to tricking out your OmniFocus perspectives pairs well with a lean reference archive sitting behind it.

If you live in Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace

Use what you already pay for. OneNote or Google Keep plus Docs will cost you nothing extra, sync with the accounts your IT team already supports, and sidestep the data questions that come with adding another vendor to a work laptop.

If you are building a GTD system setup from scratch

One inbox, one archive, one task manager. That is a complete gtd system setup. Add nothing else for a month. Most people fail not because they picked the wrong app but because they picked four.

Migration checklist

1. Move active project material and anything from the last twelve months.
2. Export everything else to a single dated archive folder and leave it out of the new app.
3. Rebuild your folder structure by hand rather than importing old notebooks.
4. Reconnect capture routes (widget, clipper, email address) before you move a single note.

Paper vs Digital GTD System: When a Notebook Still Wins

Handwriting is slower, and that is the point. Writing by hand supports better recall and comprehension than typing, and research on handwriting and brain connectivity suggests the act itself engages more of the brain than keyboard entry. For thinking a problem through, planning a week or drafting an agenda, paper usually beats any app.

The hybrid that works: a pocket notebook as your primary ubiquitous capture device during the day, then a five minute pass at the end of the day where actionable items go to your task list and anything worth keeping is photographed into the app. Most scanning tools now read handwriting well enough for search to find your keywords, provided you write titles in capitals.

Signs the digital side is costing you more than it saves: you reorganise folders more often than you reread notes, you cannot remember which of three apps a note is in, or you spend the weekly review tidying instead of deciding.

Setting Up the Best Note Taking App So It Actually Sticks

A minimal structure

Five folders, no more: Inbox, Projects, Reference, Someday, Archive. Everything captured lands in Inbox. Nothing stays there past the weekly review.

Naming and tagging that survives search

Put the words you will actually search for in the title: client name, project name, date in YYYY-MM-DD form. Use tags sparingly, for context rather than topic, and never as a substitute for a title.

Wiring capture into the day

Set up the home screen widget, a desktop shortcut, the email-to-notes address, and one voice capture route. Test each once. Any capture path you have not tested will not be there when you need it, and the best note taking app in the world cannot catch what never reaches it.

Processing the notes inbox in under fifteen minutes

During your weekly review, work top to bottom and give each note one of four fates: turn it into a next action and archive the note, file it as reference, move it to Someday, or delete it. No editing, no polishing. If you need a refresher on the wider habit, the GTD search tool is a quick way to find guidance across the productivity blogs.

Costs, Limits and Common Mistakes to Avoid

Google Keep, Apple Notes and OneNote are free, and genuinely usable for years. Obsidian is free with paid optional sync. Notion and Drafts have workable free tiers with paid upgrades in the low single-digit pounds per month for individuals. Evernote is the one where you should expect to pay properly if you want it as your archive.

Watch for the limits that catch people out: device caps on free plans, monthly upload allowances if you scan a lot, note count ceilings, and attachment size limits that quietly reject a large PDF. Run a full export today and store it somewhere outside the app, then repeat quarterly, because backups you have never tested are not backups.

Three habits that break any app: capturing into two places at once, using notes as a to-do list, and skipping the weekly review. Fix those and almost any of these seven becomes the best note taking app for you.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best note taking app for a GTD workflow?

For most people it is OneNote or Apple Notes for the archive, paired with a fast capture tool such as Google Keep or Drafts. The deciding factor is not features but whether capture is fast enough that you never fall back on scribbling in a messaging app.

Which is the best free note taking app?

OneNote is the strongest free option overall because there are no note limits and sync is included with a Microsoft account. Google Keep and Apple Notes are also fully free and better for pure speed of capture.

Is the best note taking app the same as a task manager?

No, and it should not try to be. Notes hold reference material and thinking; a task manager holds commitments with contexts and dates. Keeping them separate is what stops your notes app turning into a second inbox you never process.

What is the best note taking app for iPhone and Mac?

Apple Notes covers most needs at no cost and is always available on both. Add Drafts if you want the absolute fastest capture, or Obsidian if you want plain-text files you control and heavy linking between notes.

Should my note taking app hold my next actions list?

Only if you have no separate task manager at all. Notes apps lack reliable due dates, contexts and review prompts, so actions buried in notes tend to be forgotten. Capture in notes, then move the action across during processing.

Is paper better than a digital note taking app?

Paper is better for thinking, planning and remembering, and it is the fastest capture tool ever made. Digital is better for search, sync and archiving. A hybrid, paper in, app for the archive, gets you both.

How do I move my notes to a new note taking app without losing anything?

