I think the point is to make the contexts as functional as possible. While I might be somewhat likely to ignore a Next action list titled for a particular area of responsibilty, it is extremely useful to me to do all (or most) of my email next actions at a single sitting.

Well put, Christopher.

I think a tendency I’ve had—and have tried hard to lick—is to get wrapped up in a fractal taxonomy loop. “Where does this go? Should I start a new sub-sub-list?” So your comment’s right on from where I sit.

I’ve felt for some time now that this is one piece that must vary widely from one person to another’s implementation strategy, but that the addition of extra contexts should always be in the service of more efficient action—not just to develop a more satisfying personal ontology. :-)

i try to keep my list taxonomy no more than one indent deep that way if there is a location on my list i can at least keep track of the several things that i need to pick up in the same place. :)

Software can really help with this. My NA list is comprised of all my contexts, but I can filter down to a specific context whenever I wish.

Nik, what software do you use?

I think of Contexts as “views” or “selects” on the big list of Next Actions.

I’m still figuring out GTD. I’m torn between making my lists very hierarchical with dependency trees between actions or making my lists long and category/tag/context searchable.

Also, Mark Taw seems to assume a Next Action only appears on one list. For example, his Next Action “buy oil” is on his @shopping list, but not his @car (gas station) list. Why not put it on BOTH lists? Lately, I’ve been thinking about “folksonomies” and de.licio.us-like tags for Next Actions. This is only viable with software, though. Why not let a Next Action have many tags, which can be context, location, people, and/or project names. Then your context or project lists are just subset views of your master list.

Chris,

I have also been struggling with the heirarchical view of tasks. I have not found the ideal program. I am toying with writing my own, but lack of time/skills at this point have stunted my efforts. A number of programs are close, particularly life-balance or bonzai (windows only).

But it would seem to me that the ideal app would view projects as outlines with lots of abilities to attach relevant documents, links, etc. as Omni Outliner does, but then make any given point or particularly subpoint a task that could link immediately to whatever PIM program (entourage or palm desktop) that you use with its context (calls, email) etc intact. I have other thoughts about this, but I haven’t found anything that quite does this.

interestingly, if you make outlines in MS Word 2004 in the “notebook layout” view, then any point in an outline can be made into an entourage task. However it is not given the category info as far as I can tell.

I agree that the right tool is important, but it’s critical to understand why the tool is there and to adjust expectations to accord with the stuff that a “dumb” tool does best.

It’s an artful balance, but I continually return to the side of simplicity over exhaustive “correctness.” I’d say time put into generating and maintaining multiple lists, categories, and facets can often be better spent on refactoring and simplifying the existing ones. (This definitely goes for me and my ontological library of shaded Entourage categories).

No matter how deep I get in taxonomy and “multiple locations,” I always return to the simplest single list I can handle. My secret temptation is always that some tool can do all the maintenance (read: “thinking”) for me, but ultimately, I still need to make decisions and be aware of “what’s where.” Adding a constant administrative layer and tending all those rabbits becomes its own endless project.

Anyhow. Not saying multiples, facets, or redundancy are necessarily bad—just that in my experience it can be a lot to maintain if it’s not paying consistently large rewards in enhanced action.

quite right.

I use both a wiki and a “hipster PDA” (thanks, Merlin!). My list problem is that I can’t carry my entire list on my hipster PDA. My wiki is supposed to be my master list, but it is hard to keep up to date. And if a wiki list is too big to fit on my screen, I have difficulty managing it. I guess what I want is a Palm that can read/write my wiki lists. That way, there are no syncronization or redundancy problems.

Chris, I use DokuWiki that uses textfiles, and sync @list pages to my Palm with TextSync.

Regarding Mark Taws article, when I realized that I had too many lists I sat down and made an inventory of the common situations/places I find myself during a day (home, office, car, bus, store etc). Those were I could actually work on Next Actions became may new lists, three in total. For each situation I also made a list of the tools I usually have at hand (PDA, pen, phone, laptop etc). This was very helpful when I decided what system to use for handling my @lists. It made me ditch the Palm as my GTD central and instead use the laptop.

Christopher you mention a program called Banzai (windows only)…do you have a link to that?

Furthermore I would like to add that I, too, have tried to categorize my next actions into a multitude of lists. The problem is that it just takes so much effort to keep maintaining a gazillion next action lists based on context (be it life area specific or location/mode specific) that I have now just decided to testdrive one next actions list with indented category headers.

so for example I would just have:

@CALLS

[OC_TAXES] -call Jan for advice on company tax forms

@COMPUTER

[SCHOOLY3Q3] -make survey layout in Quark Xpress [SCHOOLY3Q3] -deliver survey layout as PDF to project team

and more ofcourse, but all in one textfile. (I actually have started using EssentialPIM [1] since a few weeks which runs nicely from my usb memorystick that I carry around from the home office to school to friends to the studio etc and I will always have all the information with me.)

I don’t know yet how this will work out for me to be honest. Its a hard one but I have to decide between this approach all in one textfile with headers or getting the info from a multitude of textfiles sorted by context.

[1] = www.essentialpim.com

suggestion palm os app hierachical tree-like todo list: http://pdesk.sourceforge.net/drupal/

For me, the simplest list (on my computer) is to use Notational Velocity, and to create my own flickr or del.icio.us style tags. I try to create one-line to-dos, and then in the body add whatever tags seem appropriate (in the oil example above, I might add: car, gas station, shopping, errands). Having NV stretched to full height on my iBook G4 gives me about 30 lines of list and three or four of body available.

As soon as I type in, say, errands, I see a filtered list of anything that includes that word. This way I can view my list as a single list (and manage it as a single list), but have my contexts, too.

First, I agree that lists really need to be kept to a minimum. For me: calls, email, internet, office, home, out&about.

Second, the software is “bonsai outliner”, sorry for the horrendous spelling earlier. link: http://www.natara.com/

Thanks Christopher!

Everything you’ve ever wanted to know (and then some) about how I pretend to be organized

I’ve stopped writing store specific shopping lists, because most things can be bought almost anywhere and if I write a Trader Joe’s list then it won’t occur to me that I can also buy milk at Whole Foods. (Yes, that sounds silly, but it really happened.)

GTD and BrainStorm

David Allen has written a book called Getting Things Done. In fact, he has spun a mini-industry around it, including Outlook plug-ins, notebooks, CDs and branded baseball hats. In the blog vernacular, GTD is a meme. An idea that’s grown

Creativity by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Tagline: “Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention”
ISBN: 0060928204

On the long side, but still a worthwhile read. I had a good time reading Finding Flow back in February, so reading