Thoughts about keeping working modes separate

[Julie Jones]

GTD talks about keeping working modes separate (capture, clarify, organize, reflect, engage), and shows how this leads to more efficient use of time and the ability to get more done. I would like to start a discussion based on my observations from personal GTD use and extensive reading about the subject.

Engage - it is very easy to see how choosing one action from the Next Actions list and working on it to completion with no distractions will be the most effective way to get things done. The one exception is when an idea pops into your head during that work and you want to follow the rule of capture everything as soon as it occurs to you. I believe that the most efficient way to do that is with some sort of voice capture. The simpler the better, and the idea is to just capture the idea and not think about it in any other way. (For me, "Hey Siri, email nirvana my new idea" does the trick.) If the capture is quick and requires no real thought it doesn't distract from the current action being done.

Capture - @DavidAllen talks about this at length, especially when he discussed doing an initial capture with his clients and how there is a huge tendency to start to sort physical things or do something more than just collect. I have seen something similar when reviewing various tools and seeing comments about how some customers are very vocal about wanting a tool that allows them to capture an item with all kinds of additional information using a natural language.
For example: new task do something area:school context:computer due date:10-22-2022.
My belief is that this make capturing take longer, and if you are in the middle of doing something else, capturing with additional information is more likely to make your mind switch gears.

Reflecting - I don't have an very specific thoughts, except that during a weekly review some of the steps should be kept separate and done as quickly as possible because they are just work modes in the context of a review.

Clarifying - I understand clarifying from the perspective of emptying the inbox quickly and not spending more than 2 minutes on any one item. I wonder about the project loop on the GTD workflow processing diagram. What is the clarifying part and what is the organizing part.



Organizing - This is what I have been pondering the most and would really like to hear everyone's opinions about. Looking at the advanced workflow diagram,


one can see how the lines are drawn between clarifying and organizing. It seems like clarifying is putting items in the correct organizational bucket. Normally, people talked about organizing something, say a silverware drawer, they mean putting the items in the correct section of the drawer.

If clarifying is already putting things in the correct "category" then what is the definition of the organizing step?
Am I right in thinking that it is adding more information after the sorting is complete?
My current thought after rereading GTD and Making it all work, is that clarify is to decide what it is and which category it belongs to quickly to empty the inbox and that organizing it is the more detailed process of adding contexts, notes, deciding which area, whether it needs a due date, etc.?
Then my brain starts thinking that part of a review is looking at everything and deciding if all the information is still correct (verifying the organization).
I seem to just get caught in a big mental loop. I could be overthinking it, but as a software engineer that is how my mind works. (What would my perfect GTD app look like?)

So that leaves me with the question of how to draw a concrete line between clarifying and organizing.

 

[DKPhoto]

Clarifying is the “What is it?” and “What is a successful outcome?” part. Organising is deciding the Next Action and the putting it in the right place part. IMO.

I’ve not seen your second diagram before which seems to confuse this, but is does seem very busy.

K

 

[kelstarrising]

So that leaves me with the question of how to draw a concrete line between clarifying and organizing.

These are often done in quick succession, so they can sometimes feel like the same step. But they are distinctly different in what you do. Clarify is deciding. Organizing is choosing a place to track that decision. I wouldn’t worry so much about drawing a concrete line between them as much as making sure you are not skipping the clarify stage (which is a common thing people do, which leads to organized lists of unclarified stuff that they then procrastinate on and wonder why).

 

[Julie Jones]

So that leaves me with the question of how to draw a concrete line between clarifying and organizing.

These are often done in quick succession, so they can sometimes feel like the same step. But they are distinctly different in what you do. Clarify is deciding. Organizing is choosing a place to track that decision. I wouldn’t worry so much about drawing a concrete line between them as much as making sure you are not skipping the clarify stage (which is a common thing people do, which leads to organized lists of unclarified stuff that they then procrastinate on and wonder why).

What you said seems backwards to me and I feel more confused.

Given that I use nirvana, clarify to me is open the inbox and empty it by dragging each item to the correct list, or doing it in less than two minutes. When I am done clarifying I believe everything is on the correct list.

