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What are your contexts?
unstuffed | Mar 4 2007
I've been thinking about this again, and I think I'm getting there. Almost. I've just posted something on the David forum about this, so I'll slice and dice some of that as I go. Don't say you weren't warned. Context refers basically to tools available, time available, and energy level. But the context lists used in the book GTD, and those used by most of us, are solely tools-based: we've got @Phone, @Online, and so on, even though most of us have all our tools to hand all our waking hours. And while @Computer and @Phone may be useful for someone who travels a lot, for home businesses or geeks what we can and can't do doesn't whittle down our choices. In those cases, because the issue of tools doesn't arise, we have to modify our contexts according to time available, perhaps, or energy. We'll continue to have @Car or @InTown context lists, of course, for those occasions when we're not actually wired in to the system, but we may need to slice our contexts a little differently. For instance, my alertness ebbs and flows during the day. If I have context lists for @Mindless, @Creative, @Physical, @Talkative, for example, I can do the creative work when I'm at my sparkiest, and do the data entry when I'm dopey. The @Physical might be best for those somnolent afternoon times, and the @Talkative for when I'm feeling sociable and outgoing. Or, if your time is chopped up, you might have lists of @5Mins, @15Mins, @1Hour, @Forever, of things that will take about that length of time, so you can easily find one to slot into whichever window you're in. I'd be interested to hear whether anyone's doing anything like this, because I haven't seen any comments along these lines yet. We all (me included, because I don't use this system yet) seem to be wombling along with the @Phone and @Computer contexts straight from GTD, yet it's such a sensible idea, methinks. So, does anyone use these other factors explicitly in their context lists? That is, do you have any context lists other than the tools-based ones? 11 Comments
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 The 'Unconventional' ContextSubmitted by ubercurious on April 21, 2007 - 6:17pm.
This is a great thread, and points at my number one question mark so far with implementing GTD. I've tried a variety of unconventional contexts such as: @Finances ...and so on...because there are so MANY things I could be doing @Computer. A good reason for doing this is if have a PDA like a Palm or a Pocket PC. Neither of those platforms really support user-defined fields like the project and sub-project fields created by David's Outlook Plug-in, and so if you want to be able to sort through things that fit into an area of your life, and not just tools, location, amount of energy, etc, then you can easily parse them (for example, @Finances). I'm also using David Allen's Outlook plug-in, which by the way has just been updated and the new version is really great. Using that plug-in, you can organize your tasks by Project and Sub-project, and I'm always trying to strike a balance between keeping Projects descriptive and outcome-based enough that there doesn't need to be cross-over between contexts and projects. The question I have is, when do non-convential contexts become counter-productive, and how do we know when we're falling into that trap? Isn't the methdology designed in such a way so that there is a clear line of demarkation between one context and another, and what it means to you personally? Would it be a good rule to say that the fewer contexts one has the better? From the standpoint of owning a PDA and wanting to get things done while you're on the road, this might not be the case. For example, I have a contexts called: @Emails/Calls - Personal ...so that from a PDA I can differentiate what's important based on time of day and what I'm focused on. I don't separate Emails and Calls because there are somethings I could get done by picking up the phone, or by emailing, and which one I choose often depends on other things like the state of the relationship with that particular colleague or friend (when was the last time we talked?) or the state of the project I'm working on. Something I might have parsed as an email two days ago may now merit a phone call, so I keep the two together just in case. I think the fundamental trap is that the more contexts we have, the less likely we are to see everything that needs to get done when we COULD be doing it, and motivation ourselves to work faster or harder. The downside to not personalizing contexts is that it might be a little harder to prioritize, and easier to get overwhelmed because you'd be looking at so many things in a single list. I'm definitely one of those people who - quite unconsciously - fills time with what I need to do regardless of how little or how much there is to do. If there isn't that much to get done, and it's an area I've been avoiding, I'm not going to move through it at break-neck speed. Here's the other thing I've wondered about in this department. How do you decide if you want a separate context for someone in your life, e.g., @MyBoss, vs setting up an individual task under @Agendas to handle items with that person? What I've found is that if you use the separate context method, you can prioritize those things you need to talk about, and take notes on each one individually, and cross 'em off the list as they are no longer relevant. The downside is (at least using Outlook for this) is that you can't necessarily see a history of those things. At least with one task created under the @Agendas context, you can keep notes and a history of your interactions with that one person, actions agreed to, etc. If you care to share how you handle this, that would be great. You can also easily print this and make it portable. Anyone else out there using the Outlook add-in? Again, and as others have pointed out here, I think the main downside of using unconventional contexts, is that you may be setting yourself up to avoid that context if it's something that you have trouble confronting. As I'm sitting here writing this, I'm looking at my planning context and also thinking about playing with contexts like: @Planning - Personal I think we can probably parse this stuff 'till we're blue in the face. The problem is that contexts such as @Anywhere or @Home start to lose their meaning. Thoughts? » POSTED IN:
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