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GTD: difference between Processing and Organizing?

Hi,

I'm trying to create a gtd system, but one thing has been a bit unclear
to me for a while, namely, the difference between Processing and Organizing.
This causes me to think that I am seriously misunderstanding the GTD book.

In the GTD book David has several copies of his gtd workflow diagram
with the parts relevant to each stage highlighted:

* "Workflow diagram - processing" (p 120 in the book) has the central
core highlighted (in-basket and the do, delegate, defer) boxes.

* "Workflow diagram - organizing" (p 139 in the book) highlights
the edges of the diagram (Trash, someday/maybe, ref, calendar,
next actions , waiting,projects)

So thrashing should be part of organizing, right??

Wrong! On page 119 David writes:

When you've finished processing IN, you will have:
1. trashed what you don't need
2. ....

This confused me for a while and made it seem to me that I should just do
processing and organizing in one step.

Then it occured to me that maybe I am thinking about it the wrong way
and that the right way is:

Processing - is the progressing of an item through the GTD system *all the way to its final destination*
Example: trashing an item or adding it to an @home list is processing.

Organizing - is the tweaking of the system's destinations.
Example: adding a new garbage pail or an @car category to your lists is organizing.

Is this the right way to think about it or am I still confused??
Can somone, enlighten me??

Chris

 
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