When you refer to organized lists of unclarified stuff I can't understand what you mean. If I follow the GTD decision tree for clarify (which is the original workflow diagram above) then how can I end up with unclarified stuff?

Looking at it another way, I though that clarifying was deciding what it is, is it actionable, and which list it belongs on and putting it there. If putting it on the list is not part of clarifying and instead part of organizing then I can't empty my inbox during the clarify process without interjecting an organizing step for each item.

I'm sure I'll have more insight after I watch the latest GTD connect video about clarifying vs organizing.

 

[TesTeq]

Given that I use nirvana, clarify to me is open the inbox and empty it by dragging each item to the correct list, or doing it in less than two minutes. When I am done clarifying I believe everything is on the correct list.

@julie777 If you drag items from your inbox to your lists you organize them. And it can mean one of two things:
Everything in your inbox is already clarified (you were clarifying during capture).
You are dragging unclarified stuff from your inbox to your lists and you end up with organized lists of unclarified stuff mentioned by @kelstarrising.

 

[Gardener]

@julie777 If you drag items from your inbox to your lists you organize them. And it can mean one of two things:
Everything in your inbox is already clarified (you were clarifying during capture).
You are dragging unclarified stuff from your inbox to your lists and you end up with organized lists of unclarified stuff mentioned by @kelstarrising.

I always need examples for this sort of thing. I'm going to give a long example of what I THINK is meant by clarifying, and see if people tell me that, no, that's wrong.

Let's say that my Inbox has these items, all hurriedly typed while doing other things, all of them related to my vegetable garden:

Grow carrots
First cole crop?
Fertilize roses
Dryfarm spacing

I sit down to...do stuff with them. Clarify and organize. I think.

I look at "grow carrots". I put this in my inbox in a flurry of ambition, but when I see it I realize that, no, I will not be growing carrots this year. There's just too much other stuff to do. So I just delete it.

"First cole crop". This is a bit further down the planning road than "grow carrots". I have already decided that in summer/fall of 2022 I'm going to add ONE crop to the usual set. And that it's going to be a cole crop. (Cauliflower or brussels sprouts or broccoli or kale or...) I look at "First cole crop?" and decide that it's a project:

Project: Choose the first cole crop
Next Action: Research sprouting cauliflower.

I create that project and that action. Done.

Now, "fertilize roses". Do I have appropriate fertilizer? Is this enough steps to count as a project? I generally assume that when in doubt about that question, the answer is yes.

Project: Fertilize Roses
Next Action: See if that flowery bag on the farm shelves is appropriate.

Now, "dryfarm spacing". What...did I mean here? What DID I mean here? I know what dryfarm spacing means, but what was I going to do about it? I'll puzzle over this for a minute or two and then delete it, resolving to add a little more detail when I put things in my inbox in the future.

So I believe that stuff is both clarified and organized.

Now, it might get RE organized when I move on with my review. I might realize that I also have a project for "fertilize asparagus" and "fertilize blackcurrants" and I might reorganize that into "fertilize perennials".

But for now, those Inbox items are clarified and organized.

I think.

 

[mcogilvie]

What you said seems backwards to me and I feel more confused.

Given that I use nirvana, clarify to me is open the inbox and empty it by dragging each item to the correct list, or doing it in less than two minutes. When I am done clarifying I believe everything is on the correct list.

When you refer to organized lists of unclarified stuff I can't understand what you mean. If I follow the GTD decision tree for clarify (which is the original workflow diagram above) then how can I end up with unclarified stuff?

Looking at it another way, I though that clarifying was deciding what it is, is it actionable, and which list it belongs on and putting it there. If putting it on the list is not part of clarifying and instead part of organizing then I can't empty my inbox during the clarify process without interjecting an organizing step for each item.

I'm sure I'll have more insight after I watch the latest GTD connect video about clarifying vs organizing.

