Nicolas Rougier, whom I’ve written about before in regard to his beautiful Org documents, had a long post a couple of years ago that’s well worth a look and some serious studying. At the time, Rougier was just learning about Org-mode so the post is a step-by-step account of how he implemented a GTD process with Emacs and Org-mode.
Rougier is a busy guy. In addition to supervising five PhD students, being the editor of two journals, being active in several open source projects, he is also handling the usual academic researcher duties of negotiating the grant process, writing up his research, and organizing meetings.
He was committing the cardinal sin of using his email inbox as a TODO list but when he moved to Mu4e he rethought that and developed an Org-based process that leveraged the Org capture facility to be able to quickly capture random thoughts, ideas, or emails and put them into a holding file. Later, according to GTD orthodoxy, he moved those items to their appropriate project file and arranged for them to appear in his Org agenda in a convenient way.
His post is long and involved but worth studying. He’s got lots of good ideas and has thought through how to solve many of the problems anyone trying to implement a GTD process will face. If you’re looking for a way to get organized, Rougier’s post is definitely worth your attention.