Best GTD Note-Taking Apps for 2023

GTD or better known as Getting Things Done - a system developed by productivity guru David Allen is a popular productivity technique that helps you better organize tasks, notes and calendar events too.

The system is regarded as timeless by many productivity lovers and is something many use within their note-taking systems to capture, organize and process notes.

How to Use GTD in Notes?

Getting Things Done is based off of 5 core stages.

The stages are capture, clarify, organize, reflect & engage. Something that is similar in nature to the system developed by Tiago Forte called Second Brain. Each stage helps to best position your notes, tasks and events as not to remember them in your brain and to capture them in a system outside of your brain.

• Capture - Bring them into your system, in this case a notes app.
• Clarity - Be clear with them. What are they? What value to they have?
• Organize - Find a location for them to live. Place them in that location.
• Reflect - Resurface notes and find value in it, this could be for a weekly review.
• Engage - Make sense of your note and action it.

One of the guiding principles, don't use your brain for remembering - but for thinking only.

Well illustrated above by L Dawson, the concept is perfect for bringing things together.

GTD: Beginner's Guide

Now, if this isnt' making any sense and you visited this page curious what GTD and note-taking applications had to do with each other, we recommend exploring the basics of the concept and see how it works first.

Our GTD Note-Taking Recommendations

All of these note-taking applications map well to Getting Things Done as a system.

Our Recommendations: GTD Note-Taking Apps for 2023

Evernote

A general all-around note-taking app, including light tasks and calendar abilities.

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Best For

Traditional Note-Taking

Availability

Web

iOS

Android

Windows

Linux

Mac

Chrome Extension

Pricing

$

$

$

Type of Tool

To-Do List AppsNote Taking AppsAI Productivity Tools

Mem AI

Easily capture notes using templates, no folders and AI-crafted note-taking.

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Best For

AI Note Taking

Availability

Web

iOS

Windows

Mac

Pricing

$

$

Type of Tool

AI Productivity ToolsNote Taking Apps

Nimbus Note

Nimbus notes is great for an all round note-taking experience similar to Evernote.

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Best For

Feature-Rich Note Taking

Availability

iOS

Mac

Web

Android

Windows

Pricing

$

$

Type of Tool

Note Taking Apps

Notion

An all-in-one workspaces for notes, projects, tasks, documents & lots more.

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Best For

Passionate All-In-One

Availability

Web

iOS

Android

Windows

Mac

Chrome Extension

Pricing

$

Type of Tool

All-In-One Productivity ToolsProject Management SoftwareAI Productivity Tools

Obsidian

Locally stored tool for managing notes, ideas and thoughts - a fan favourite.

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Best For

Linking Notes

Availability

iOS

Windows

Linux

Mac

Android

Pricing

$

Type of Tool

Note Taking AppsPersonal Knowledge Management Apps

What's Best For Your GTD?

Expanded on, let's find what notes app works best for your GTD.

• Evernote - One of the leading web clippers allow you to capture your note, organization notebook system will help you to place it in the correct location and finally search allows you to use it for later. Evernote also has tasks and calendar to make more sense of notes. Evernote also has a new AI cleanup, allowing you to clarify your note better.
• Mem - A newer application that reminds us a lot of Evernote. Capture is great with Mem's clipper allowing you to clip web pages, "mems" and even snippets to add onto the end of existing notes. Mem doesn't have an organization system, as it auto-tags notes, making it an anti-GTD tool in some ways, but a good auto-organizer. Mem also has AI too that allows you to resurface notes for later in their Mem X (premium).
• Nimbus Notes - A good alternative to Evernote, Nimbus presents a good base for capture, organize and reflect. They have a clipper that also allows you to capture web pages, screen recordings and more multimedia. Perfect for those visual note-takers.
• Notion - Notion has a good capture source and newer database abilities to make sure you organize, tag and place in the correct location. Many GTD users headed to Notion after Evernote became a little slower in nature.
• Obsidian - Obsidian is a bit more advanced as a GTD tool, with linking notes, graph and connected tags, Obsidian is one place that will work be good for resurfacing notes for later, thanks to graph view and the nature of bi-directional linking.

As you can see, each app brings a better experience for areas of GTD, but all follow a system well, if you set things up using the guidelines presented in David Allen's book.

Looking for more note-taking applications or notes app that translate well to systems like Second Brain concept developed by Tiago Forte? We've got you covered.