Excellent thread -- I always like the see more discussion around the tactical levels of GTD like this.
I have recently taken up a project to finalize (more or less) my GTD implementation.
I would suggest this is a mistake, but it'll either become clear to you in time that it's a mistake, or it won't, and you'll figure it out on your own.
1) Does the 2min rule also apply to processing?
Mmm, sort of. Basically in these sorts of cases I generally end up with a 'Figure out what this is' next action, but I can see how some people would just power through it.
I would guess it's related to when people engage in their processing. I usually treat it as a low-energy/feeling-dumb context, so if there's anything challenging in there, I want to defer it until some point when I'm feeling smarter. But there are probably people out there who do most of their processing when they're feeling smart, so it might make sense for them to tackle it in the moment.
2) Because sometimes I find myself naturally coming up with things and starting doing them
I think that's sort of the natural state of most people, and something GTD is explicitly-designed to steer us away from. It's not necessarily a bad way of doing things, but I'd personally keep a jaundiced eye on it.
3) Do you stick to the 2+ todos definition for projects in general ?... It's kind of an overkill
This is all about what the Projects list is really for -- what it does, what problem it solves. The problem it solves is: yay you've completed the last live Next Action for a project, and now the project doesn't really exist anywhere inside the GTD system any more. The List of Projects is a place for that project to continue living.
If your particular system and your particular project are such that there's always at least one Next Action for the project in the system, until the project is complete, then yeah, it doesn't need to also live on a different list. (Okay, it might also live on in Waiting For, which is a pretty common pattern, but you get the idea here.)
4) Related to 3: do you apply the 2+ todo definition to sub-projects ?
I'm not sure what you mean by sub-projects here, but maybe I've said enough already.
5) When organizing a project, how many next-actions do you flesh out for it ? I mena do you just flesh out the next action or a whole project plan ? it's to know how much "low-level" in terms of actions one should go ? Some people go down to as low as "hand paper to HR department", while others think they will anyway do that intuitively. I'd love to have your opinion on how to judge, for each project, how much low-level you need to go in fleshing out the next-actions for it
The resolution and scope of a single Next Action is very personalized, maybe moreso than any other part of GTD. The thing I personally tend to keep an eye on is dwell time -- how long has this NA been sitting around in the system? If it feels like 'too long', then the solution is almost always to decompose it further. But it's going to be pretty different for everyone.
6) I've found that using a digital form of the tickler can help main quite a lot of things in order. For household chores, I have a system where I schedule cleaning stuff on predetermined frequencies, I wonder if anyone is doing something similar ? If yes, any advice ? This touches on a bigger probelm: that of punctual tasks. Some tasks are inherently punctual, in the sense that they are done for a small moment but CANNOT or SHOULD NOT be done again before some time, but still need to be done regularly enough. Think of taking out the trash. The thing is, you can trust you will when these tasks need to be done, but amid all the other stuff, do you actually want to remember-to-remember them ? What are your thoughts ?
I haven't really run into this with a non-digital Bring Forward file, so possibly the tool is making things harder on you than they need to be.
7) What's your advice on bypassing the inbox for some stuff ? Take "Buy chocolate mousse" for example. You need to be out and about for that, if you remember it, isn't it better to directly put that on the "errands" list instead of putting it on the inbox
Yeah, that's probably fine. I mean, the first inbox that we all have is inside our heads, right. GTD doesn't really recommend processing that as an inbox directly, but I wouldn't call it inherently-problematic.
9 ) Do you ever keep "optional" tasks on the context lists ?
Hmmm. Every NA is optional, really, so I wouldn't worry too much about this sort of thing, I don't think.
Cheers,
Roger