active vs passive contexts

[sparkle]

Maybe a dedicated context for "time sensitive" items is a good idea, I think I will try it for a while. However, I should try to keep it as short as possible. It definitely seems to be a better idea than defining "fake" due times.

@Folke: I've never heard about the "white index card" (unfortunately, I've been reading the German translation of GTD). Can you point me to the chapter where it was mentioned?

@Oogiem: Didn't a new version of the book is in the works. Can you provide a link?

Thanks!

 

[CJSullivan]

Review, review, review. Hourly, daily, weekly... Whenever you have discretionary time... There is no point in having an "external brain" unless one is engaging with it... I find that I've eschewed most of the "autoreminders" and flags I've ever set in favour of reviewing my lists on a more frequent and consistent basis. It's just like searching your memory banks, except you don't miss as much! If I'm VERY swamped, I'll mainly review the context I'm in, but before the day is out I'm reviewing all my context lists, for the very reasons stated above - the ability to change contexts! I have free will. I'm not BOUND to my current context. But instead of doing a lot of pre-determining of priorities, I just review my options (and I'm talking ACTION lists, here - not project or someday/maybe lists, or the higher horizons) whenever I have a lull and see what grabs me. In other words, I do trust my intuition/gut/whatever, but only because I know I have a full inventory of next actions (because I've reviewed the higher horizons recently). Oh, and - yes - I do frequently jot down a "get done today" list, but it, too, gets reviewed and renegotiated as the day goes on.

 

[bcmyers2112]

Let's say you are full of energy and have one free day sitting at home, so you could easily switch your context "at home" into "at the store" actively. But how do you remember to do that?

If I'm home for a stretch and my car is available, then "errands" is an available context and I review it. It's that simple.

 

[sparkle]

Thanks bcmyers2112, I think you got the jackpot!

My wrong understanding was that you only have to look at the context you're already *in*, instead of look at all that are *availiable* (and only these ones, not the complete list of all contexts). Of course, when you have a free day and are full of energy as mentioned in the example, the list of available contexts can get rather huge, but that's how it is. ;-)

But that leads me to another question, I would call it "fuzzy dates":

I try to use due dates only for tasks that really need to be done at the specific date and cannot be post-poned one single day. How do you treat the following case:

Imagine, you need to clean your coffee machine every 4 weeks. So, today is Feb 06 meaning the next time you need to have it done will be March 06. But, you don't really need to do it on March 06 - especially if something unexpected more important occurs. You could also do it on March 07 or March 08 etc. However, if you post-pone it more and more (maybe some weeks), the coffee won't be tasty anymore and even get unhealthy.

What do you do about those "fuzzy dates"?

(BTW, thanks for the link, Oogiem!)

 

[cfoley]

It's not a hard deadline so it doesn't have a due date. I would put that one in the tickler file: "Coffee machine is ready for cleaning tomorrow", 6 days from now. When you process your tickler file put "Clean coffee machine" on your action lists. You'll either choose to do it some time or, if you don't, the world won't end.

Maybe eventually the taste will make you more likely to choose to clean the machine in the moment. The world still won't end if you don't.

However, maybe one day you will be expecting guests and don't want to be embarrassed by horrible coffee. Now you have a due by date!

 

[sparkle]

Just re-read the section in GTD. You may put 3 things in your calendar:

1. Things that need to be done at a specific time.
2. Things that need to be done at a specific date.
3. Information for a specific date.

Could you treat my coffee example as number 3? For example, you make an entry into you calendar: "Have you cleaned your coffee machine the last month?" This "information" would serve as a fallback if you haven't done important task of your contexts lists.

 

[Folke]

Well, obviously you can do what you like, but that is not what was intended. And I would never do that myself. I do it exactly the way cfoley says.

In what way is this task so important compared to all your other next actions that it would need special treatment? Or do you want to put artificial deadlines on everything?

The standard GTD approach is that next actions are all on an asap basis, and that you make the final selection as you go. That's it. No date planning at all - except for the "hard landscape", i.e. what has been agreed with others or has been laid down by others and accepted by you. I like it that way, and always have, and that is the main reason I joined the GTD camp in 2011 when I became aware of there being an established approach (GTD) that coincided with my own. Most apps and people seem to be date-based, and I have always felt uncomfortable with that as it wastes time and energy setting it up and adjusting all the phony dates, and it usually also makes the tasks more difficult to review (phony dates and real dates are mixed, and date based apps usually lack in other features that help you keep your stuff conveniently reviewable).

