How to use Contexts in the GTD process itself and manage your digital inboxes?

Speedboat

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How to use Contexts in the GTD process itself and manage your digital inboxes?
Maybe this sounds strange but how are you actually supposed to handle inbox processing across multiple cloud-synced devices? Really?

I understand that there were no such thing as Apple-ID back then but I can´t really find any good direction on this issue anywhere.

When GTD first came to life (if you can say that) most of your priorities where also automatically aligned to your contexts. If you did´t bother to go to the office, you would not really receive any job-calls, letters or even emails (yes there was a time before Exchange Sync) since all of your "office inboxes" also where located in the @Office context. You could practically then only process them while already present in the @Offiec context. By the same reason most of them also where likely to remain remained as @Office items/tasks. By simply staying home or leaving your desk (where your phone where) you automatically also deferred all ”new stuff” until the next time you where there. Basically. By switching context, you could automatically adjust your priorities.

Today this is another story and something that seems to have been completely been forgotten. How do you compensate when this kind of natural auto prioritizing effect between your inboxes no longer exist? Maybe someone allready figured this out?

Maybe this is the exact opposite to the original problem contexts was supposed to fix. But today when the same information and tools are available at basically any device, phones, tablets or computer, I can´t really say that I find myself asking very often ”what can I do here”. It´s rather opposite as in ”what is it that I can´t do right here”.

I don´t spend much time on private stuff at my office so I´m not looking for a lesson here about professionalism or general priorities in life but I would like to know how handle cross role-based priorities between inboxes on a daily basis in order to come up with an effective cross-devices-processing-strategy that make sense over time without to much cognitive overhead.

As an consultant I usually gets a phone and computer from my clients during my assignments. Some things, like the phone number are fairly connected to that particular device. Same applies for softwares and digital workplaces etc. only accessible from that particular device but things like mail and many other things do not. Omnifocus and Evernote acts as my GTD hub, but due to the reasons above as well as customer NDA´s I can’t really forward client material to Evernote so much of my project and support information resides on a particular device.

So lets say now that I´m working with Client1on a particular day. I then get an urgent call from Client2 saying - ”We did just receive the new contract proposal. It´s in your (Client2) mailbox and you can review it next week when you are here again, but is this particular wording in sentence 8 section 4 ok with you?

Now? Since I right there without reading the entire contract with a simple yes or no answer can solve the ”Decide if new sentence in section 4 is ok - task”, thats what I do! Right?

However, by doing so when being in the wrong context I will not be able to connect this action to my current ongoing "!Finalize contract xyz” @Client2 residing in my Client2 OneNote server only accessible from my Client2 laptop. I could perhaps pop up my Client2 email account at my phone and move the email to the project folder in my Client2 mailbox or forward it to my Client2 OneNote account. But since I then not actually has clarified or organized the entire mail (that I already know has some remaining actions to handle) that not manageable.

If I on the other hand leaves the email unattended in the Client2 inbox i will on the other hand have to write down a very specific note in order to accuratly connect my recent decision about section 4 but. Also I must make sure that I have that note available when I process that original item in the Inbox since it otherwise not will make sense?

Let me also point out that a simple ”Talk to Joe about the project” or ”Review latest contract”-note noted down on a Post-it will not do the job for me in this case. I oversees perhaps 7-10 different projects for each client with 2-3 client and sometimes 1-5 different ongoing contracts revisions per project any note (if taken out of it´s original context) would have to be so specific in order to make sense later that just writing it down would be a project on it´s own.

So how are you supposed to handle different contexts within the actual GTD process itself? As before the Engage/Do part as in:

1. Capture - @Phone
2. Clarify - @Computer1
3. Organize - @Office1
4. Reflect - Computer2
5. Engage/Do - @Everywhere
 

ljmwaugh

Registered
I understand your delima here. I too have restrictions on company information being posted on external cloud sites. What I do is use a todo app that I can access from all of the places that might assign me work. Then I put in a comment on where to find the support materials which might be on any number of devices. That way I can see all of my next actions in one place. I have contexts set up when access to a certain device is required to acces the materials.
 
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