Process

Stage 2: Go through Inbox items one at a time and decide what each one is.

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What Processing is

Processing is the decision layer. For each item in Inbox, you answer two questions and then place the item — or discard it.

Processing is distinct from Organizing. Processing decides what something is. Organizing (Stage 3) decides where it lives. They often happen together, but the two questions come first.

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The two questions

Inbox item
  │
  ├─ Actionable? No ──→ Delete / Reference / Someday
  │
  └─ Actionable? Yes
       │
       ├─ Who executes? Me          →  Do       → Place in Area / Flow
       ├─ Who executes? Someone else →  Delegate → Place in Area / Flow
       └─ Who executes? Waiting      →  Await    → Place in Area / Flow

Question 1: Is this actionable?

No → Three options:

• Trash it. Not relevant, not interesting, not useful.
• File in Reference. Useful information, no action needed. Notes, documents, links.
• Move to Someday. Might be actionable in the future, not now.

Yes → Go to Question 2.

Question 2: Who executes this?

This question is new in OTD — GTD didn't explicitly ask it.

• Do — I'll handle this myself.
• Delegate — I'll hand this to AI or someone else.
• Await — I'm already waiting on this (it came in as a status update, for example).

Then place the Action in the appropriate Area, Project, and Flow. If the Action feels too large to complete in a day, break it into smaller Actions.

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Processing rules

One item at a time. Top to bottom. Process Inbox sequentially. Don't skip around. Don't leave items to "come back to later." Every item gets processed in the pass.

Never put an item back into Inbox. Make a decision: trash, reference, Someday, or Action. "I'll deal with this later" is not a decision — it's a delay. Later, re-captured in the same Inbox, with the same lack of context.

The 2-minute rule. If acting on this takes less than 2 minutes, do it now. Don't put it in the system — the overhead of organizing, placing, and reviewing an item exceeds the effort of just doing it. This rule is inherited directly from GTD.

Inbox zero is the goal. Not a daily requirement, but a direction. When Inbox is empty, you know everything has been decided. Nothing is ambiguous. No item is in limbo.

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When to process

Process regularly enough that Inbox doesn't accumulate into an overwhelming pile. For most people, once or twice a day is right.

The worst pattern: letting Inbox grow for days, then dreading the backlog, then avoiding it longer. Process it while it's small. Five items processed daily is far better than 50 items processed weekly with dread.