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Context headaches
mdl | Aug 25 2006
I'm having a lot of trouble these days with contexts and wondering if anyone can help. Basically, I'm finding it very artificial to work out of contexts. I sit there staring at my "Calls" list or my "Internet" list and lose sight of the reason for doing the actions that are on it. I'm finding that I work more effectively in "project" mode than in "context" mode. For me, the latter seems to divorce actions from their original environment, so that they don't make a lot of sense. When I make a call, my next thought isn't, "Yippee, let me see what other calls I can make." Rather, it's "what else do I need to do to push this project forward." If I think of the next action for a project, I'm more motivated to jump to that right away. But if next actions for that project are scattered among other context lists, then I have to rummage around through all my lists until I find them. Also, multiple context lists encourage me to accumulate more to-dos than I might if I had only one list. This means a lot of less urgent items get mixed in with high priority stuff. Most often, I end up shuffling through all my context lists to find the items that need to be done sooner rather than later. But this would be easier if I just had one to-do list. Right? At the moment, my contexts are: Calls, Email, Internet, Work (i.e., day job), Errands, Home, Office, and Mac (Mac specific stuff at home). I'm thinking of reducing these to: Road, Home, Both. (In other words, things done only away from home, things done only at home, and things that can be done in both places). Does this sound feasible? Or I am missing a crucial aspect of GTD? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated! 7 Comments
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This post is mostly in the wrong place.Submitted by evilbrent on September 19, 2006 - 12:18am.
mdl;5739 wrote:
exACTly!! A context is not artificial. It is defined by the resources available at the time. It sounds to me that calls, email, internet, work and office all involve resources that you have when you're at work. One thing that bugs me to 18 seperate pieces whenever I read through people's GTD setup is when they say they have a context which isn't a context: @calls is semantically wrong (where is this place "calls"? Don't you mean @phone?)... but @actions or @waiting is just plain confusing. There is no such set of available resources which are all at the place that you call "waiting". When your boss asks you why you're just sitting around doing nothing, explain to her/him that you did all your @calls, @emails and @meeting actions... now you're doing all your @waiting actions... you know, waiting. Is there a good place on this forum to suggest some idiot-proof standardised context lists? ----
buckets
Use a device that can label/tag/sort by two criteria - then you will always know the difference between "next-actions I can do at home" and "things I'm waiting for at work" I suggest handyshopper for the palm. » POSTED IN:
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