Dear All,

Before GTD I relied especially on daily to do lists, prioritized (a la Alan Lakein, A-B-C lists), most of which usually did not get done on that particular day, and I wrote a new list every day. I tried to use NA lists instead (which I keep in a per-context-tabbed Moleskine), but somehow this seems too distracting to me.

I've read posts on too long NA lists, and I understand that I might need to move some of the NA items to someday/maybe, and some of them might not qualify as a valid NA item. However, even purging those items the lists seem to be overwhelming -- there naturally are things that I will not be able to do on the given day.

Furthermore, there are some urgencies and priorities, some things that MUST be done this particular day, and some things that are more important than others.

I remember than in classic GTD things that must be done on a specific day are written in the calendar. I, however, do not want to keep looking at the calendar and the NA list to decide what is my next-next action.

Due to all these I tend to prepare a "daily next action list" every day (sometimes one for 2-3 days), and I use that to decide what's next. (I make contexts within that, too.) This also has the advantage that I try not to put items on the list which I will definitely not have time to do in the next 1-2-3 days. However, this way the "master" NA list loses its sense -- some items just never make it to the "daily NA list".

Any reflections on this?

P.S.: Well, thinking over the whole idea, what is happening is basically that I still have an A-priority list, and a C priority lists, where things on the C-priority list tend not to get done... A psychologist friend of mine told me once that I have a strong tendency to prioritize -- maybe that is happening subconsciously when compiling my "daily next action list".