Here’s another example. You get email with medical billing information. You think your health insurance should cover the bill, but you’re not sure. What do you do? Most people, if they know how, will drag that email over to their @desk list. That”s organizing. Then for the next four weeks, they stare at the title: “Billing information for October 2021” from Unknown Caller Billing Services. That’s not clarified. Clarifying is figuring out what it means and determining what to do next: “Look up the phone number of Unknown Caller.”

 

[Julie Jones]

Here’s another example. You get email with medical billing information. You think your health insurance should cover the bill, but you’re not sure. What do you do? Most people, if they know how, will drag that email over to their @desk list. That”s organizing. Then for the next four weeks, they stare at the title: “Billing information for October 2021” from Unknown Caller Billing Services. That’s not clarified. Clarifying is figuring out what it means and determining what to do next: “Look up the phone number of Unknown Caller.”

First, I have @action and @waiting folders for email. I use those like you would imagine for simple request/response.
For email that requires more than a reply I send the email to Nirvana where it arrives in the inbox.

In my earlier example I simplified some when I said I clarify by dragging items to appropriate lists. That is what I do for many items because when I captured them I created an inbox item that was actionable such as "call the eye doctor and make an appointment"

For inbox stuff that isn't titled correctly such as "dentist", I will remember that I was thinking about a painful tooth and will change the title to "call and make an appointment with the dentist for my tooth pain" before dragging it to Next Actions.

I often change the title before adding the item to the correct list. I ask myself "what is it?" and "is it actionable?" and then change the title to change it to a physical action for next actions, to a desired outcome if I am going to make it a project, or whatever seems appropriate if it is a reference item. In all cases I am deciding what it is and what to do next.

What I am not doing currently as part of clarifying is adding a bunch of detailed notes, tags, context, area, time and effort. I am trying to avoid any deep thought about the item that would prevent me from quickly deciding what it is and where it belongs. This does mean that some items go into next actions and later might be changed to have a start date, and projects are alway created as active, but I might later defer them by adding a start date or move them to someday.

Does my approach sound reasonable?

 

[mcogilvie]

What I am not doing currently as part of clarifying is adding a bunch of detailed notes, tags, context, area, time and effort. I am trying to avoid any deep thought about the item that would prevent me from quickly deciding what it is and where it belongs. This does mean that some items go into next actions and later might be changed to have a start date, and projects are alway created as active, but I might later defer them by adding a start date or move them to someday.

Does my approach sound reasonable?

If your needs are simple enough, you can get away with a handful of lists: next actions, projects, agendas, waiting for and someday maybe. Contexts are useful to me, but time and effort aren’t worth the time and effort for me to use. I don’t find Nirvana to have a strong sense of place, so maybe not using areas is ok. The questions only you can answer is “Am I seeing what I need or want to see when it’s appropriate? Am I getting the right things done?” If that’s happening, roll with it.

 

[TesTeq]

"First cole crop". This is a bit further down the planning road than "grow carrots". I have already decided that in summer/fall of 2022 I'm going to add ONE crop to the usual set. And that it's going to be a cole crop. (Cauliflower or brussels sprouts or broccoli or kale or...) I look at "First cole crop?" and decide that it's a project:

Project: Choose the first cole crop
Next Action: Research sprouting cauliflower.

I create that project and that action. Done.

@Gardener Thank you! It's a perfect example of the "clarify then organize" GTD workflow!

Here’s another example. You get email with medical billing information. You think your health insurance should cover the bill, but you’re not sure. What do you do? Most people, if they know how, will drag that email over to their @desk list. That”s organizing. Then for the next four weeks, they stare at the title: “Billing information for October 2021” from Unknown Caller Billing Services. That’s not clarified. Clarifying is figuring out what it means and determining what to do next: “Look up the phone number of Unknown Caller.”

@mcogilvie A great example of organization without clarification.

 

[Oogiem]

If clarifying is already putting things in the correct "category" then what is the definition of the organizing step?

Clarify is deciding what the item really means. It has little to nothing about where it ends up but what you think is important about that item.

clarify is to decide what it is and which category it belongs to quickly to empty the inbox and that organizing it is the more detailed process of adding contexts, notes, deciding which area, whether it needs a due date, etc.?

