What is Someday/Maybe in GTD? The list for ideas you're not ready to start

In GTD (Getting Things Done), Someday/Maybe is the list for things you might want to do one day but haven't committed to, like learning Spanish, a weekend in Lisbon or a newsletter for your team. Writing them there gets them out of your head and keeps them off your active lists. Once a week you read the list and decide whether anything on it is ready to start.

Why GTD has a Someday/Maybe list

David Allen calls this incubating. Your active lists only work if every item on them is something you've decided to do. Put “learn the guitar” next to “call the dentist” and Next Actions turns into a wish list you learn to skim past.

Deleting the idea loses it, and keeping it in your head means it keeps nagging you. Someday/Maybe is the third option: a place to park the idea that you can trust, because you look at it every week.

What belongs on Someday/Maybe

Anything you'd like to do but aren't ready to commit to. For example:

• A project for later: “Start a vegetable garden”
• Something to learn: “Learn some Spanish”
• A trip: “Weekend trip to Lisbon”
• An idea for work: “Newsletter for the design team”
• Things to buy or try once you have the time or the money

An item here doesn't need a date, a context or a first step. “Run a half marathon” is enough. If you ever activate it, that's when you work out the next action.

What doesn't belong

• Anything you've committed to. That's a project or a next action, even if it's months away.
• Things you're waiting on from someone else. Those go in Waiting For.
• Information with no action, like a recipe or a manual. That's Reference.
• Things you know you'll never do. Delete them. The list is for real maybes, and a list full of guilt is one you stop reading.

How items get there: the clarify step

Most items arrive from the Inbox. When you clarify, you take each capture and ask whether it's actionable. Sometimes the honest answer is “yes, but not now”. “Pottery class?” is a nice idea, but you have no free evenings this month, so it goes to Someday/Maybe instead of Next Actions.

Items also arrive during the weekly review. A project you decide to pause can move here, so it stops showing up as a project with no next action.

Reviewing it: Get Creative

The weekly review has three parts: Get Clear (empty the Inbox), Get Current (bring next actions, projects and waiting-for up to date) and Get Creative. Someday/Maybe belongs to the last one. Read each item and pick one of three answers:

• Activate it: move it to Projects or Next Actions and decide the first step.
• Keep it: leave it where it is for another week.
• Let it go: archive it or delete it.

Go fast and spend a few seconds on each item. If weeks pass and you never activate or drop anything, the list is probably too long or too vague.

Someday/Maybe in GTD Brain

GTD Brainis a GTD board, and Someday / Maybe is one of its columns, between Waiting For and Reference, marked “Incubate”.

On the web

Add a card at the bottom of the column, or open any card and pick Someday / Maybe under List. You can also drag a card into the column.

In the weekly review

The weekly review goes through the board one card at a time: the Inbox first, then Next Actions, Projects and Waiting For, and Someday/Maybe last, under Get Creative. Each card asks you to “Activate it, keep incubating, or let it go.” You keep it, move it to Next Actions or Projects, or archive or delete it. Reference is skipped, as GTD suggests.

On your phone

In the iPhone and Android apps, Someday / Maybe has its own tab on the board, and the app's weekly review runs the same three steps, ending with Get Creative. The web app works in a phone browser too.

In ChatGPT and Claude

With GTD Brain connected, you can say “put learn some Spanish on my Someday/Maybe list” and the card goes straight there. During your review you can ask “what's on my Someday/Maybe list?”. The ChatGPT guide and the Claude guide cover the setup.

If you want the method without the workarounds

Everything above is real GTD, and plenty of people run it in a paper notebook for years. I built GTD Brain for the parts that keep breaking: it is a board with the GTD lists built in (Inbox, Next Actions with contexts, Projects, Waiting For, Someday), a built-in agent that clarifies your inbox into next actions, and a guided weekly review that walks you through the whole board card by card. The same board is on the iPhone app, the Android app and the web, and you can talk to it from ChatGPT, Claude and other assistants through the assistant connections.

You sign in with an email code, no password. The yearly plan starts with a free month and you can cancel before it bills. If you have read this far, you already know how the lists work, so the setup takes about two minutes: sign in at gtdbrain.com and do your first brain dump into the inbox.