My Productivity System in 2026

Nuno Donato published an update to his personal productivity system in 2026, describing how he now uses the open-source AI agent harness Goose for non-work, non-coding tasks alongside a strict Getting Things Done (GTD) workflow. Donato built custom Goose skills for GTD list management, an end-of-day brain dump that cross-references tasks and emails, and a start-of-day briefing, and gave the agent read-only access to his calendars plus a dedicated agent mailbox for reading and writing email. The post follows his 2022 productivity system write-up and reflects his stated position of being bullish on AI while limiting where it is used.

productivity · gtd · ai My productivity system in 2026 Last time I wrote about my productivity system https://www.nunodonato.com/blog/my-productivity-system-in-2022/ was back in 2022. Today I felt like writing an update on how I’m managing it, because a lot of things have changed. Funny enough, that last article was published on the 18th of September 2022. Some sort of strange 4-year cycle going on In 2022 we were all pretty much living in a pre-AI world not exactly, but you get my point . Things have changed a lot in how everyone works and manages information, professional or personal. In the last 6 months I’ve been exploring agents in many different ways, and using them quite a lot for personal things. Now, mind you, I’m not the kind of person who, when they have a hammer, sees everything as a nail. I’m very bullish on AI, but I still keep my judgement on where it should or should not be used see, for example, Why I Keep My Kids Away from AI For Now https://www.nunodonato.com/blog/why-i-keep-my-kids-away-from-ai-for-now/ . As many of my readers know, I’ve been a strong advocate for GTD. I spent many years teaching it, and many more finding ways to morph it to fit my own needs at different times. I’ve noticed that when life gets more complicated and hectic, I tend to stick closer to a strict GTD system. At other times, I can relax it the 2022 article was a good example of this . Right now I am in one of those phases where GTD is keeping me afloat. The end-of-day brain dump is super helpful — unloading all loose ends, random thoughts and concerns into one place really helps me feel real relief. So in the age of AI, I was thinking how I could tune my system in a completely new way. And this is where I am right now. The Harness I’ve been using Goose https://goose-docs.ai/ as my personal harness, for all non-work, non-coding tasks. It’s really nice because it’s simple and extensible, and it has a convenient desktop app. I’ve been adding my own skills to adapt it to my needs and workflow. Besides skills, I also added two very useful things: 1. read-only access to my calendars mine, kids, work 2. access to a special agent mailbox to read and write emails The email is pretty cool, because I can just forward info during the day that Goose will pick up later. And I can also ask it to send something to me or my wife. GTD The first one was the GTD skill. It’s basic; I left many things out because I don’t want to do too much with it. I’m basically using a couple of MD files to store lists of things the core of any GTD implementation is always lists . It understands what a project, a task, or a pending item is. It knows how and when to move things from one list to the other. End of day The second one was the end-of-day skill. At any time, I can say I want to close out my day, and just dump into the chat whatever is on my mind. What I didn’t do, what worries me, what I need to do or follow up on. Goose will cross-reference that info against my current GTD data and prepare things for the next day. That usually includes: - adding new tasks or projects - crossing out what’s already done - checking new emails that need to be handled - adding reminders according to deadlines or things I’m waiting for - seeing what needs to be clarified - and, very cool, being proactive in searching for data and preparing things for when I need them Example: if I brain dump something like “tomorrow I need to call X and …”, before adding that item to my GTD files, it will first search for the phone number, maybe even the opening hours, and add that to the task. So I have all the useful information in place when I get to it. Start of day The last one is the start-of-day skill. My first chat of the day triggers this skill to prepare what I need to know and do. This skill will: - review the most recent brain dump - review calendar, reminders and any new emails - check the GTD files - and finally write a short briefing of everything I need to know for the day: the most urgent tasks, the non-urgent ones, any commitment or event I need to be at, things we are still waiting for, etc. It usually suggests some actions, or asks if I want it to do something more about what’s on our plate for the day. It works It’s a simple system when you look at it, but it really works for me right now. It helps me unload, while at the same time not losing track of everything I need to know and do. No dependencies on any web apps or cloud services. Not even on AI; I’ve tested it with a small local model and it worked absolutely fine. Maybe 4 years from now things will be very different again. I’ll keep iterating and adapting to what works for me, in the simplest way possible. As David Allen always advised: you want a productivity system that works when you are at your lowest, not at your peak. It should help you, not demand more energy from you. Or, like Antoine de Saint-Exupéry also famously said: “perfection is achieved not when you have nothing else to add, but nothing else to take away”. KISS always prevails.