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Capture
The first thing you'll want to do is to capture all of the stuff that's floating around in your head — lingering to-dos, incomplete projects, any nagging issues that might keep you awake at night — and get these items into your Nirvana Inbox.
Adding items to your Inbox
Desktop/Web:
- Press I from any list to add a new item to the bottom of the Inbox
- Navigate to the Inbox, then click New Item or press N to add an item to the bottom of the list
- Press Shift + N to add an item to the top of the list
Mobile:
- Similar process - tap to add items to your Inbox
Clarify and organize
Once your mind is clear, it's time to clarify and organize. Doing this allows you to add related information to your items, knowing that you'll be able to refer to these details when you need them.
Nirvana comes with all of the lists you need to get things done, along with ways to provide additional context. Look at each item in your Inbox and answer a few questions to decide what to do with it.
Can it be done in under 2 minutes?
Do it now! Feel great and proceed onwards after you've completed all your 2-minute to-dos.
For remaining items, add details:
| What do you know about this item? | How to capture it |
|---|---|
| What type of activity or category is it related to? | Assign some tags |
| How long will it take to accomplish? | Assign the time needed |
| How much energy will you need to tackle this? | Assign the energy needed |
| Is there a date by which it must absolutely be done? | Assign a due date |
| Is there more information you'd like to add? | Add some notes |
Where should this item live?
| Situation | Move it to |
|---|---|
| Something that needs to be done soon | Next |
| Has been delegated to someone else | Waiting |
| Can be deferred until a specific date in the future | Scheduled |
| You'll wait and get around to it one of these days | Someday |
| Requires multiple steps to get to done (it's a project) | Projects |
| Not really something to do, but something to remember (reference material) | Reference |
| You're honestly never, ever going to get around to it | Trash |
You can also use the optional Later list as a middle ground between Next and Someday. You can show or hide it from your settings.
Reflect and engage
Having everything organized in a trusted system will declutter your mind, but the name of the game is Getting Things Done®. The trick is to choose the right thing to do at the right time.
Decide your next action with filters
At any time, you can go to your Next list, pick something, and get cracking. But with just a few extra taps, Nirvana can filter your Next list down to actions you can actually do with the time, energy, and context available to you.
For example:
- You might be at work and only have 30 minutes
- You might be at home but your energy level is low
- You might be about to hop on a call with Mary
- You might be at school with access to special resources
Seeing the most relevant things you could be doing at any given moment helps you make the best use of your time. You can filter globally to show relevant items across all your lists, or filter within a specific list to see a more pertinent short-list of actions.
Choose what matters now with Focus
Nirvana has a small but powerful addition to the GTD® system — the Focus list. It's a great way to concentrate on what matters, without being distracted by other things that aren't critical right now.
How Focus works:
- Your Focus list can be emailed to you daily
- Items on the list will show up with a star ⭐ wherever they are
- You can automatically focus an action or project by giving it a scheduled start or due date
- When the date arrives, it will appear in your Focus list
- You can also manually focus any item by clicking the star icon next to it
- In the web app, you can drag items to your Focus list
This is an easy way to create a short, cherry-picked list of items to focus on.