Not for me at all. If I did that I'd end up with a horrible mishmash of junk in my list manager. Clarify can take a long time for some items. Deciding which context an action belongs in is the final result and happens long after the clarifying piece.

 

[OF user]

The clarify step forces you to think deliberately about what you are doing. When you first start GTD, if you just begin processing your inbox by just moving things everywhere, you tend to defer most items to a next actions list before you are finished thinking about them.

 

[Julie Jones]

My Conclusion

When I started this topic, I was struggling with the notion that each of the 5 steps of mastering workflow for GTD should be kept separate, and that focusing on one at a time was the best and most efficient way to succeed with GTD. My issue was that based on current tools and writings that clarifying and organizing had no obvious dividing line.

In my attempt to clarify the difference between organizing and clarifying, I have reread all of David Allen's books and many of his other writings. I have taken into account thoughts by @kelstarrising about clarify/organize micro steps. I have been working on cleaning up my OneNote notebooks prompted by discussion with @Roman (German speaking) .

This is probably too long, but it is a reflection on about 15 years of attempting to use GTD and how I still keep finding that I can always improve my understanding and implementation. I recently started trying to coach a couple others, and as always happens, teaching prompts a much deeper learning.

(As an aside, I found that in this rereading of everything that "Making It All Work" by David Allen was very illuminating and I encourage everyone who hasn't read it to do so.)

I have finally come to a conclusion that makes sense to me.

Change
As @DavidAllen has said many times GTD is not static. You will change your system many times based on your experience level, current needs and changes in the available tools. That has certainly been my experience in the last 20 years.

1. I never found any GTD tools 20 years ago, but there was useful software for managing parts of my system. I used email, and lists of some form, but now I use Nirvana and OneNote.
2. I never used paper for my lists, because a computer was easier, but I started with file cabinets full of reference material. That has changed to most of my reference material is digital now.
3. DA writings originally seemed to really focus on using paper for lists. I'll talk about that more further down the list.
4. Now 20 years later, with smart phones being ubiquitous and everything connect by the cloud, I can't imagine why anyone would use a paper calendar. Having your calendar with you at all times is almost a requirement. Similarly, having your next actions with you so that you can quickly check for errands to do before you head home is an obvious benefit.

Clarifying
When writing about processing the paper inbox, David Allen talks about processing (now clarifying) as determining what it is, where it goes and what the next action is given there is one.
Then

• Clarify - In my new understanding, I visualize taking each item (piece of paper) from the inbox, making the what, where and how decisions about it. Scribbling notes on the paper and putting it in a set of new piles: trash, reference, support material, delegate, projects, next actions.
• Organize - now taking each of the piles from the previous step, proceed to file each appropriately in the correct place, creating new reference files, new project lists as necessary and sorting next actions by context and putting them on the correct next actions/context list.
• This now makes sense to me as clarifying and organizing are truly separate steps and work is in different modes.

Now

• However, things have change significantly in terms of software since then. Making a bunch of paper lists and keeping them up-to-date is extra work. With tools a project action can be in the project list and the next actions list simultaneously. If one of my inbox items needs to become a project it take almost no time to turn it into a project while clarifying. This leads to the idea as @kelstarrising said that clarifying is now a micro cycle of remove the item from the inbox, clarify it adding necessary information, and then putting in the correct place (organizing).
• My thought is that instead of talking about micro cycles, that the definition of clarification has just expanded slightly. The paper reference material from the inbox still ends up in a reference pile until the inbox is empty. Then I move to organizing and file references creating new folders as necessary. But the clarifying that on paper would consist of adding details to the original piece of paper such as context, time, effort, notes, etc. and then using that information during organizing is just part of clarifying now because the act of adding that information to the digital inbox item in a software package for GTD automatically does the "putting it in the correct place".

Organizing
So what is organizing, and how is it different than planning or other things you do during the Reflect step?

