A GTD Dashboard: Getting Things Done on a Board You Own

David Allen's Getting Things Done rests on one promise: get everything out of your head and into a trusted system, so your mind is free to do the work instead of remembering it. The method is timeless. The apps that implement it are not — they lock your lists in a cloud, charge a subscription for the privilege, and decide for you what a "project" looks like.

Baton Board takes the other path. It's a local-first widget board you fully own, and its parts map cleanly onto the GTD lists. You build the system; the system stays yours.

The five GTD lists, as widgets

GTD is really a small set of lists that everything flows through. Here's how each becomes a widget on your board:

• Inbox → a Tasks widget. One capture list where everything lands, unprocessed. Add fast with quick-add or paste a whole list in at once. Nothing is triaged here — it's just out of your head.
• Next Actions → a Tasks widget with priorities. The heart of GTD. Give each action a priority and a due date, then use the board's filters — priority, overdue, today, this week — to see only what's actionable now.
• Projects → a Tasks widget with subtasks. Anything needing more than one step becomes a task with its own subtasks, so the outcome and its next steps live together.
• Waiting For → a Tasks widget. The things you've delegated or are blocked on. A weekly glance keeps them from falling through the cracks.
• Someday / Maybe → a Notes widget. Ideas you're not committing to yet. Out of the active lists, but not lost.

Add a Links widget for reference material and a Calendar or Countdown widget for hard dates, and you have a full GTD cockpit on one screen.

Weekly review, built in

GTD lives or dies by the weekly review — the habit of walking every list back to trusted. On a dashboard that review is fast: every list is already visible, side by side. Use the Agenda widget to pull due and upcoming items across the whole board into one place, so nothing hides in a collapsed list. Process the inbox to zero, move stalled projects forward, and clear "waiting for" — all without switching apps.

Why local-first matters for a trusted system

The GTD system only works if you trust it. That trust is easier to give when the lists are unmistakably yours:

• No account, no cloud. Your lists live in this browser, on this device. There's nothing to sign up for and nothing to leak.
• No lock-in. Export the whole board to a data.json file whenever you want, and import it anywhere. Your system is a file you keep, not a database someone else holds.
• Yours to shape. GTD purists and pragmatists disagree about contexts, tags, and horizons. Because you arrange the widgets, your board matches your practice — not an app author's opinion of it.
• Humans and AI, one board. Baton Board is built for the age of AI: you and your agents read and write the same lists. An assistant can drop new next actions into the same board you review on Sunday.

A GTD board in five minutes

1. Add an Inbox (a Tasks widget named "Inbox") and dump everything on your mind into it.
2. Add a Next Actions widget. Process the inbox: each item becomes a next action with a priority, gets turned into a project with subtasks, filed under "waiting for", or dropped into "someday".
3. Add Projects and Waiting For widgets for the multi-step and delegated items.
4. Add a Someday/Maybe Notes widget for the ideas you're parking.
5. Add an Agenda widget and make Sunday's review a five-minute pass over one screen.

Frequently asked questions

Is Baton Board a GTD app?

No — it's a general local-first dashboard. But its widgets (tasks with priorities, subtasks, filters, notes, links, agenda) map directly onto the GTD lists, so you can build a complete Getting Things Done system on it and shape it to your own practice.

How do I handle contexts (@home, @calls) in GTD?

Use separate Tasks widgets per context, or use task priorities and the board's filters to slice your next actions. Because you control the layout, you can model contexts the way your workflow actually uses them.

Can I run the weekly review without another tool?

Yes. Every list is visible on the board at once, and the Agenda widget aggregates due and upcoming items across widgets — so a full review is a single pass over one screen.

Where are my GTD lists stored?

In your browser's local storage on this device. There's no account and no server copy. Export to a data.json file any time to back up or move your system.

Is it free?

The free plan covers one board with the seven free widgets — including the Tasks, Notes, Links, and Calendar widgets a GTD setup needs. Pro (¥980/month) adds unlimited boards, the analytics widgets, the AI assistant, and sync.

Pricing

Free covers one customizable board with the seven free widgets, export/import, automatic backups, board-wide search, and eight languages. Pro (¥980/month or ¥9,800/year) unlocks unlimited boards, the analytics widgets (KPI, KPI tree, goal, habit, agenda, activity, PDCA), the AI assistant, end-to-end sync, and deep customization. A ¥14,800 lifetime license is available. Polar handles payments and worldwide taxes.

Try it

Open Baton Board, add an inbox, and empty your head into it. Process it into next actions, projects, and someday lists — a full GTD system on a board you own outright, with no account and nothing to lose.

Related reading: "A Weekly Review Routine That Actually Sticks" and "How to Build Your First Board."