📖 Guide — GTD Fast

One board for everything you have to do. Every job becomes a card, and cards move from left to right until they are done. The built-in assistant reads, sorts and can carry out cards for you; you stay in charge. This guide follows the app in the order you meet it.

1Signing in

1. Go to gtdfast.com and press Sign in. Continue with Google, or type your email address and press Email me a code. There is no password.
2. First time here? Say what you will mostly use GTD Fast for. That choice shapes the questions that follow and your first board.

On your own the board is free, with all your boards. You pay only when someone joins one of your boards.

2Your first board

1. The assistant sets it up with you: write in a few lines what you want to get done, answer its questions, and press Build the board. You get a board with cards in the right columns.
2. Every board has a brief: a short text that says what the board is about, what matters and where things live. The assistant reads it before every job. You find it under ＋ → Boards and companies → your board.
3. Another board? ＋ → Boards and companies → New board. A company groups boards that belong together; hours and rates live there too.

The brief is the assistant’s memory of a board. Keep it short and current. Old history goes below the archive line: people can read it there, the assistant does not, and it costs nothing per run.

3Cards

1. Press ＋ → New card, or the + at the top of a column. Type what needs to happen and press Create.
2. Move a card to another column by dragging it. On a phone: open the card and pick another column at the top. Both count.
3. Inside a card: Notes for what you know, a Checklist (each item can get an owner or become a card of its own), a Due date and a Start date, and Waiting for: who or what you are waiting on.
4. Closing: the orange ✓ saves everything and closes. ✕ or Escape close without saving, and ask first if something is not saved yet. Fields on an existing card save by themselves while you type, with Undo for a few seconds.

Delete lives under ＋ inside the card and is final. Move finished cards to Done instead: they slide into the board’s archive after a while, and you can always bring them back.

4Finding your way

1. The magnifier searches all your boards. The board button at the top filters: one board or all of them, one person, or a period (today, overdue, this week, this month).
2. Views: Columns is the board. Calendar shows cards by due date; Timeline shows them as bars from start to due date. In both you drag a card onto a day; on a phone you tap ⇅ on a card and then a day.
3. Weekly review (in the menu under your picture) walks you through what is overdue, what waits and what still sits in the Inbox, one decision per card.
4. Documents (same menu) is where files and notes outlive their cards, linked together in a map.

Looks like something that is already there? While you type a new title, the board shows similar cards. Merge two cards via ＋ → Merge with… inside a card; the assistant can also hunt doubles for you.

5Getting things in from elsewhere

1. In the app: ＋ → Paste something. Paste text, a link, a photo or a screenshot. The assistant reads it, picks a board and a column, and you confirm.
2. From your phone: share from any app to GTD Fast. On Android install the app once (chapter 10); on an iPhone add a shortcut once — the recipe is in Settings → Quick capture. Hold ＋ for Speak a card, Photo to card or Paste and sort.
3. By email: you have your own capture address in Settings → Quick capture. Forward a mail there, or put the address in bcc. Only mail from your own address counts; a second address you can allow when the board asks.
4. In your browser: drag the button below onto your bookmarks bar. Select a piece of text on any page and click it — the text and the link come along.

Everything that comes in lands in your Inbox with the board the assistant guessed. Wrong guess? Pick another one before you file it. Nothing is filed behind your back.

6The assistant on your cards

1. Help: every card has 🧭 Ask the assistant under the comment field. Ask a short question, or leave it empty, and you get a plan, pitfalls and next steps as a comment on the card.
2. Run: Run now lets the assistant carry out the card itself. The result lands as a comment; the card moves to Done, or to Waiting for when it needs something from you. Sometimes it proposes a follow-up card: that one appears in your Inbox with 💡 and only counts after your Approve.
3. Inbox: press the assistant button above the Inbox and it sorts what is there into boards and columns, one batch at a time, with your confirmation.

The assistant is included: you start with some credit, and top up or bring your own key in Settings → Your AI when it runs out. The bar at the bottom shows what it is working on; you can carry on in the meantime.

7Working together

1. ＋ → Add people to a board. Send the link, or an invitation by mail. Whoever joins sees that board only.
2. In a card, choose under Assignee who does it. Under Waiting for you pick a person and a follow-up date; the card then shows who you are waiting for.
3. Chat: the 💬 button opens the chat of the board. Make a channel per topic, tag someone with @name, and tag the assistant for an answer that knows the board.

On your own everything is free. Working together costs per extra person per month, after 14 free days; the exact price is under Settings → Seats & billing. Students keep boards of up to six people free.

8Hours and budgets

1. Switch hours on per board: ＋ → Boards and companies → your board → Track hours on this board.
2. Start the timer from a card, or book time afterwards under ＋ → Hours. Rates per person and a budget per board or per card turn hours into money.
3. The Report under ＋ → Hours shows the total per person and per board, and exports to CSV for your invoicing.

9The vault

1. Menu under your picture → Vault → Send a code to my email. Type the code and the vault is open for 15 minutes.
2. Keep logins, keys and other secrets there. Team secrets live per board, and everyone on that board can read them.
3. Make your vault zero-knowledge adds a vault password: from then on only you can read it, not even the server. Keep your recovery code somewhere safe.
4. Remember this device skips the mail code for 30 days on a device you trust. Verification codes that arrive by mail show up here too.

The vault is for people only: no AI and no program gets in. The one exception you choose yourself is a key for the assistant.

10As an app on your computer and phone

1. Menu under your picture → Install app. In Chrome: menu ⋮ → Install. Safari on Mac: File → Add to Dock. On your phone: Share → Add to Home Screen.
2. The app is always the same as the website; updates arrive by themselves.
3. No internet? You see the last known state of your board, and what you change is sent as soon as you are back online (📴 and 🔄 in the bar).

11Your own AI and Claude Code

The assistant is built in. Two things are extra, for people who build with AI:

• Your own key: put an API key from Claude, OpenAI, Kimi or another provider in Settings → Your AI. Then you pay your provider directly and the included credit stays untouched. Available on a paid account.
• Claude Code on your own computer: it can really do things — files, code, internet. Settings → Get going → Download skill (.zip); the skill carries your personal key. Set a card’s Run now via to Claude Code and your Claude Code picks it up.

Going further: name an agent per board with its own instructions and pick it as a card’s executor. A card can start by itself once the card it waits for is done; the rules for that are under Settings → Your AI → Agent relays.