• This is where my actions based on my conversation with @Roman (German speaking) Provided clarification. I started looking through my OneNote notebooks, which I starting using for GTD long before I had any other GTD tools. I noticed how the way I do things has changed. I started reorganizing notebooks, and sections. I now send receipts directly to OneNote from all sources (paper, web pages, email).
• Organizing as @DavidAllen has stated is making sure you have the correct place for everything and having everything in the correct place. You still have to take time and make sure you are creating the correct places, email folder, OneNote notebooks and section, filing cabinet folders, a place on the bookshelf for magazines and books to read. You have to maintain those places and reorganize as necessary. This is a very different thought process than reflecting about the meaning of life or anything else in your GTD system. It is a different kind of creativity. It is still a large task that needs to be done separately from clarifying.

Reflecting

• The previous thought led me to thinking about how I was viewing reviews wrong. I was thinking of reflect = review and that is definitely not the case. (I am amazed how much I still have to learn about GTD after almost 20 years of trying to use it. Trying to teach a couple others has be huge, both in terms of motivation, and it terms of my striving to learn more.)
• Reflecting is one of the things you need to do during a review. Take an hour and just sit and ponder something about a project, about you vision, your work goals, etc. Be creative in your thinking by giving it special time.

Reviews

• After all the above, I still believe that reviews are extremely important! Why? Because they are the one time when you go through every step of the GTD process and focus on that step in sequence as part of the whole.
• Weekly review
  • Capture anything outstanding
  • Empty all your inboxes by clarifying
  • Check your organization by reviewing projects, support materials, all your lists, etc.
  • Spend some time reflecting on whatever is important now and for this review.
  • Get back to engaging.

Happy GTDing!

 

[Torkheem]

Had a similar experience using it for work and side projects. For me, quick capture is key — sometimes just a short voice note on my phone so I don’t lose focus. At work we tested a cloud call center system, and it actually helped with GTD too — calls, tasks, and follow‑ups were all easier to manage without breaking workflow.

 

[achieve]

In my recent use of GTD, I’ve had two key realizations about the Clarify phase:

First, the level of detail in a task’s description isn’t what’s most important. It doesn’t really matter if it’s as granular as “Move file A to folder B” or as broad as “Write the first chapter of the paper on Topic A.” What truly matters is that when you read it, you know exactly what to do next and don’t get stuck.

If a task’s description meets this standard, it doesn’t need further clarification. If not, you need to think more deeply and break down the information you’ve collected to identify the specific next action. This process is Clarifying.

Second, where you categorize a task isn’t that important either. Its role as a visual trigger is the key point. (After all, it doesn’t help if you write a note down and hide it in a drawer, or keep a digital note app minimized.)That is, you need to see the description of that task at the right time and place for it to serve as a reminder.

 

[Bill Myers]

Unknown Caller

"Unknown Caller Incorporated."

"Hi. With whom am I speaking?"

"I don't know."

"..."

"Seriously?"

 

[Sarahsuccess]

What truly matters is that when you read it, you know exactly what to do next and don’t get stuck.

I agree. Some of the posts in 2021 jumped from asking “is it actionable?” to placing the captured item into a context. They skipped asking “What is the next action?” This isn’t always obvious.

 

[schmeggahead]

First, the level of detail in a task’s description isn’t what’s most important. It doesn’t really matter if it’s as granular as “Move file A to folder B” or as broad as “Write the first chapter of the paper on Topic A.” What truly matters is that when you read it, you know exactly what to do next and don’t get stuck.

If a task’s description meets this standard, it doesn’t need further clarification. If not, you need to think more deeply and break down the information you’ve collected to identify the specific next action. This process is Clarifying.

This is helpful. What I missed in some task descriptions was that they didn't make sense outside of the context of where my thinking was at the time I wrote the action description. They didn't stand alone.

I know exactly what to do to complete the task when I wrote it. Two weeks later was another story.

What helped me with this was creating an organize folder and putting items that were clarified into that folder and continue with the next inbox item until I had handled all of them. I would return to the organize folder and read the task description again to determine where I wanted to see that reminder. Since I had intervening focus and context, some needed to be enhanced so I understood them more easily.

In essence, I created a future self to test read the next actions for usefulness.

I don't have to do this process now because I rarely don't understand an action. When it does start happening again, I can return to this practice and fill in my skills gaps.