Export everything from the old app first and keep that export as a cold archive. Then move only active project material and the last year of reference by hand, rebuild your folder structure fresh, and set up your capture routes before you migrate anything else.

Most roundups of mac productivity apps hand you fifty options and no system. This one does the opposite. It groups the tools by the job they do in a Getting Things Done workflow (capture, clarify, organise, reflect, engage, plus focus and email), names one strong pick and one cheaper or Apple-built alternative for each, and finishes with a rollout plan you can complete in an afternoon. Fewer apps, wired together properly, beat a beautiful shelf of software you never open.

How to Choose Mac Productivity Apps That You Will Still Use in Six Months

The three tests every app must pass: fast capture, trusted review, no daily admin tax

Before you buy anything, apply three tests. First, can you get a thought in within two seconds using a keyboard shortcut, without deciding where it belongs? Second, can you see everything you have committed to in one review, without opening four apps? Third, does it charge you a daily admin tax in tags, statuses and tidying? Any app that fails the third test will be abandoned by the second month, however good the screenshots look.

Subscription versus one-off purchase, and what Setapp changes for Mac users

Pricing models matter more than headline features. OmniFocus and Things are sold as one-off licences, usually per platform, with paid upgrades between major versions. Todoist, Notion, Craft and most email clients run on annual subscriptions. Setapp bundles well over two hundred Mac utilities for a single monthly fee, which is excellent value for window managers, clipboard tools, timers and time trackers, but it does not include the big three task managers. Check the developer’s own site for current figures before you commit, as prices and tiers change.

Why fewer apps beats more: one inbox, one list system, one notes store

The single rule that keeps a GTD system setup alive is this: one place for actions, one place for reference, one calendar for hard commitments. Capture can happen anywhere, but it must funnel into that one inbox. Every extra list system you add doubles the cost of your weekly review and halves your trust in it.

Sync reality check: iCloud, Dropbox and cross-device use with iPhone and iPad

Almost all serious mac productivity apps sync across Apple devices, but the mechanisms differ. Apple Reminders and Notes use iCloud, silently and reliably. OmniFocus and Things run their own encrypted sync services. Obsidian syncs via iCloud Drive, Dropbox or its own paid service. If you work across a Mac and a Windows PC, or share lists with colleagues, Todoist and Notion are the safer bets.

Capture: Mac Productivity Apps for Getting Things Out of Your Head

Global hotkey quick entry as the single most valuable feature to configure

If you configure only one thing today, make it the global quick entry hotkey in your task manager. OmniFocus, Things and Todoist all offer one, and it works from any app, including full-screen video calls. Type the thought, hit return, carry on. This is the feature that turns software into a trusted system.

Apple Reminders and Notes as a zero-cost ubiquitous capture device

Do not underestimate the free Apple stack. Reminders now supports tags, smart lists, subtasks and natural language dates, and Siri capture on a Mac, iPhone, Watch or HomePod all lands in the same inbox. For many people this is a complete capture layer at zero cost.

Drafts, Obsidian and Bear compared for fast text capture on Mac

For text-first thinkers, Drafts opens to a blank page every time and then sends the text onwards to a task manager, note or email, which suits meeting notes that need splitting later. Bear is the calmest Markdown notes app on the Mac with tidy tagging and a modest subscription. Obsidian keeps plain Markdown files in a local folder, is free for personal use, and rewards anyone who wants linked reference material they will still be able to read in ten years.

Email-to-task and share-sheet routes so nothing gets stranded in an inbox

Set up the paths that stop items being stranded. Todoist and OmniFocus give you a private email address for forwarding messages into your inbox. On macOS, the Share menu and Services let you push a Safari page or PDF straight into your list or notes app. If mobile capture is your weak point, our guide to the best iPhone apps for productivity covers the pocket half of the same system.

Task Managers: OmniFocus, Things and Todoist Head to Head

OmniFocus for depth: projects, tags, defer dates and custom perspectives

OmniFocus is the most faithful GTD implementation on the Mac. Sequential and parallel projects, defer dates that hide work until it is actionable, review intervals per project and saved custom perspectives all map directly onto the method. It is the heaviest of the three to learn, and the reward is a genuinely trustworthy weekly review. If you go this way, spend an hour on building your own OmniFocus perspectives, because that is where the payoff sits.

Things 3 for calm one-off pricing; Todoist for cross-platform and team sharing

Things 3 is the quietest option: a beautiful Today view, an Anytime and Someday split that matches GTD, headings inside projects, and a one-off purchase per platform rather than a subscription. Todoist wins if you are not fully in the Apple ecosystem or need shared projects with colleagues, with strong natural language entry and the widest integration list of the three.

