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newbie question about contexts vs. projects
supenguin | Jul 25 2007
I've read "Getting Things Done" twice and not done much with it but I've finally got a hold of a copy of "Getting Things Done - Fast" audio program and am moving more toward a GTD system for tracking my projects. I've got a couple questions... First off, I find that paper is easier for me than electronic. I am a computer programmer, so many of my tasks are in front of the computer, but the computer seems to just get in the way when it comes to managing my todo list. Come to think of it, the computer seems to get in the way of just about everything except checking email, surfing the web, and programming. With that in mind, I've run into some issues and questions with paper. When I write down a project, I try to do one project per page, and then list out the next actions to complete the project. It then seems like I would need to go through all my project lists onto my context lists. Is there a better way to do this than going through all my projects and put all the @phone actions on my @phone list? Also, I know David Allen is opposed to daily todo lists, but I find having a big list of stuff to do overwhelms me... If I put 3 - 5 things todo on a list, do them, and then repeat I seem to get more done. Anyone else find this? Is there a good way of doing this with GTD? I also find that I do like the searchability (if that's a word) of keeping things in electronic format but like I said feel better working with paper. So what's the solution? Two systems? Copy important stuff over from paper into my electronic system? 7 Comments
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I think to be really...Submitted by jason.mcbrayer on July 26, 2007 - 2:30am.
I think to be really comprehensive, every action has to be double-entered: it needs to be on the project list and the appropriate context list, assuming you actually have any contexts other than @Computer. That's the real advantage of computer-based lists: in most list/outline applications you can enter an action once, tag it with both the project and one or more contexts, and generate both project and context lists that contain it. You don't have to worry about crossing it off in both places when you finish it, or writing the actual entry twice, and so forth. You can do this on paper with cross-references, but it's not necessarily as clear. » POSTED IN:
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