Jul 4, 2025 7 min read

Building GTD in Obsidian with Claude Code

A few years ago, I was drowning. Not in tasks, but in the transition from doing the work to leading the work. From individual contributor to manager.

Here's what nobody tells you: when you delegate, you multiply your failure points. Tell someone something once, expect them to remember and deliver? Good luck with that.

I couldn't manage because I couldn't delegate. I couldn't delegate because I couldn't follow up. Everything lived in my head, and my head was failing me.

GTD saved me. It gave me an external brain. Suddenly I could track what I'd delegated, when to follow up, what I was waiting on. The system bubbled up what mattered when it mattered.

For four years, Logseq was that system. But success has a cost - thousands of notes later, it crawled.

The Migration Problem

Friday afternoon. I'm staring at my screen, realizing I need to move my entire productivity system. Again.

But here's the thing: I know GTD works. I just need it somewhere faster. Somewhere that won't slow down after years of daily use.

So I asked Claude Code to help me rebuild in Obsidian. What happened next taught me something about productivity tools I wish I'd learned years ago.

Why Most GTD Systems Fail

You know the pattern: Read David Allen's book. Get inspired. Spend a weekend building the "perfect" GTD setup. By Wednesday, you're back to sticky notes.

Why? Because perfect systems are built for perfect people. And I'm not perfect.

I still brain dump random thoughts into daily notes. I misspell people's names. I create tasks without due dates then wonder why my "overdue" list looks weird.

The difference this time? I wasn't building alone. I had an AI partner who could adapt the system to my actual habits, not my aspirational ones.

My Actual Setup

Here's what I'm running:

Obsidian as the brain (free, local, markdown-based)
Claude Code in my terminal (via Homebrew: brew install claude)
A folder called /ai_gtd where everything lives

That's it. No fancy plugins to start. No complex integrations. Just markdown files and an AI that understands them.

The First Command

I opened my terminal, navigated to my vault, and typed:

claude "/ai_gtd is a vault in obsidian. I'd like to set up the GTD method. Research the best way to do that, and help me set it up."

Twenty seconds later, I had a full folder structure. Templates. A dashboard with dataview queries. The bones of a real system.

The File Structure

Here's what Claude built:

/ai_gtd
├── GTD Dashboard.md          # Your command center
├── CLAUDE.md                 # System documentation for AI
├── Daily-Notes/              # Brain dumps live here
│   └── YYYY-MM-DD.md
├── GTD/
│   ├── Inbox/               # Traditional inbox (if you want it)
│   ├── Projects/            # One file per project
│   ├── Contexts/            # Lists by context
│   ├── Someday-Maybe/       # Dreams and ideas
│   └── Archive/             # Completed projects
├── People/                   # Track relationships & delegated tasks
├── Meetings/                 # Meeting notes and patterns
├── Resources/                # Reference materials
└── Templates/                # Consistency builders
    ├── GTD Project.md       # Outcome-focused project template
    ├── GTD Weekly Review.md # Guided review prompts
    ├── Daily Note.md        # Optional daily structure
    ├── Meeting Note.md      # Capture decisions & actions
    └── Person.md            # Track tasks by person

Simple. Logical. Expandable.

But here's where it got interesting.

Building for Reality

When I mentioned I was coming from Logseq, Claude didn't try to "fix" my habits. Instead, we built around them.

"I like to brain dump in daily notes with #inbox tags," I said.

"Let's make the system find those," Claude replied. And it did.

Now I can throw #inbox on any thought, anywhere. The dashboard finds them all. No special format. No specific location. Just tag and go.

The Small Fixes That Matter

The magic wasn't in the initial setup. It was in the iterations.

My template tasks kept showing up in my dashboard. Annoying, but I lived with it for days. Then:

claude "The dashboard is pulling tasks from my templates folder"

Fixed in 30 seconds. One line added to each query: AND !contains(file.path, "Templates").

These aren't impressive fixes. But they're the difference between a system you use and one you abandon.

The Dashboard - My Mission Control

The GTD Dashboard is where everything comes together. One file to rule them all.

At the top: Inbox items. Every #inbox tag from anywhere in your vault shows up here. Brain dump in your daily note at 3am? It's waiting for you.

Next: True Next Actions. This changed my life. Instead of seeing all tasks, you see THE next action for each project. One thing. Clear focus.

Then: Contexts. What can I do right now? Click #computer when you're at your desk. Click #phone during your commute. Click #errands before leaving the house. Only relevant tasks appear.

People & Delegated Tasks shows who owes you what. Every task tagged with #delegated groups by person automatically. No more "what did I ask them to do?"

This section alone changed how I manage. I delegate something, tag it, and forget it. The dashboard remembers. When I talk to someone, I click their name and see everything in flight.

Waiting For captures everything on hold. Client feedback. Approvals. That package from Amazon. If it's blocking you, it's tracked.

The magic? It's all live. Add a task anywhere, tag it properly, and it appears in the right spot. No manual updating. No maintenance.

This is what I needed years ago - a system that handles the follow-up burden so I can focus on the conversation, not the tracking.

