The Problem: Which Task Right Now?
GTD tells you to work from your next action lists. But once you have fifty next actions across a dozen contexts, a new question surfaces: which one should I do right now?
David Allen suggests choosing based on context, time available, energy available, and priority — in that order. Capture GTD handles context filtering through its context system. For the remaining decision — given a filtered list of actions you could do, which one delivers the most value? — it provides an impact score.
What the Impact Score Does
Every task in Capture GTD carries a computed impact score. The Engage view sorts tasks by this score in descending order, placing the highest-impact work at the top of your list. The score is not a static number you assign. It is computed dynamically from five factors, each weighted to reflect how much it should influence prioritization. As task attributes change — importance increases, deadlines approach, dependencies resolve — the score recalculates automatically.
The Five Factors
1. Importance (Weight: 2x)
Each task has an importance level that maps to a numeric value:
| Importance | Value |
|---|---|
| ExtraLow | 1.0 |
| Low | 2.0 |
| Medium | 3.0 |
| High | 4.0 |
| Critical | 5.0 |
Importance carries a 2x multiplier, making it the joint-heaviest factor in the formula alongside deadline urgency. A Critical task scores 10.0 from importance alone; an ExtraLow task scores 2.0. This means importance can override most other factors when the gap is large enough — a Critical task with a distant deadline will still outrank a Low task that is overdue.
2. Effort (Weight: 1.5x)
Effort uses an inverted scale — smaller tasks score higher:
| Effort | Value |
|---|---|
| XSmall | 5.0 |
| Small | 4.0 |
| Medium | 3.0 |
| Large | 2.0 |
| XLarge | 1.0 |
This reflects the GTD principle that quick wins have outsized value. Completing a five-minute task clears mental overhead and often unblocks other work. With its 1.5x multiplier, effort contributes meaningfully without overwhelming importance or urgency.
3. Deadline Urgency (Weight: 2x)
Deadline urgency is the most dynamic factor. It evaluates how many days remain until the deadline and returns a value on a stepped scale:
| Days Until Due | Urgency Value |
|---|---|
| Overdue (< 0) | 10.0 |
| Today (< 1) | 8.0 |
| Within 3 days | 6.0 |
| Within 7 days | 4.0 |
| Within 14 days | 2.0 |
| 14+ days | 1.0 |
With its 2x multiplier, an overdue task receives 20.0 from urgency alone. This aggressive scaling ensures that genuinely urgent work rises to the top regardless of other factors.
Tasks without a deadline do not receive urgency from this factor (they score 0.0 here), but they are not forgotten — the age factor handles them separately.
For recurring tasks, urgency is calculated against the next (or overdue) occurrence rather than a single fixed date, so the score stays relevant across recurrence cycles.
4. Task Age (Weight: 1x)
Older tasks gradually accumulate priority through a stepped age value:
| Task Age | Age Value |
|---|---|
| 30+ days | 3.0 |
| 14-29 days | 2.5 |
| 7-13 days | 2.0 |
| 3-6 days | 1.5 |
| 1-2 days | 1.0 |
| Less than 1 day | 0.5 |
Age carries no additional multiplier (effectively 1x), making it a tiebreaker rather than a dominant factor. Its purpose is to prevent staleness: a task that has been sitting untouched for a month will gradually rise in priority, nudging you to either complete it, reclassify it, or move it to Someday/Maybe.
For tasks without a deadline, the system treats the creation date plus 30 days as an effective deadline. This means a no-deadline task created a month ago behaves like an overdue task from the urgency factor’s perspective, ensuring nothing languishes indefinitely.
For recurring tasks, age resets when you complete an occurrence. The most recent completion timestamp replaces the original creation date for age calculation, so a weekly review task that you completed on Monday starts fresh rather than accumulating age from when you first created it.
5. Dependencies (Weight: 1x)
The number of resolved dependencies on a task adds directly to its score (1 point per dependency, no multiplier). A task that had two dependencies — both now completed — scores 2.0 from this factor, while a task with no dependencies scores 0.0.
The reasoning: tasks with resolved dependencies are likely unblocking downstream work. Completing them creates a cascade effect, enabling other tasks to proceed. Tasks whose dependencies are not yet resolved have allDependenciesResolved set to false and are filtered or deprioritized in the Engage view before scoring even applies.
The Formula
The final impact score is a weighted sum:
impactScore = (importance * 2.0)
+ (effort * 1.5)
+ dependencies
+ age
+ (urgency * 2.0)For a concrete example: a Critical-importance, XSmall-effort task that is overdue, 30 days old, and has 2 resolved dependencies would score:
(5.0 * 2.0) + (5.0 * 1.5) + 2.0 + 3.0 + (10.0 * 2.0) = 10.0 + 7.5 + 2.0 + 3.0 + 20.0 = 42.5Meanwhile, a Medium-importance, Medium-effort task with a deadline 3 weeks away, created today, and no dependencies would score:
(3.0 * 2.0) + (3.0 * 1.5) + 0.0 + 0.5 + (1.0 * 2.0) = 6.0 + 4.5 + 0.0 + 0.5 + 2.0 = 13.0Why This Works for GTD
The scoring algorithm embodies several GTD principles:
Respects your stated priorities. Importance is the heaviest static factor. If you mark something Critical, the system takes that seriously.
Enables clearing the decks. The inverted effort scale means quick tasks bubble up, supporting the GTD two-minute rule philosophy. When several tasks are otherwise similar, the fast one wins.
Enforces temporal accountability. Deadline urgency ramps up aggressively as due dates approach. Combined with the effective-deadline mechanism for no-deadline tasks, nothing can hide forever.
Stays dynamic. Because the score recalculates whenever task attributes change — importance, effort, deadline, dependency resolution — it reflects your current reality, not a stale snapshot.
Supports the Engage decision. Rather than replacing your judgment, the score handles the mechanical part of prioritization so you can focus on the contextual and energy-based decisions that only you can make.