Todoist wants a project for every project. Martina gets by with one.

Martina runs her personal GTD system on the free version of Todoist. According to Todoist, that version allows five active projects, and Martina gets by with four: “Single next actions”, “Projects”, “Goals” and “Other lists”. Her actual projects all sit in the second one. Preparing for a pole dance competition is a single task in there, and the steps towards it hang underneath as sub-tasks.

I hadn’t expected the free version to stretch that far, and I told her she had bent Todoist well out of shape. That is true, but only from Todoist’s point of view. From GTD’s point of view, she has straightened it out.

A Todoist project is not a GTD project

A GTD project is an outcome that takes more than one step, and the project list is exactly what its name says: a list you read from top to bottom in your weekly review.

Todoist uses the same word for a container with its own page and its own entry in the sidebar. Set up every GTD project as a Todoist project, and your weekly review turns into clicking from page to page instead of reading a list. On the free version, the fifth container is the end of the line. I see this regularly in coaching: a sidebar that is longer than any context list.

The second trap is called “Today”. The view shows what is due or overdue today. If you want to see a next action there, you give it a date that is not a real deadline, and before long the view consists of red entries nobody takes seriously any more.

Martina’s setup sidesteps both traps: her projects are tasks, and a step becomes visible through a label, not through a date.

GTD with Todoist: projects as tasks

In the Todoist project “Projects”, the sections are her areas of responsibility. Each GTD project is a task in there, and underneath it, as sub-tasks, hangs whatever came to mind when she created it, “just slapped it all in”, as she puts it. The description of the project task holds the project notes, including links to files. For the competition prep, the link to the rulebook sits right in the sub-task that reminds her to read it.

With the sub-tasks collapsed, this one page is the whole project list, grouped by area. Everything else maps like this:

GTD	In Martina’s Todoist
In-tray	Todoist Inbox, also filled by dictation on her phone
Project list	Todoist project “Projects”, each GTD project a task
Areas of responsibility	Sections in that project
Project plan	Sub-tasks without a label
Next action	Sub-task with a context label
Context lists	Labels “To-do” and “At training”
Agenda, Waiting For	Labels as well, attached to the project
Project support material	Description of the project task, with links
Single actions	Project “Single next actions”
Routines	A section of their own in there, repeating from completion
Goals	A project of their own, same sections in the same order
Someday/Maybe, checklists	Project “Other lists”

The label is the switch

In Martina’s system, a label decides which step is up. Whatever she could do right away gets “To-do” or “At training” and so appears in the label view, without losing its connection to the project. All the other steps stay in the project and show up nowhere else. When she ticks off a step in the label view, it is done in the project as well.

That is the separation between project plan and next action that gets lost so easily in list tools. The plan is allowed to be unordered and incomplete. The context list only holds what is possible right now. “Agenda” and “Waiting For” are labels in her setup too, so even an open question to someone stays visibly attached to the project.

Two context labels are enough for her, because in her personal life she does almost everything from home, and her working life runs in a separate system, in Microsoft To Do. There, too, projects are tasks with steps underneath. Using the three-dot menu, you can promote a step to a task of its own and move it to a context list, but in doing so it leaves the project. The connection that the label holds in Todoist breaks in To Do exactly where you need it.

Routines don’t get a label

In the “Single next actions” project, Martina has a section for tasks that are never finished: the housework. That is where the kitchen worktop lives, along with the fact that James needs his water changed every week. I had taken James for a goldfish and wondered when the fish tank would get its turn. James is her robot vacuum, the kind that also mops.

These tasks carry a recurring date but no context label. They never appear on a context list, only in the date views “Today” and “Upcoming”. When she sets aside time for her next actions, she doesn’t want to see a worktop.

The trick is repeating from completion. In the English version of Todoist, you type every! 4 days into the date field; in the German version, it is alle! 4 Tage. Without the exclamation mark, Todoist keeps counting from the original date; with it, from the day you tick the task off. If you have been away from home for four days, you tick it off once and the task comes back in four days, not tomorrow. This is exactly what gave Martina trouble in Microsoft To Do: leave it for ten days, tick it off ten times.

For her, the date is a reminder, not a deadline. “Nobody’s going to die because I didn’t wipe down the kitchen worktop yesterday.” I told her I like that calm, and I stand by it, with one caveat: it only works because the red entries are nothing but routines. Anything that has to happen on a particular day belongs in the calendar; at work, Martina enters such tasks as all-day events. Once a reminder date lands on a real next action, it shows up in the same red as the worktop, and red stops meaning anything.