Reminders and Shortcuts as the free baseline, and its honest limits

Reminders plus Shortcuts genuinely works for GTD if your commitments run to tens rather than hundreds of open actions. Its limits are honest ones: no defer dates that truly hide items, weak project review tooling, and no saved multi-criteria views. Start free, and upgrade only when you can name the specific thing Reminders will not do.

Cost table: one-off licences, annual subscriptions and family sharing

• One-off licence, per platform: OmniFocus (Pro upgrade optional), Things 3, MailMate, Hazel, Alfred Powerpack.
• Subscription: Todoist, Notion, Craft, Bear, Obsidian Sync, Mimestream, Spark Premium, Setapp.
• Free with your Mac: Reminders, Notes, Mail, Calendar, Shortcuts, Focus modes, Screen Time.
• Family Sharing: supported on many App Store purchases and Apple One, rarely on direct-sale licences, so check before buying twice.

Best Note Taking App for Mac Reference Material and Project Support

Separating action from reference so your next actions list stays clean

The commonest failure in a GTD system setup is dumping reference material into the task manager. Keep next actions in the task app and everything you might need to read in the notes app, with a link between them. Your next actions list should be scannable in under a minute.

Apple Notes, Obsidian, Craft and Notion compared on search, linking and export

Apple Notes is the default answer for most people: fast search, scanning, handwriting, tags, shared notes and no cost. Obsidian is the best note taking app for anyone who wants durable plain-text files, backlinks and local search. Craft is the most pleasant to write in on a Mac and exports cleanly to Markdown. Notion is the strongest for structured databases and team wikis, but it is slower to open and weaker offline. If the deciding factor is longevity, choose the one with the easiest export.

Evernote today: what changed, whether existing users should move, and where to migrate

Evernote still exists, now under new ownership, but the free tier has been tightly restricted and paid pricing has risen. It is no longer the obvious default it was a decade ago. Existing users with large archives should export their notes and move to Apple Notes for simplicity, Obsidian for permanence or Craft for writing, then keep the export as an archive.

Scanning, PDFs and web clipping without creating a digital junk drawer

Clip less than you think. Scan paper with the Notes camera or Continuity Camera, file PDFs into a small number of folders, and give every clipping a one-line note on why you kept it. Reference material you cannot describe is material you will never find.

Focus and Time: Mac Productivity Apps That Protect Deep Work

Built-in Focus modes and Screen Time before you buy anything

Set up a Work Focus that silences everything except two people, and a Deep Work Focus that silences everything. Both sync across your devices. Screen Time’s app limits and downtime cover a surprising amount of what paid blockers do. Interruption research consistently shows that recovering attention after a break costs real time, which is why the American Psychological Association’s summary of multitasking research is worth five minutes of your day.

Site and app blockers, timers and menu-bar Pomodoro tools worth the money

If Focus modes are not enough, Freedom blocks sites and apps across devices on a subscription, Cold Turkey Blocker sells a stubborn one-off Mac version, and Session or Flow give you a menu-bar Pomodoro timer with a blocklist attached. Pick one. Two blockers is procrastination with a receipt.

Time tracking to find out where the hours really go

Timing records automatically in the background and is ideal for a diagnostic fortnight. Toggl Track suits freelancers who need billable timers and client reports. Track for two weeks, act on what you learn, then stop if it is not earning its keep.

Window management, launchers and clipboard tools that remove friction

These are the unglamorous mac productivity apps that save minutes every hour: Rectangle (free) or Moom for window snapping, Raycast (free) or Alfred as a launcher and clipboard history, and Paste for a searchable clipboard archive. macOS Stage Manager and Mission Control cover the basics if you would rather buy nothing.

Best Mac Email Client Options Now That Sparrow Is Gone

Sparrow was discontinued years ago after its acquisition, so do not chase it

Sparrow was the best-loved Mac mail client of its era, was acquired by Google in 2012, and was shut down soon afterwards. It is not available, not maintained and not safe to run against modern mail servers. Our old Sparrow Mac mail app review stays online as history rather than a recommendation.

Apple Mail with rules and Shortcuts, Mimestream for Gmail, Spark and Mailmate compared

Apple Mail is free, fast, supports rules and now integrates with Shortcuts, and is enough for most people. Mimestream is a native Mac client built specifically on the Gmail API, so labels, filters and search behave exactly as Gmail does. Spark suits teams who want shared drafts and comments on messages. MailMate is the power user’s choice for multiple IMAP accounts, Markdown composition and ruthless keyboard control.