One thing you may want to try is make a note of when you put the action on your list - a "since date", as it were. I do that. manually. It helps me see during my rveiews for how long I have neglected the task. I have never seen an app that has a reliable "since date" as a feature, unfortunately. But mind you, there is not necessarily anything wrong with having tasks that have been neglected; it probably just means that you have had plenty of even better things to do.

 

[sparkle]

In what way is this task so important compared to all your other next actions that it would need special treatment? Or do you want to put artificial deadlines on everything?

The standard GTD approach is that next actions are all on an asap basis, and that you make the final selection as you go. That's it.

Thanks a lot! I think my misunderstanding was that I treated the context lists as a "list of options" I could do if I have some (free) time - not as list of things I have to do as soon as possible. However, there're still a lot of things that are more important than others (even a lot of "optional things"), but I guess this is where the "intuition" (as mentioned in the book) comes into play.

 

[Folke]

However, there're still a lot of things that are more important than others (even a lot of "optional things"), but I guess this is where the "intuition" (as mentioned in the book) comes into play.

Yes, certainly intuition is probably all you need when you are in a given situation and have the adequate tools to narrow down your choices accordingly (context, energy, whatever). You will then typically just have a modest number of actions (maybe a dozen) to choose from.

In addition, what I find useful is I mark my "not so urgent/important" tasks with a turquoise color bar on the left. This tells me it is safe to ignore all these in my morning review. 50% of my tasks are such. Conversely, I mark all the urgent/important ones with a red color bar. This tells me to never ignore these, but instead always reconsider whether I could and should change my context an energy etc and get started with it. On average, 10% of my tasks are red. The rest (40%) are blue ("normal").

This color systems helps me particularly during reviews of all kinds (daily, weekly etc), and for finding tasks to aim to get done today, but has only a smaller role to play in the finer task selection process during the day (finding additional tasks to do while in Situation X), where other factors (context, energy etc) usually have greater influence, and which is all resolved by the gut.

 

[Jodie E. Francis]

Re the coffee machine example -

In addition to my usual Tickler list, I have 2 related context/tickler lists - 'Household chores' and 'Desk chores'. The items here all have due dates and recur according to the frequency I've preset (weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, every 3 months, etc). 'Household chores' also has triggers for me to check that the kids have done their weekly chores. Whenever I'm in 'chore mode' I can very efficiently whip though the chores that are 'due'. If more important things occur, I ignore that context until time opens up.

This has been a wonderful tool to relieve my mind of the worry of remembering obscure chores, like when I last cleaned the aquarium, changed the furnace filter... or checked the inventory of toilet paper or shampoo in the kids' bathroom.

 

[Jodie E. Francis]

Review, review, review. Hourly, daily, weekly... Whenever you have discretionary time... There is no point in having an "external brain" unless one is engaging with it... I find that I've eschewed most of the "autoreminders" and flags I've ever set in favour of reviewing my lists on a more frequent and consistent basis. It's just like searching your memory banks, except you don't miss as much! If I'm VERY swamped, I'll mainly review the context I'm in, but before the day is out I'm reviewing all my context lists, for the very reasons stated above - the ability to change contexts! I have free will. I'm not BOUND to my current context. But instead of doing a lot of pre-determining of priorities, I just review my options (and I'm talking ACTION lists, here - not project or someday/maybe lists, or the higher horizons) whenever I have a lull and see what grabs me. In other words, I do trust my intuition/gut/whatever, but only because I know I have a full inventory of next actions (because I've reviewed the higher horizons recently). Oh, and - yes - I do frequently jot down a "get done today" list, but it, too, gets reviewed and renegotiated as the day goes on.

Thanks for this! I still struggle with stuff languishing on my lists, and a lingering fear that I will forget to do something there. They are next actions, they are tied to an area of focus or project, and now that I'm doing regular WR's I do see all the items weekly... but still many of them sit there, undone. I have tried various reminders and flags to bring them to the forefront through the week, but simply ignore those too LOL

I suspect I simply need to review my lists more regularly. Hmmm...