The question for the weekly review

The flip side: a project whose labelled step is done also disappears from every list. That is why, in her weekly review, Martina goes through the project page and checks for each project whether a label is attached anywhere. If none is, a step gets one: for the competition prep, say, “Come up with choreo” with “At training”, so it is up next time she is at the studio. Or the project rests for another week.

This is where I would tighten her system. Her project list also holds projects that are deliberately resting because they are not a priority right now. Without a label, they look exactly like a project whose next action she has simply forgotten, and the more resting projects pile up, the easier it gets to skim past the ones that ought to be moving. Anything deliberately on hold belongs on the Someday/Maybe list or in a section of its own called “Paused”. Then “no label” means only one thing: a decision is missing here.

Goals in the same grid

One level up, Martina repeats the pattern. The Todoist project “Goals” has the same sections in the same order as “Projects”, and the areas follow the wheel of life she has been filling in once a year for years. In her quarterly review, she opens both projects side by side in two windows and goes through them area by area: here is the goal, over there a project has to be running for it, or at least a next action. A goal with no project under it stays a dream, and this comparison is the moment you notice.

She cannot get a real link between goal and project in Todoist without giving up the grouping by area. She has tried. The same grid in two windows manages without a link, and it is enough.

Where this typically falls apart

• Every GTD project becomes a Todoist project. The sidebar grows, the weekly review turns into clicking through pages, and the free version is full after five projects. A project list has to be readable in one go.
• Ticked off, but no next label. Complete the labelled step and you leave behind a project with no visible next action, and the earliest you notice is in the weekly review. Labelling the next step the moment you tick one off saves the project up to a week of standstill.
• Reminder dates creep onto next actions. Then “Today” mixes routines and real deadlines with mere intentions, all in the same colour. Only what is genuinely due on that day gets a date, plus the routines.
• Labels just in case. Create a label for every conceivable situation and you end up maintaining lists with almost nothing on them. Martina has two for her personal life and only splits one when it gets too full.
• The project plan outgrows the limit. According to Todoist, a cap of 300 active tasks per project applies on every pricing tier, sub-tasks included, so upgrading won’t help. By her own account, Martina is just under it. If you keep all your projects in one Todoist project, move dormant ones out and put thoughts that are not actions yet into the description instead of sub-tasks.

Common questions

Does GTD with Todoist work on the free version too?

Yes, as long as the GTD projects are not set up as separate Todoist projects but as tasks with sub-tasks in one shared Todoist project. According to Todoist, the free version allows five active projects, and four are enough for a complete system: single actions, projects, goals and other lists. The context lists come from labels, which are available in the free version as well.

How do I set up context lists in Todoist?

With labels. Each label stands for a context, and the label view shows every task with that label across all projects. If you label only the step in a project that is possible right now, you get a context list that holds nothing but next actions.

How do I spot a project without a next action in Todoist?

In the weekly review, by checking for each project whether one of its steps carries a label. A label such as “Waiting For” or “Agenda” counts too, because then the project is not standing still either. If there is no label at all, either a step gets one, or the project deliberately moves to the Someday/Maybe list.

How do I make a task in Todoist repeat from the completion date?

With an exclamation mark in the date field: “every! 4 days” in the English version of Todoist, “alle! 4 Tage” in the German one. Without the exclamation mark, Todoist keeps counting from the original due date; with it, from the day you tick the task off. For household routines that is the better choice, because a task that has been left lying around does not fall due again straight after you complete it.

How many tasks fit into a Todoist project?

According to Todoist’s overview of usage limits, 300 active tasks per project, sub-tasks and recurring tasks included, and that applies on every pricing tier. Completed tasks do not count. If you keep all your GTD projects in a single Todoist project, keep the project plans lean and move dormant projects out.

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Go through your project list once with a single question: does this project have a step with a label? Where it doesn’t, decide on the spot, for a labelled step or for the Someday/Maybe list. Keep count of how often you had to decide. The number says more about your weekly review than about your projects.

Which tool it ends up being is rarely the hard question. The hard part is separating project plan and next action inside it so that the lists still hold true six months from now. That is exactly what I set up with you in the Workflow Setup, in Todoist or in whatever tool you already have. Write to me if your system keeps growing in the sidebar and shrinking on the lists.