Turning email into next actions without letting the inbox become the task list

Process email in batches: reply if it takes two minutes, forward it into your task inbox if it needs real work, archive everything else. The message stays in the archive; the commitment lives in your task manager. An inbox used as a task list has no project structure and no review.

Search, snooze and send-later features that actually save time

Saved searches replace folders. Snooze pulls a message back when you can act on it, which is the email equivalent of a defer date. Send later protects colleagues from your 11pm working habits. Apple Mail now offers scheduled send and undo send, so you may not need to pay for any of this.

Wiring Your Mac Productivity Apps Into One GTD System Setup

A worked example stack: capture app, task manager, notes app, calendar, blocker

A dependable stack looks like this: Drafts or Reminders for capture, Things or OmniFocus for actions, Apple Notes or Obsidian as your best note taking app for reference, Apple Calendar for hard commitments only, and Focus modes or Freedom to protect the work. Five slots, one app each. Free version: Reminders, Notes, Calendar, Focus, Shortcuts.

Setting up a weekly review checklist and recurring reminder

Create a repeating Friday project called Weekly Review with the checklist inside it: empty every inbox, review the calendar two weeks back and four weeks forward, check every project for a next action, scan someday and maybe, and empty the desktop and Downloads folder. Half an hour, same slot each week. If you want more reading on the habit, the site’s GTD search engine is a quick way to find method-specific advice.

Automation with Shortcuts, Hazel and Raycast to cut repetitive steps

Shortcuts is free, syncs across devices and can create tasks, file notes or start a Focus session from a single hotkey; Apple’s Shortcuts User Guide for Mac is the fastest way in. Hazel watches folders and files documents by rule. Raycast script commands let you trigger any of it from the keyboard. Automate only the steps you have already done manually ten times.

A one-afternoon rollout plan, plus what to uninstall and when to stop tinkering

1. Choose your five slots and install nothing else.
2. Set the global capture hotkey and test it from three different apps.
3. Do one full brain dump into the inbox, unsorted.
4. Clarify it into projects and next actions, moving reference into your notes app.
5. Create the repeating weekly review with its checklist.
6. Delete the trial apps you did not choose, and stop reading reviews for ninety days.

The best set of mac productivity apps is the smallest set you will still trust in six months. Ship the system, then use it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which Mac productivity apps do I actually need to start with?

Four: a capture tool with a global hotkey, one task manager, one notes app for reference, and your calendar. Everything else, including blockers, time trackers and launchers, is optional refinement you can add once the core habit sticks.

Are free Mac productivity apps like Reminders and Notes good enough for GTD?

For most people, yes. Reminders handles projects, tags, subtasks and smart lists, Notes handles reference, and Shortcuts glues them together. You will outgrow them only if you need defer dates that hide future work or per-project review intervals.

What is the best Mac productivity app for GTD: OmniFocus, Things or Todoist?

OmniFocus for the most complete GTD implementation and custom perspectives, Things 3 for a calm interface and one-off pricing, Todoist if you work across Windows or Android or share lists with a team. All three are good; the wrong choice is running two of them.

Is Sparrow still available as a Mac mail app?

No. Sparrow was acquired by Google in 2012 and discontinued shortly after, and it should not be used today. Apple Mail, Mimestream for Gmail users, Spark for teams and MailMate for power users are the current alternatives.

What is the best note taking app for a Mac?

Apple Notes for most people, because it is free, fast and syncs everywhere. Obsidian is the best note taking app if you want plain-text files and backlinks you own outright, Craft if writing quality matters most, and Notion if you need structured databases and team wikis.

Do Mac productivity apps sync properly with iPhone and iPad?

The Apple-ecosystem apps do, whether via iCloud or their own sync services, and capture on the iPhone typically appears on the Mac within seconds. Check before buying if you also use Windows or Android, since OmniFocus and Things are Apple-only.

Is a Setapp subscription cheaper than buying Mac productivity apps outright?

It depends on how many bundled utilities you would genuinely use. Setapp is good value if you want several window, clipboard, timer and time-tracking tools, but it does not include OmniFocus, Things or Todoist, so budget for your task manager separately.

I have been using The Sparrow Mail App for quite a while now and it has taken me away from the inbuilt Mail.app. I will be covering some cool workflow and integration I have done with Sparrow in the coming months but for now, check out the intro video.

Well, I have been super busy and super productive so trying my best to share some of the great links I have been collecting over the past few weeks.

It seems like every week a new GTD or Productivity app is coming out either Web based, Client based or Mobile App based. Truly exciting times.

Here are my collection of links for this week.

