How to Use the 'Getting Things Done' (GTD) Method with Todoist

From To-Do List to Operating System: A CEO's Guide to GTD® in Todoist

As a global professional, you operate as a business-of-one. Yet, your productivity system is likely a patchwork of generic lists—a digital junk drawer that co-mingles a P1 tax deadline with a reminder to buy milk. This creates a noisy dashboard that makes it impossible to distinguish between strategic priorities and minor errands, fueling a constant, low-grade anxiety that you're missing something critical.

This guide provides the blueprint for a fundamental upgrade. We will transform your Todoist from a simple task manager into a bespoke GTD®-OS: a central command center that mirrors the structure of a real business. This isn't about managing tasks; it's about building a bulletproof system for managing risk, cash flow, and strategy, creating the mental space required for high-level execution.

How to Structure Todoist Like a CEO, Not an Employee

The transformation begins by rejecting the conventional wisdom of personal productivity. Generic folders like "Work" and "Personal" reflect the mindset of an employee—someone who operates within a structure created by others. As a global professional, you are the structure. Your operational dashboard must mirror this reality.

This is how you build it.

• Establish "Business Function" Pillars: Your first action is to create four distinct, un-archivable projects that represent the core departments of your enterprise:

  [CLIENTS]

  ,

  [FINANCE]

  ,

  [MARKETING & SALES]

  , and

  [OPERATIONS]

  . Using brackets is a simple visual cue to treat these as the permanent, foundational pillars of your system. This structure forces executive-level thinking. A task is never just a "work thing"; it's a client deliverable, a financial action, a sales activity, or an operational improvement.
• Nest Client Workflows: The

  [CLIENTS]

  project serves as the container for all revenue-generating activities. Under this pillar, create a dedicated sub-project for each client engagement (e.g., "Acme Corp - Q4 Deliverables"). This critical step isolates every task, deadline, and communication related to a specific client into a single, controllable workflow. There is zero chance of a task for Client A getting mixed up with Client B, transforming your to-do list into a project portfolio.
• Isolate Financial & Compliance Tasks: Your

  [FINANCE]

  project is your risk-management command center. This is where you house every task related to the fiscal health and legal standing of your business. This includes recurring tasks for invoicing, logging expenses, and—most critically—managing your compliance obligations. Every tax deadline, visa renewal, and residency day-count check lives here. By isolating these high-stakes items, you ensure they receive the executive-level attention they demand.
• Adopt "Mode-Based" Contexts: The classic GTD® advice to use location-based contexts like

  @office

  is obsolete for the modern global professional. Your office is wherever you are. A more powerful approach is to organize work by your mental state and the type of energy required. Instead of tracking where you are, you'll track how you need to think using Todoist labels:

This method allows you to align your daily plan with your energy levels, ensuring you tackle the most demanding work when you're at your sharpest.

Installing the Workflow: The Five Pillars of GTD®

With your CEO-level dashboard structured, you can install the operational workflow that brings it to life. This is a systematic, repeatable process for managing the relentless flow of information you face, grounded in the five core pillars of the Getting Things Done® methodology.

• Capture (Your Universal Inbox): Your first mandate is to achieve a state of "mind like water," which begins by externalizing every commitment. Your Todoist Inbox must become the single, trusted destination for every idea, client request, and potential opportunity. Use the tools relentlessly: forward actionable emails directly to your inbox, use the browser extension to capture research, and use Quick Add on your mobile device the moment a new obligation arises. The goal is to get every "open loop" out of your head, ensuring no revenue-impacting or risk-related item ever gets lost.
• Clarify (Process to Zero): Once a day, triage your inbox with surgical precision. This is not "doing the work"; it is defining the work. For each item, ask: Is this actionable? If it takes less than two minutes, do it immediately. If it requires more effort, define the desired outcome and the very next physical action required to move it forward. A vague stressor like "handle Q4 taxes" becomes a concrete task: "Email accountant to request Q4 estimated tax payment vouchers." This act of clarification converts abstract anxieties into a manageable plan.
• Organize (File by Business Function): Once an item is clarified, it is immediately filed into the appropriate business function you already created:

  [CLIENTS]

  ,

  [FINANCE]

  ,

  [MARKETING & SALES]

  , or

  [OPERATIONS]

  . That email to your accountant? It belongs in your

  [FINANCE]

  project. A task to draft a new client proposal? It goes under

  [MARKETING & SALES]

  . This ensures every action is tied to a core operational pillar, giving you a real-time, holistic view of your business's health.
• Reflect (The CEO’s Review): The Weekly Review is the lynchpin of the entire GTD-OS. It is your non-negotiable, scheduled executive meeting with yourself to get clear, get current, and regain control. This weekly ritual ensures your system remains a trusted tool rather than an overgrown list of forgotten tasks. Later, we will elevate this process from a simple task clean-up into a comprehensive strategic assessment. For now, block out 60 minutes on your calendar every Friday and protect that time fiercely.
• Engage (Execute with Confidence): With a system that is captured, clarified, organized, and reviewed, you can finally engage with your work from a place of confidence, not chaos. This is where your mode-based labels—

  @deep_work

  ,

  @client_comms

  ,

  @admin

  —become your daily command console. By using Todoist’s Filters, you can build powerful, dynamic work views that show you precisely what to focus on based on your available time, energy, and strategic priorities. You stop wasting mental energy deciding what to do next and simply execute.

The Compliance Dashboard: Turning Anxiety into Automated Control

Now, we will apply this system to the single greatest source of anxiety for any global professional: catastrophic risk. Tax penalties, visa violations, and accidental non-compliance can destroy a business overnight. This section shows you how to build an automated dashboard inside your GTD-OS to neutralize these threats completely.