Thanks for your view of clarifying. It is helpful.
Clayton.

On a clear day, you can see forever and ever and ever and ever ... and you'll see who you are. - Barbra Streisand

 

[achieve]

This is helpful. What I missed in some task descriptions was that they didn't make sense outside of the context of where my thinking was at the time I wrote the action description. They didn't stand alone.

I know exactly what to do to complete the task when I wrote it. Two weeks later was another story.

What helped me with this was creating an organize folder and putting items that were clarified into that folder and continue with the next inbox item until I had handled all of them. I would return to the organize folder and read the task description again to determine where I wanted to see that reminder. Since I had intervening focus and context, some needed to be enhanced so I understood them more easily.

In essence, I created a future self to test read the next actions for usefulness.

I don't have to do this process now because I rarely don't understand an action. When it does start happening again, I can return to this practice and fill in my skills gaps.

Thanks for your view of clarifying. It is helpful.
Clayton.

On a clear day, you can see forever and ever and ever and ever ... and you'll see who you are. - Barbra Streisand

Thank you so much for your kind words and for sharing your own insightful experience! It’s incredibly validating to hear that my perspective resonated with you.

What you described about a task not making sense outside its original context is something I've struggled with as well, and your solution for it is brilliant. The concept of "creating a future self to test read the next actions" is a perfect way to phrase it. That’s a practice I’ve adopted through a similar logic.

In fact, my entire journey into this deeper level of analysis started from a single point of friction: noticing that some of my tasks would sit on my list for over a week without being touched. I became determined to understand their common characteristics.

This led me to two further primary realizations:

1. Mental Vagueness Solidifies into an Action Blocker. My initial understanding of "Loss of Context" was that I simply forgot details. But I realized the problem often starts earlier, with a task that was never fully clarified to begin with. For example, I wrote "Archive John's form." At that moment, I was dealing with several of his paper forms and a couple of digital ones. I had a vague recollection that one of the digital forms needed to be modified before archiving, but I wasn't entirely sure which one. A few days later, that initial mental fog had completely solidified into a wall of inaction. This taught me that the Clarify step is also about resolving any mental fuzziness before it becomes a task.
2. Overcoming High-Friction with an Action Window. Other tasks stalled due to a potent mix of practical difficulty and emotional reluctance. For instance, I had a task: "Check with senior leader Sarah about the XX matter." The senior leader was often out of their office, which was far from my desk, and I felt anxious about the conversation. My breakthrough was realizing that delaying the task wouldn't reduce this cost. So, I began to consciously identify an "action window"—for example, "Tuesday afternoon." Within that window, I would commit to paying whatever price was necessary to get it done, whether that meant asking a colleague about her availability or making multiple trips. By acknowledging the inevitable cost and containing it within a specific timeframe, I created a sense of necessity powerful enough to override the anxiety.

Interestingly, this entire analytical process was triggered by a challenge to GTD itself. I saw a programmer in another thread argue that for complex, high-intellect work like coding, GTD is unnecessary—he felt it was mainly for trivial tasks.

His post lodged itself in my mind and became the very lens through which I began to re-examine my own stalled tasks. I had long wrestled with the question of task granularity—how detailed is too detailed, versus how vague is too vague? Some people seem to break tasks down into infinite sub-steps, which feels like bureaucratic overhead, while overly broad tasks offer no guidance. The programmer’s critique gave me a new way to approach this dilemma. It led me to realize:he was right that a Next Action like "Modify function A" is useless. But the real question isn't whether GTD is "for" complex work; it's that the value of GTD is entirely determined by your own cognition. It's a game of predicting exactly what kind of reminder your future self will need to get unstuck. There is always some task description that will be useful when you need it. The true art of GTD is figuring out what that is. It really is like having a dialogue with your future self.

