Someday AND Maybe
I have a huge volume of next actions as well so I have a "Someday" list that includes Projects and Next Actions that MUST be done, but not necessarily this week. Then I have a separate Maybe list that is all that other stuff that David refers to most typically. It has those things that are both optional, as well as "dreamer" stuff.
The content of my NA and Active Projects list is ALWAYS something I either must do this week, or feel that I can or want to squeeze into this week.
As a result, I tend to move things on and off the Someday list more frequently then others do, but I have a HUGE list of things that I will do "someday", but I'm able to focus on a week to week basis on what I need to.
As the week goes on and things change, I often have to recalibrate and move things from someday onto NA, but this is easily done because of the rigour of the weekly review.
WRT the whole context thing, I have a similar problem so I have the following contexts that others might roll up into @Computer:
@Online (requires that I'm online, but not
@VPN (where I'm VPN'd into corporate via my laptop.... typically I don't like to do dev where I'm dependent on lots of db network activity like this)
@Devbox (desktop highly crafted toward development productivity, 1Gig net connection to servers, 2 LCDs, 2G ram, etc.)
@Solaris (needs to be done on my sun dev box, too painful to do via SSH or VNC as it's an older box)
@Computer (what I can do on my laptop while disconnected)
Yours will surely look quite different, I did some previous contexts that were more along the lines of the kind of activity because of the way our source control was done with ClearCase, but we're no longer having that issue, so it didn't matter to me.
One last thing I do. . . I tag actions and projects with a role, which is basically a grouping to segment the different groups I interact with and in turn play a specific role. On the development side, I have roles that coorespond to the product or customer. This helps me to quickly print out the current project and NA lists along with the Someday'd list for that customer. So when I walk into a meeting I can show them what's going on this week, and what's a candidate for next week, etc., all specific to them. As a plus for me, I can show them what I've got "@Waiting for" from them and others. In certain cases, this gives the execs the amunition they need and the project managers the info they need.
Have fun!
Mike