Capturing is the first of the fundamental habits of GTD. It is the fact of writing down or recording, out of your head, in a single place, anything that has your attention (an idea, something you’ve remembered, a new task, a new need, contact information, an appointment, etc.)

You must try to capture every thing at the same moment it pops up, and you must do it quickly, without thinking too much, so that you can continue with what you were doing without getting distracted.

This is the crucial first step to achieve a state of calmed control. It is a way to free your mind, and the goal is that the amorphous stuff that you still have not clearly defined do not produce a stressful noise to your mind while you are doing other things.

In the web app you have always available the Capture option in the top menu bar, which can also be accessed with the keyboard shortcut CTRL-1:

In addition to capturing stuff from the application itself, you can do it from your email, from external tools such as Evernote, and also from your Smartphone.

Everything you capture goes to your Inbox, which you can see in the Lists option of the Organize menu.

There is an exception. If you capture something and assign it a date (using the in-line command :day), the item will go directly to the Calendar, bypassing the Inbox.

There is a bar with the tags and people you use the most, so that you do not have to type them. Click on them and they will be added to the text.

Although you can capture more information — notes, files, and checklists — , you should not do it unless you have that information at hand at the time of capture. If not, do not waste time, just capture fast and you will complete the information on the clarifying stage.

When you are working with your computer, it is advisable to keep the application open, so that you can capture new things quickly and easily.