 

[BankableB]

Hi I’m new to the forum but not new to GTD. I don’t use tags at all; they take too much time to maintain and are prone to getting out of synch with my thinking. I use a Kanban board to manage my actions (didn’t see many references to Kanban on the forum, here in the Wikipedia entry explaining a bit about it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanban_(development) ). In the board, my rows are my contexts (I prefer the word “themes” to contexts), the columns outline my workflow. The board helps me visualize my work for the week.

I also don’t set priorities, not the A, B, C type anyway. I determine what I want to accomplish at the beginning of the week (done during my weekly review) and put it in my board. Everyday I select 3-4 things from that list that I want to do for that day and they become my high priority tasks for the day. I pull other tasks into the board as I work on them and keep track of things that are "in progress", "waiting for something", or are "done". As I go through my day, I add tasks to the board, or to my backlog, whichever is appropriate. Hope that helps.

 

[bcmyers2112]

Could you treat my coffee example as number 3? For example, you make an entry into you calendar: "Have you cleaned your coffee machine the last month?" This "information" would serve as a fallback if you haven't done important task of your contexts lists.

You could do this but I think it would be better to simply review your lists regularly and do things as appropriate. If something isn't getting done over a long period of time, you should consider whether it's all that important to you. If it's not, move it to your Someday maybe list or get rid of it altogether.

 

[bcmyers2112]

I think my misunderstanding was that I treated the context lists as a "list of options" I could do if I have some (free) time - not as list of things I have to do as soon as possible.

That wasn't a misunderstanding -- the idea behind next actions lists is that they are options to choose from in the moment. There's no reason to limit them to things you have to do -- it's a good idea to include "want to do" items as well. You don't always have the option of doing your highest priority tasks -- the right context, time, or available energy may not be available. So it's good to have other options at your disposal. Just because you don't *have* to do it doesn't mean it won't benefit you to do it.

 

[mcogilvie]

Imagine, you need to clean your coffee machine every 4 weeks. So, today is Feb 06 meaning the next time you need to have it done will be March 06. But, you don't really need to do it on March 06 - especially if something unexpected more important occurs. You could also do it on March 07 or March 08 etc. However, if you post-pone it more and more (maybe some weeks), the coffee won't be tasty anymore and even get unhealthy.

What do you do about those "fuzzy dates"?

Because you are using Omnifocus, you can set "clean coffee machine" as a recurring task that repeats 4 weeks after it is last checked off. It will then automagically appear then as just one more thing on your lists. If the desired behavior is not happening, you can set a deadline as well, say two weeks after that. I don't think this is a best practice, because it's not a hard deadline, but you do what you need to. There are other tricks in OF, like sorting your list by defer date, but frankly I think these are parlor tricks, unworthy of one who aspires to Jedi, er, GTD mastery.

You can do the same thing without Omnifocus using a tickler file: "clean coffee machine" goes on the list when it is tickled, and goes back in the tickler file for four weeks after it is done. With true mastery, the tools are hidden in plain sight.

 

[sparkle]

Hi mcogilvie,

that was exactly the way I did it before, but after having read all the tips here, I've reset the deadlines (because they are not "hard") and instead will review my contexts more often (not only the one I'm currently in, but all that are available). My calendar looks much cleaner now and I hope I won't miss anything important. ;-)

 

[Folke]

Sparkle, I think it is very good that you have gotten rid of "soft" deadlines and "soft appointments with yourself".

But a "tickle date" is something quite different. It tells you to keep this task entirely off your list until a date when it will be possible start considering it again. It has been irrelevant to even look at for some time, but will become a next action on that day, ready for daily reviewing, just like all your other next actions. The tickler date does not in any way mean that you will necessarily do the task on that day, only that you will not even look at it before that day. (If you are using an app, the feature you need to use for the "tickler" date is usually called "start date" or "scheduled date", but as long as you know how to use it, you will be OK.)

 

[Jonas Langeteig]

I use Microsoft Outlook to handle this.

I give all the tasks that needs to be done in a spesific date a "start date".

I have set up the To-Do bar in Microsoft Outlook to show only the tasks with start-date today or before today. So everyday all I need to check is my To-Do bar and my calendar which is in the same screen. If I have more time left I can move on to my "next action" list.

Got some good ideas on the setup from this book: http://www.amazon.com/Total-Workday...424467377&sr=8-1&keywords=linenberger+outlook