GTD|REFRESH: Choosing the Best In-Tray for You

Join us for GTD Café on July 8, 2025, as we dive into one of the most foundational (and often overlooked) components of a solid Getting Things Done® practice—the in-tray. Whether you’re new to GTD or looking to refresh your system, this session will help you identify the most effective ways to capture incoming inputs in your life and work. A well-chosen in-tray can make or break your capture habit, and we’ll explore how to tailor your collection tools to suit your environment, your tools, and your thinking style.

🚨 IMPORTANT: All GTD Café virtual meetups happen inside Personal Productivity Club. Please join Personal Productivity Club/GTD Café ( https://www.personalproductivity.club/share/Y-sL9x4h5bvbRtIB?utm_source=manual ) and you can RSVP to the event there and access the meeting link! 🚨

*** Please log in between at least few minutes early to get your audio/video working, mix-and-mingle, and complete the Challenges Forum signup form so we can start promptly! ***

0. Joining the Virtual Meeting Room & Mix-and-Mingle (5:45 PM - 6:00 PM)

Please note that you will join this Meetup via Zoom.us, a free, Web-based meeting and phone conferencing software. You need to have a microphone and speakers working on your computer or laptop to connect by computer/laptop/mobile device with high-speed Internet access. For the best experience, instead of speakers, we suggest using headphones (the kind you plug into the 35mm audio jack in your computer or laptop) if you have a pair.

You can join the Zoom meeting by PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android.
There is a backup phone option for audio, if you cannot connect by audio through your computer or laptop over your Internet connection.
To join the Zoom Meeting, visit the link in this event and type your name when it asks. If you cannot join by computer audio, there is an option when you launch the meeting to dial-in by phone.

I suggest you visit https://zoom.us/download#client_4meeting to download the "Zoom Client for Meetings" on your PC, Mac or Linux computer/laptop, or https://zoom.us/download#mobile_app for the iOS and Android OS device mobile app links, prior to the meeting. If you would like to familiarize yourself with Zoom or need further help joining the meeting, please visit https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201362193-Joining-a-Meeting.)

I. Introductions + Challenges Forum (~6:05 PM)

A. Introductions - Each member will introduce yourself briefly, tell us what you do professionally (or otherwise), your GTD experience, and a recent success with your productivity implementation and/or life.

B. Challenges Forum - We'll give a few minutes to have the group help each member with solutions to challenges we may be facing currently with life or work circumstances with our productivity system. These are specific productivity challenges and only one challenge per member for time's sake.

* * * Please complete the Challenges Forum form here: https://forms.gle/4Eg73yoKmig75Qqf6 * * *

II. GTD|REFRESH: Choosing the Best In-Tray for You

In this GTD|REFRESH session, we’ll focus on how to choose and optimize your in-trays—the physical and digital “buckets” where everything begins in GTD. We'll break down what makes an effective in-tray, where they should live in your life, and how to make them frictionless so they actually get used.
We’ll cover:

• The role of in-trays in GTD: Why collecting everything that has your attention is step one, and how in-trays make this possible.
• Types of in-trays: From notebooks to voice memos to email inboxes, we’ll look at common collection tools and where they work best.
• Designing a friction-free system: How to reduce resistance by choosing in-trays that match your habits and environments—home, work, mobile, and beyond.
• Consolidation strategies: When and how to reduce the number of in-trays you have without losing inputs—or your mind.
• Troubleshooting common issues: Forgotten in-trays, inbox pile-ups, and how to get back to clear.

Bring your current list of capture tools (or just your curiosity), and we’ll explore how to align your system with the way you actually live and work.

Also, bring your copy of Getting Things Done [https://amzn.to/3c8jKNA] by David Allen, to reference.

III. GTD Resource Sharing (7:20 PM)

This is where everyone can offer a book title, recent blog or magazine article, tip/trick/hack, tool, service or item that has helped them in their life either with GTD or otherwise.

IV. Announcements / Closing Remarks (7:25 PM)