• My first link for this week is called How to Deal When GTD Kicks Your Ass – 5 Steps for Sanity. This is a guest post on the Producteev GTD Application blog and it a great read!
• My second link is to a great post titled 3 Goal-setting Tips That Don’t Work (And 3 That Do) This is a great post that looks at 3 common myths regarding goal setting.
• My third link is to another great post from Lifehacker about How to Use Multiple Computers to Increase Your Productivity. I use multiple computers including my iPhone and iPad and they sure do fit into my workflow.
• My fourth link is about using Evernote GTD and More to Get Organized. I love Evernote and it fits into my GTD system to help me keep all of my important information to hand.
• My fifth and last link is to a short article from Business Week called Let Reality, Not Fear, Be Your Guide. This is from a business coach who looks at your expectations and how you should be setting them.

Hope you all have a great week ahead!

This is an excellent presentation by Merlin Mann from the OmniGroup booth at Macworld 2011. This is a 56 minute presentation about how to trick out your OmniFocus perspectives.

This is a MUST SEE if you use OmnIFocus as I do.

Tricking-out Your OmniFocus Perspectives from The Omni Group on Vimeo.

I have had a little break from this blog as I have been very busy getting things done but I am back with my usual weekly collection of links. Quite a lot has happened over the past month and I have completed two exams since my last writing so I have been busy studying and prepping for these.

Here are my collection of links for this week.

• My first link for this week is called How to Delegate a Task in OmniFocus with Sparrow. I have been using Sparrow since it went live and must admit that it has pulled me away from Mail.app. This Apple Script is the first bit of customisation for Sparrow that makes it fit more into a GTD system. Hopefully more of these will come to make the GTD process even more streamlined.
• My second link is to a great review of the Sparrow Mac Email client. I have a lot to write about Sparrow as I have recently switched from my beloved Mail.app to Sparrow for my email and I must admit that I am loving it!
• My third link is to a great leadership post from Fast Company called How Do You Measure Up as a Leader? Very good post from Fast Company that is well worth a read if you have to lead people.
• My fourth link is a link to a great How to Get Things Done with GMail post from scribd.com. I do not use the GMail web interface although I do use Gmail but this is still worth a read.
• My fifth and last link is to an excllent review of OmniFocus and other GTD apps in a post called A Sledgehammer Called OmniFocus from Shawn Blanc.

This is an excellent and in-dpeth review of OmniFocus and really does provide some real pros and cons as to using a powerhouse application such as OmniFocus as part of your GTD system.

Hope you all have a great week ahead!

I hope you are all ready for Valentines tomorrow? It is my wife’s birthday so we get to celebrate two things, and I do not have any excuses to miss either!

Here are my collection of links for this week.

• My first link for this week is to a great Getting Things Done post titled The Solo Attorney’s Introduction to Getting Things Done. I do like these introductory posts to the GTD methodology and always enjoy hearing how other people are Getting Things Done.
• My second link is to a great post from my wife titled Cherish the Moment. Now this is not truly productivity related but it is a post that teaches us the important of living where you are right now. Do not get caught up in the journey but stop and enjoy yourself where you are, right now.
• My third link is to a post from the whole self blog called decluttering, it’s the way forward. I must admit that my wife is a master at de-cluttering and I have learned to harness the power of de-cluttering from her.
• My fourth link is a link to a video comparison of Microsoft OneNote and Evernote. Being a Mac user, I have never used Microsoft OneNote but I do know that Evernote does everything I need it to do!
• My fifth and last link is to a shortlist of OSX Time & Project Management Apps. Being a Mac user I found this a great list of apps I might not have known about.

Hope you all have a great week ahead!

Very productive week for me and looking forward some new challenges in the coming week.

Trying to get some more posts done in between my regular weekly links but I have a lot on at the moment so the blog post ideas are stacking up.

Here are my collection of links for this week.

• My first link for this week is to another great Lifehacker post looking at Why I Get More Done with a Plain Text To-Do List. I always say it is not about the tools you use but more about getting things done the way that works for you. A simple pen and paper worked for me before I switched to OmniFocus.
• My second link is to a great post titled A ridiculously simple way for Getting Things Done. Some great little snippets in this one and definitely worth the read.
• My third link is to a producitivty post from Laura’s Dark Arcive that promotes her Top tips for Getting Things Done. Nice post with some simple ideas to increase your productivity.
• My fourth link is a link to 4 Tips To Improve Your Time Management Plan. Time Management is critical to productivity and this post is great for helping you with a Time Management Plan.
• My fifth and last link is to a nice little post from Facile Things titled GTD and the benefits of routine. I am big believer in routines so give this a read!

Hope you all have a great week ahead!