[FINANCE]

Here’s how to build your dashboard:

• Automate Your Tax Deadlines: The complexity of cross-border tax obligations is a significant burden. As Dion Thai, a Global Employer Services Tax Partner at Deloitte Singapore, warns, "The employee who undertakes a remote work arrangement may end up in a situation where he or she is subject to tax in both the country of employment and the country where he or she is working remotely..." Your system must account for this. Create a recurring, Priority 1 (

  !!P1

  ) task for every single tax obligation.

• File US Quarterly Estimated Tax Payment !!P1 due: every apr 15, jun 15, sep 15, jan 15

• Submit Spanish VAT Return (Modelo 303) !!P1 due: every 3 months starting apr 20

• Review annual tax residency status for UK & Portugal !!P1 due: every mar 1

• Track Your Physical Presence: Forgetting to track your days in a specific region is a rookie mistake with severe consequences. Whether it's the Schengen Area's 90/183 rule or a country's 183-day tax residency threshold, accidental overstays can lead to fines, bans, and enormous tax liabilities. Automate your check-in.

• Update Schengen 90/183 day count in spreadsheet !!P1 due: every sunday

• Build an FBAR Threshold Alert: For any US citizen with an aggregate total of over $10,000 in foreign bank accounts at any point during the year, failing to file a Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR) carries a non-willful penalty of over $10,000. A simple, recurring reminder prevents this costly oversight.

• Check aggregate foreign bank balance for FBAR threshold !!P2 due: every 1st of month

By externalizing these high-stakes deadlines from your brain and into your trusted system, you automate control and eliminate the constant, low-grade anxiety that comes from trying to remember the unforgettable.

From Tasks to Cash Flow: Managing the Full Revenue Lifecycle

Automating compliance protects you from catastrophic failure, but sustainable success demands a relentless focus on cash flow. A "project" in your system isn't merely a collection of tasks; it is the multi-stage, revenue-generating workflow that fuels your business. It’s time to transform your client projects from simple to-do lists into a powerful cash flow management engine.

First, map your entire client workflow as a series of distinct, actionable tasks within that client’s sub-project. This creates a visual pipeline that shows you exactly where every engagement stands.

• Map Your Client Workflow: For each new project, create a sequence of tasks representing the key value-delivery milestones.

• Draft SOW for Project Titan

• Onboard Client Acme Corp

• Deliver Phase 1 for Project Titan

• Generate Invoice #1234 for Acme Corp !!P2

• Follow up on Invoice #1234

The true power of this system comes from mastering a single label:

@waiting_for

@waiting_for

The CEO Weekly Review: Assess Your Business, Not Just Your Tasks

Trusting your system to manage the day-to-day details of compliance and accounts receivable clears the mental space for the most important work you'll do all week: the CEO Weekly Review. The standard GTD® review is about getting current. This is different. This is your dedicated time to rise above the noise and assume strategic command of your Business-of-One. Every Friday, you will stop being a technician in your business and become its CEO.

Here is your checklist for that meeting.

• Financial Health Check: Your first stop is the financial command center. Open your

  [FINANCE]

  project alongside your

  @waiting_for

  filter. This isn’t just about seeing who owes you money; it's about understanding your entire cash flow position. What is the total dollar amount in accounts receivable? Are any clients consistently late, signaling a relationship risk? Have all expenses been captured for an accurate picture of profitability? This weekly discipline transforms financial management from a reactive, stressful event into a proactive habit.
• Compliance & Risk Exposure: Navigate to your "Compliance" sub-project. For the global professional, risk isn't an abstract concept—it's a tangible threat. Review your upcoming deadlines. Is a quarterly tax payment approaching? Do you need to set aside time next week to prepare? Check your physical presence tracker. Are you nearing any visa or tax residency thresholds? This regular, calm assessment turns anxiety about catastrophic failure into a feeling of automated control.
• Project & Client Status: With a clear picture of your finances and risks, turn your attention to your revenue engine: your clients. Methodically go through each project nested under

  [CLIENTS]

  . Where are the bottlenecks? Are any projects stalled while you await feedback? Proactively communicating a potential delay or sending a "just checking in" email to a quiet client demonstrates command of the engagement. This is how you build trust and justify premium rates.
• Look Ahead: Finally, shift your gaze from the present to the future. Open your calendar and your

  [MARKETING & SALES]

  project. The work you do today funds tomorrow, but the strategic work you schedule for next week funds the next quarter. What does your sales pipeline look like? Do you need to schedule time for outreach? This is where you escape the "feast or famine" cycle by intentionally scheduling the high-value work required for growth.

Conclusion: You Are Now in Command

You have not just learned a few new tricks for an app; you have engineered a bespoke operating system for your professional life. By implementing this framework, you have upgraded your Todoist setup from a to-do list into the central nervous system for your Business-of-One.

The anxiety that hums beneath the surface for so many global professionals—the fear of a missed deadline, a compliance breach, or a forgotten invoice—is a direct result of not having a trusted, external system. Your brain was never meant to be a storage device for visa renewal dates. By offloading these high-stakes data points into an automated and reliable structure, you free up your mental bandwidth for what truly matters: delivering exceptional value and strategically growing your business.

Consider what you have built:

• A Risk Mitigation Dashboard that automatically surfaces your most critical compliance tasks.
• A Cash Flow Command Center that provides an at-a-glance view of all outstanding revenue.
• A Strategic Execution Engine that connects your high-level goals to your next physical actions.

This is the essence of Getting Things Done® applied at a CEO level. You now have a reliable system for managing not only tasks, but risk, revenue, and the specific anxieties that hold so many of your peers back. You are no longer just reacting to the demands of your business. You are in command of it.