Your list has forty items, half of them arrived by email, and every one looks equally urgent. What slows you down is that each item sits there undecided, so you re-read and re-weigh the same tasks all day.
The 4D system fixes this with one rule: every item gets exactly one of four decisions the first time you look at it. Do it if it takes under two minutes, Defer it to a specific time, Delegate it with a clear request, or Delete it. Once every item has a decision, the list stops asking for your attention.
Where the four Ds come from
The 4Ds compress the processing step of David Allen’s Getting Things Done. His workflow diagram for processing an inbox asks whether an item is actionable, then routes it to trash, do it (if it takes less than two minutes), delegate it or defer it. Our guide to the full GTD system covers projects and contexts; the 4Ds are the part you can use this afternoon.
The labels overlap with the urgent-versus-important grid Stephen Covey popularized in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The difference is timing: the Eisenhower Matrix ranks what is already on your plate, while the 4Ds decide each new item the moment it lands.
The four decisions, defined tightly
- Do: Allen’s two-minute rule sets the threshold. If finishing the item takes less time than filing and tracking it would, finish it now.
- Defer: It matters, it takes longer than two minutes, and it is yours. It leaves the list only when it has a date and a time block, never a vague “later.”
- Delegate: It needs doing, but someone else or a tool can do it to an acceptable standard. It leaves with an outcome, a deadline and a follow-up date.
- Delete: It serves no current goal, deadline or commitment. Archive it, unsubscribe, decline the invite or cross it off.
The 4D triage table
Ask the questions in this order: Can I delete it? Is it someone else’s? Is it under two minutes? If none apply, defer it. Deleting first removes items before you spend effort judging them.
| 4D action | Qualifying criteria | Time limit | Exact tool or destination | Example task |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delete | No link to a current goal, deadline or commitment | Instant | Archive, unsubscribe, decline the invite, cross off | Webinar invite for software your team doesn’t use |
| Delegate | Belongs to someone else, or they can do it to roughly 80% of your standard | Request written in under 1 minute | Forward with the ;deleg text, apply a Waiting label with a follow-up date | Update the sales deck with Q3 figures by Wednesday 5 pm |
| Do | Yours, finishable in one sitting | Under 2 minutes; stop at 3 | Reply or act, then archive | Confirm Thursday’s meeting time |
| Defer | Yours, longer than 2 minutes, matters this month | Calendar block created within 10 seconds of deciding | Calendar block, plus snooze the email to the start of that block | Draft the Q4 budget proposal, Tuesday 10:00 to 12:00 |
Set up your tools once (about 20 minutes)
The system lives in your head, but three small setups make each decision take seconds instead of minutes.
Gmail
- Turn on shortcuts: gear icon, See all settings, General, Keyboard shortcuts on, Save Changes. Google’s list of Gmail keyboard shortcuts includes the ones that map to the 4Ds: e archives, # deletes, b snoozes, f forwards and Shift + t adds the email to Google Tasks.
- Create one label called Waiting. Every delegated thread gets it.
- Enable templates: See all settings, Advanced, Templates, Enable. Save your delegation text as a template so it is two clicks away in any reply.
Outlook
Outlook’s Quick Parts store reusable text blocks. Write your delegation text in a new message, select it, then choose Insert, Quick Parts, Save Selection to Quick Part Gallery. A Quick Step on the Home tab can then forward a message and move it to a Waiting folder in one click.
Mac text replacement
Apple’s text replacement feature works in Mail, Slack, browsers and most other apps. Open System Settings, Keyboard, then Text Replacements under Text Input, click the plus sign, and enter a short trigger with the full text. Starting triggers with a semicolon stops them firing by accident.
The delegation and decline snippets
- ;deleg expands to: “Could you take this on? Done looks like: ___. Deadline: ___. Everything I have is linked below. If something blocks you, flag it by ___ and we’ll adjust.”
- ;chase expands to: “Checking in on this one. Still on track for ___? Anything you need from me?”
- ;pass expands to: “Thanks for thinking of me. I can’t take this on before ___, so I’ll pass for now.”
Filling three blanks forces the outcome and deadline that most delegated requests lack, and turns a five-minute email into a thirty-second one.
A 20-message Monday inbox, decided in 12 minutes
An alumni-relations manager opens Monday with 20 emails. Thirteen are automated notifications (event-registration confirmations and database digests), cleared with e in one sweep. Seven need a decision, plus one item from her own list.
- LinkedIn connection request: Delete. Archived; it is not this week’s work.
- Higher-education newsletter, unopened for a month: Delete and unsubscribe. Fifteen seconds.
- The development office asks for an updated donor-briefing deck: Delegate to her alumni-events coordinator. She presses f, types ;deleg and fills in “reunion attendance figures on slides 4 to 9, sent to the development office” and “Wednesday 5 pm.” Labelled Waiting, with a check on Wednesday at noon.
- HR reminder to book a performance review: Do. One calendar invite, one minute.
- Vice-president’s email floating a new alumni mentoring programme: Do, then Defer. A two-line reply now (“Thinking on this; first notes by Thursday”), then a 30-minute block at 3 pm and the email snoozed to 2:55.
- Teammate’s draft of the spring alumni magazine feature needing feedback: Defer. It feels quick, but reading it properly takes ten minutes, which breaks the threshold and would eat into the budget block. It gets a 9:40 slot today so the teammate isn’t left waiting.
- Meeting invite with no agenda: Delete. Declined with ;pass, plus a request for an agenda if her input is genuinely needed.
- Finalize the autumn reunion budget proposal: Defer. A 10:00 to 12:00 block with notifications off.
The pass takes about 12 minutes. Three items are gone, one sits with a colleague under a deadline, one is finished, and three are on the calendar at exact times. Nothing is left “on the list,” which is the whole point.
Keeping Defer, Do and Delegate honest
Defer turns into a graveyard
Snoozing without a calendar block is hiding, not deferring. If the week has no free slot, the item is a Delete or a deadline renegotiation. Pairing Defer with time blocking keeps every deferred task honest about capacity.
Two minutes stretches to twenty
Small tasks grow once you open them. If you pass three minutes, stop, jot one line on where you got to, and defer the rest. Our article on the 2-minute rule covers this edge case in more depth.
Delegated work disappears
Allen keeps a Waiting For list for exactly this reason. Check the Waiting label on two fixed days each week and send ;chase to anything near its deadline without an update.
You have no one to delegate to
Delegate to a tool instead: an email filter, a recurring payment, a scheduling link that replaces five back-and-forth messages. Or delegate back to the requester by asking them to supply the missing information before the task becomes yours.
Delete feels risky
Archive rather than permanently delete; the message stays searchable if you were wrong. The harder deletes involve people, and a prepared decline plus the scripts in how to say no make them far less awkward.
Keeping it running
Process in two or three batches a day rather than on every notification. Each pass ends when the inbox and list contain no undecided items, not when everything is done.
Watch your mix. If more than a third of your decisions are Defer, your calendar will overflow within a week, so push harder on Delete and Delegate.
Track one number: tasks you have rescheduled more than twice. Each of those gets re-triaged from scratch. Delete it, hand it off, or shrink it to a first step small enough to finish in the next block.