The Weekly Review That Actually Happens

Here's the thing about weekly reviews: I never did them. Until now.

Every Friday, I get a task: "Weekly Review 🔁 📅 2025-07-04". Click it. Claude creates a new review file from template.

The template has prompts:

What went well this week?
What didn't go well?
What did I learn?
Brain dump everything on your mind

I spend 20 minutes filling it out. Stream of consciousness. No editing.

Then the magic: claude "Process this weekly review"

Claude reads the whole thing. Creates projects for multi-step items. Adds single tasks to appropriate contexts. Updates the someday/maybe list. Archives completed projects.

What took me 2 hours in other systems takes 20 minutes of writing and 30 seconds of processing.

Last week's review had 23 items. Claude turned them into 4 new projects, 8 standalone tasks, and 3 someday/maybe items. All properly tagged, all in the right places.

How Terminal Changes Everything

Here's my actual workflow now:

Morning: Open terminal. Type claude "Show me today's agenda". Get a summary of due tasks, meetings, and priorities.

During meetings: Take notes normally. After: claude "Process these meeting notes". It extracts tasks, identifies patterns, updates relevant project files.

Random thought: claude "Add 'research the effect of the big beautiful bill on housing prices' to my inbox". Done. Tagged. Tracked.

Weekly review: claude "Process my weekly review". It turns 20 scattered thoughts into organized projects with clear next actions.

No context switching. No copy-paste. Just conversation with an AI that knows my system.

The CLAUDE.md File

We created a single file documenting everything:

# GTD System Documentation for Claude

## Overview
This is a GTD implementation with these key features:
- Hybrid capture: #inbox tags anywhere OR inbox folder
- Contexts: #computer, #phone, #home, #work, #errands
- People tracking with delegated tasks
...

Now every Claude session starts with context. It reads this file and knows exactly how my system works.

But here's the killer feature: it evolves.

After a long session where we've made changes or discovered new patterns, I'll say: claude "Read through our conversation and update CLAUDE.md with anything you've learned"

Claude reviews everything we discussed. New workflows. Fixed bugs. System preferences. Meeting patterns. It all gets added to the documentation.

This means Claude gets smarter about my system over time. Not theoretically. Actually. The context improves with every major session.

Last week Claude added:

My preference for processing weekly reviews into projects
Common patterns emerging from daily meetings
The correct spelling of frequently mentioned names
Which commands I should run for linting

This might be the most important file in my vault.

What You Need to Start

Want to build something similar? Here's the minimum:

Install Obsidian (free from obsidian.md)
Install Claude Code (brew install claude on Mac)
Create a vault folder (mine's /ai_gtd)
Start simple: claude "Help me set up a basic GTD system in Obsidian"

That's it. Everything else builds from there.

The Evolution Pattern

Here's what I've learned: Don't plan the perfect system. Build a basic one and evolve it.

Week 1: Basic GTD structure
Week 2: Added people tracking when I needed delegation
Week 3: Built meeting intelligence when patterns emerged
Week 4: Simplified contexts when they got overwhelming

Each iteration took minutes, not hours. Each solved a real problem I was having, not a theoretical one.

Pro Tips for Your Setup

Start with native Obsidian. Don't install plugins immediately. Let needs drive additions.

Use the simplest structure that works. My contexts are just tags. My projects are just files. Nothing fancy.

Document for Claude. That CLAUDE.md file is your system's memory. Have Claude update it as you evolve.

Process, don't plan. When something annoys you, tell Claude. Fix it immediately. Don't add it to a "someday" list.

The Daily Reality

My morning now looks like this:

cd /ai_gtd
claude "What's on my plate today?"

Claude shows me due tasks, suggests which project to tackle first, reminds me of follow-ups.

After meetings:

claude "Here are my dev call notes: [paste]. Process these."

It creates tasks, updates people files, identifies patterns I should track.

End of day:

claude "Review what I accomplished and prep tomorrow"

Clean close. Clear mind. Everything tracked.

Why This Works

It's not about the tools. It's about removing friction between thought and capture, between capture and action.

But more than that, it's about trust. When you transition from doing to managing, your memory becomes your bottleneck. You can't scale your impact if you're trying to remember who owes you what.

GTD gives you that trust back. You delegate, you capture, you forget. The system remembers. The dashboard surfaces. The reviews ensure nothing drops.

When your AI assistant lives in your terminal, when it understands your system, when fixes take seconds not hours - that's when a productivity system stops being something you maintain and starts being something you use.

Your Move

If you're drowning in productivity apps, maybe the answer isn't another app.

Maybe it's:

A simple markdown system
An AI that understands it
The commitment to evolve based on actual friction

Start basic. Fix what annoys you. Let it grow.

The perfect system is the one you use. Everything else is just theory.

Want the exact prompts I used? Here are my favorites:

"Set up a GTD system with folder structure and templates"
"Create a dashboard that shows all my open tasks by context"
"Build a people tracking system for delegation"
"Process this weekly review into actionable projects"
"Fix [specific annoying thing]"

That's it. That's the whole system. Terminal, markdown, and an AI that gets it.