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GTD Actions? Need a boost
Jon Trelfa | Jan 3 2008
I'm not sure if I've started down the GTD path "the right way". I stay really busy ALL THE TIME and didn't read the GTD book. Instead, I listened to the audio book in my car while driving between home, work, and client sites. The audio book definitely has made me a believe in the system! You can imagine, however, how difficult it may be to implement the system when you don't have the book to refer back to :) Anyway, I figured I'd try the Outlook Add-In Trial. I'm on my second day using it and I've already cleared my inbox! :) I'm a little confused, however, that I'm not using the "actions" correctly. The add-in comes with some default actions like: @calls @computer @office @anywhere I understand that those default actions imply a location or means by which the action is completed - but calling them "actions" doesn't make sense to me. Since most of my work is already done on the computer, I've altered these defaults to ones that make a little more sense to me: @database @CMS @invoicing Those are actually the systems I use to perform my various tasks. Anyway, I'm wondering how these actions should/are being used by the 43f community? Am I going in the right direction? I'm already pretty clear about the higher-level categories like incubating, reference, someday, etc. It's these other actions that I'm not clear on. Thanks - and forgive my wordiness :) 1 Comment
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 Simplifying Your ContextsSubmitted by MarinaMartin on January 3, 2008 - 6:38pm.
Things starting with @ in GTD are contexts, to sort out tasks that you can only do in a particular location or with particular equipment. I have no idea why they're called "actions" in the Outlook add-in but that's just plain wrong. Most of my clients (I set people up on GTD for a living) go context-crazy, with @InternetBrowser, @MicrosoftWord, @kitchentable, and so on. I think this rather defeats the purpose. Only use contexts to sort items that you can ONLY do from a certain location or that make batch processing a lot easier. I work at home, and the only contexts I have are @CALLS and @ERRANDS. I batch my calls together so I don't have to be on the phone all day, and I keep a copy of my errands list in my purse so I can easily run through them whenever I'm out and about. The @CMS @invoicing and @database contexts might work for you -- I don't know what your workflow looks like -- but if you don't regularly have a list of Next Actions from different projects to do within one of these categories, and if bunching all @database tasks together wouldn't make your process go faster, then I say ditch the context. Also ... despite my absolute thorough deeply-felt passion for GTD, I don't really care for the book. All you need is the chart on the last page, and some other brains to pick for hammering out some system details that aren't covered in the book, anyway. » POSTED IN:
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