Very intersting topic(s)!

A Some observations

1) It is not only the list which is "closed" or "open", but the items on it adhere to the same rules. A GTDish NA is open: it just defines the starting point of the activity, a bookmarked point in the project. A "Todo" is a closed description: you know whe you have finished it.

2) "Many writers (including academics) have problems defining their work in terms of next actions. Projects, yes, but "write 1/4 of chapter 4" ?"

These are action reminders, not full tasks descriptions. What about "write on book"? Why limit yourself?

3) "But I still see it as a definite weakness in the GTD system as proposed in the book, that there is not much about prioritizing."

The whole 10,000ft-50,000ft complex is about prioritizing. In GTD you prioritize wehever you negociate if something goes into @projects or someday/maybe for example. You just don't do it on the actions level. Once you defined a next action, you are 100 percent certain it has to be done anyway. If you do your projects right, ther is no need to renegociate at action level.

4) I think doing GTD the "original" way means to see the calendar as the tool for any time-bound issues. Any dates are in there, and only there (or maybe as well in project plans in the project support materials). Time-management on the other hand, things regarding your working schedule, deadlines, and so on, seems to be outside the scope of GTD entirely.

5) "Order in library, Copy, Read, create an Exzerpt"
Are we violating any copyrights here? As a writer? -gasp-

B What are the changes that you introduced into your personal GTD setup?

1) No changes just some additions.

2) "checking this item off daily is so rewarding..."

When I plan my projects through, I set deadlines for intermediate steps, I call them milestones. I plan as far as I can "see" the project. For example "draft1 of chapter one". On very small projects the NA gets the deadline.

I maintain a statistic how many deadlines I catched, missed, had to renegotiate befor the date arrived ect. The motivation here is to increase the marketshare of "catched corporation". Hard landscape appointments with myself (eg schedules NAs) count in this as well. I stopped playing computer games since I do this.

3) "I don't. In my eyes, this makes it a necessity for me to think about fixed intervals and such to introduce a bit of regularity."

Same opinion here. On the other side I am against a private/professional split. This is something that came with the middle class after the industrial revolution. I don't want to live that way. For example if I read a book about, let's say "Smart Answers", the knowledge I absorb will be for my use in my life, wether professional or private... I just does not make sense.

Back to our topic...

What I did GTD-wise to adress the issue is I added some simple time-based contexts to the mix. For example each working day from 1 pm to 5 pm I am by contract with myself in the @writing context. This is fairly new to my and I often have problems with it when I sleep into the day. So NA is get to get used to rising up early...

4) "how do you organize recurrent, complex activities?"
I have a list of these "chores" and I just copy this list into my context lists when I do my weekly review. Things I do once a month I have a reminder in my calendar, I then copy the action into my lists.

I have a daily should-do list (idea from you-know-who
), after I realized I have no daily must-do items.

5) "but I feel better when I can tick these (important, regular) items off my list"
I do use the "When is something worth doing"-sheet of Dave Seah's PCEO. I made it my duty to reach a minimum amount of points on a weekly basis.

I hope this is helping any way. Feel free to ask more