This whole line of thinking reinforces my other key realization, something I learned firsthand when transitioning from paper notebooks to digital tools like Obsidian. With a paper notebook open on my desk, my tasks were a constant, passive reminder; they were simply there, always visible. When I moved to a digital system, I found that if the app was minimized or I hadn't scrolled to the right list, the tasks would disappear from my sight, and subtly, from my mind. The anxiety, however, remained. I would feel a low-grade stress without even knowing its source, until I finally reopened the app and saw the task description again. By then, the window of opportunity was often gone. The leader I needed to consult could be unpredictably away from their desk or on a business trip. Or, I'd finally stumble upon the task late at night, when calling was out of the question and even sending a message felt intrusive. I was forced to wait for the next day, or sometimes indefinitely, stuck without knowing the next certain time or place to connect.

This experience taught me that where you categorize a task is secondary to whether you’ll see it at the right time, or simply, all the time. It confirmed that a task's role as a visual trigger is the most critical point. It makes me wonder if future tools like AR glasses could offer the ultimate solution, projecting private, context-aware digital notes onto our real world at virtually no cost. The Clarify step is about crafting the perfect message for your future self. The Organize step is the crucial second half of that "dialogue"—it’s about creating the perfect system to ensure that message gets delivered and seen, whether that’s precisely at the right moment or persistently in your line of sight. Without that effective delivery, even the most perfectly clarified task is just a hidden source of stress.

Thanks again for sharing your process. It’s discussions like these that truly enrich our GTD practice.

 

[schmeggahead]

The true art of GTD is figuring out what that is. It really is like having a dialogue with your future self.

There was a quote in the weekly review reminder email years ago that describes the weekly review that I put on a post it and attached it to my weekly review card: "A real meeting with a real assistant where I delegate everything to my assistant. I am very clear what they need to do with specific tasks to accomplish, tasks I can review the following week."

This experience taught me that where you categorize a task is secondary to whether you’ll see it at the right time, or simply, all the time. It confirmed that a task's role as a visual trigger is the most critical point.

Placing reminders where you know you will see them when you can do something about them is a key GTD skillset. Part of creating a functioning GTD system is looking at the review portion of the methodology as the need for habits and integration into daily life. Reminders have to have an integration point in our regular activities. Otherwise, the reminders are not functional.

Incidentally, I have abandoned calling next actions "tasks" and prefer actions or reminders. Their function is not to be a task. Their function is a reminder to take action.

Interestingly, this entire analytical process was triggered by a challenge to GTD itself. I saw a programmer in another thread argue that for complex, high-intellect work like coding, GTD is unnecessary—he felt it was mainly for trivial tasks.

I'm thinking of "don't sweat the small stuff and it's all small stuff" while reading this.
David Allen basically said handle everything that has your attention. There is no "judge the importance or complexity" before deciding what something means to you and what you are going to do about it, if anything.

The little stuff grabs your attention more than the big stuff, true.
But any big or complex stuff that is out of sync with what it means to you will not be addressed properly or completely.

Taking the trivial tasks out of your mind increases focus. Getting it all out of your head into your system creates laser focus.

Other tasks stalled due to a potent mix of practical difficulty and emotional reluctance. For instance, I had a task: "Check with senior leader Sarah about the XX matter." The senior leader was often out of their office, which was far from my desk, and I felt anxious about the conversation. My breakthrough was realizing that delaying the task wouldn't reduce this cost.

I would assert that it actually increased the cost commensurate with the delay.
On this line of thinking, I had difficulty with clarifying inbox items and my eye would go to the next item in the inbox and do the ones that were easier to clarify. This left stubborn ones in the inbox and avoidance behavior was enhanced.

I wrote a vision of clarity: I finish the thinking on each time to allow it to rest comfortably in my system, ready for action, added to the possibilities, or concisely declined. I am focused on what I can do with clear visualization and effective planning. I expand my resources to enable the clarity.

This helped.
Then I read about an associate of David witnessing him calmly taking the top item from the inbox and processing it calmly with no distractions or interest in what else was in the inbox. Everything else can wait.

Now I had a picture in my head of what that looked and felt like to do.
No more cherry picking, no more moving away from an item I have decided to clarify.

Lots of good stuff in your post I didn't comment on. Learning lots.
Clayton.

_eat more fruits and vegetables, move every day, and don't eat too many sweets._ - Grandma