Ideal GTD folder sequence

PhillyBass

PhillyBass

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I am soliciting feedback for the proper ordering of GTD folders that I use in both a digital and a paper system. Do you agree with my ordering of folders, and if not, please comment on your thoughts as to why and what order folders should be sequenced. I presently believe that I have sorted my folders in order for most urgently needed to least.

Inbox
Essentials (Information I need to access very quickly)
Agendas
Waiting For
At-Phone
At-Computer
At-Errands
At-Office
At-Home
At-Anywhere
Active Projects
Future Projects (These are nearly ready to start)
Incubation (Someday/Maybe)
Project Support Material
Reference Material
Archives
 
PhillyBass said:
I am soliciting feedback for the proper ordering of GTD folders that I use in both a digital and a paper system. Do you agree with my ordering of folders, and if not, please comment on your thoughts as to why and what order folders should be sequenced. I presently believe that I have sorted my folders in order for most urgently needed to least.

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There is not a wrong answer. It's really up to you and what you need for you to be optimally engaged with whatever it is you are doing. The key thing is to adapt it as you use it and find out what works and what doesn't.

If you are organizing them by most urgent to least urgent, then cool. Try it out for a week or two and evaluate if the order works for you and/or if anything needs to be tweaked.
 
If I were ordering my contexts by any sense of urgency or importance, @computer and @anywhere would be at the top. That’s why you shouldn’t ask other people, but see what actually works well for you. This is not necessarily what you think should work well for you.
 
Me personally. I have removed office and anywhere. My office is at home now and most things any where are covered by the other contexts. I also only have Projects and Someday/maybe. But what ever gets things off your mind is good. I really went through and streamlined my process about 4 years ago. Here is an example of my apple notes. My agenda notes are under my @waiting for. I have just three. 1737117527853.png
 
PhillyBass said:
I am soliciting feedback for the proper ordering of GTD folders that I use in both a digital and a paper system. Do you agree with my ordering of folders, and if not, please comment on your thoughts as to why and what order folders should be sequenced. I presently believe that I have sorted my folders in order for most urgently needed to least.

Inbox
Essentials (Information I need to access very quickly)
Agendas
Waiting For
At-Phone
At-Computer
At-Errands
At-Office
At-Home
At-Anywhere
Active Projects
Future Projects (These are nearly ready to start) ()
Incubation (Someday/Maybe)
Project Support Material
Reference Material
Archives
Click to expand...
@PhillyBass

Thank you for your post

As possible feedback, understanding GTD 'sequencing' as nuance of Organize

Contexts: 'Auto-Digital' / Paper [same for digital?]

Projects / Project Support / Reference (Numerical and Alpha):
On this end, the immediate above GTD parameters are Organized according to Areas-of-Focus

Tickler, etc.


GTD Commentary:

Areas-of-Focus are Organized and corralled according to the following realities for extra ease, clarity, control, peace of soul:
INTRINSIC : Health Development (Corporeal-&-Spiritual)
INTERNAL : That which is extrinsically outside one's self while within one's 'domain control'
EXTERNAL : That which has been delegated, etc. and 'resides' outside of one's domain with next best alternatives for 'dynamic control'

etc.

As such, What is it ?

Clarifying: Intrinsic, Internal, External, Trash > < Areas-of-Focus, Next Action (Calendar / Context), etc.

The all important Weekly Review necessarily keeps everything dynamically crispy fresh clean-&-clear ?



Perhaps you too might surmise the following is the GTD essence of your post ?

Everyone has to ask himself . . . what is GTD appropriately necessarily to accomplish "mind like water" ?

On this end, as such, the above is what is GTD necessary for "mind like water"

The above 'extras' are seemingly GTD 'unnecessary' ? Perhaps so for the overwhelmingly vast, vast majority of GTD practitioners

After all is said and done, As long as whatever one chooses to GTD do is GTD manage-ably doable then all is GTD good:

The GTD point, the GTD purpose, and the GTD prize of GTD is "mind like water" ?


As you see GTD fit. . . .
 
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There is no wrong order. It's your system, make it work for you. Looks perfectly fine, if it works for you.

My own system is below, this works for me and it might not work for you / others.
  • Inbox (everything starts here, it's a folder)
  • Today (filter by due today / overdue)
And then I have contexts
  • agenda-person1
  • agenda-person2
  • agenda-person3
  • anywhere
  • calls
  • computer
  • errand
  • home
  • garden
  • read-watch
  • r&d
  • waiting-followup
  • recurring - this context helps me separate my habits / repeating items from the things that I have to do. I find this useful when these tasks show up in the "today" view above. I can delay / defer low value tasks if I choose to. Contains things like cleaning, grocery shopping, etc)

Then I have folders
  • Projects (inside is a folder per project with both next actions and plans)
  • Areas (inside is a folder per areas, each area folder contains next actions)
  • Tickler (dated tasks / nudges / things I want on a specific date)
  • Someday (inside is a folder per area, each area folder contains possible next actions / projects / ideas)
  • Reference (inside are lists - restaurants, books, movies, walks I want to do - just the "high touch" lists live here. All other lists are in a note taking app)
 
TesTeq said:
@Mark Aitken What tool do you use for folder/list management? Do you cut/paste Next Actions from Project/Area folders to Context folders or use some form of tagging?
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I'm using TickTick, I have had the same success in Todoist prior to this.
  • I use labels for my contexts above - I should have made that clearer.
  • In a project folder I have tasks.
  • When a task is a next action I give it a label and it shows up in that context.
  • I only label those items I will want to see between one weekly review and the next l that i expect to have capacity to move forward - that avoids me being greedy.
  • I use the weekly review to choose more tasks, define them, etc....
I tried a very pure gtd approach with folders for contexts, move tasks to the folder. This sort of worked but I missed and wanted to see the project it belongs to.

I would have loved that simplicity, but my brain didn't!

The second benefit I like is I know where to look to know what has been done for a project and still weds done. My projects run for months and I don't like having to over yhink to recall facts in the past.
 
Mark Aitken said:
Curious to know your own setup too? I know you are a long time GTDer :-)
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@Mark Aitken Yes, a long time GTDer indeed. I've read the GTD book in 2003 and attended both GTD Summits: in 2009 in San Francisco and in 2019 in Amsterdam. And here is my photo with @DavidAllen taken in Warsaw in 2008:

gtd2008.jpg​

In those days I was using Palm palmtops for GTD. Then Nokia smartphones (yes, there were real smartphones before iPhone and Android but without a touchscreen). Then the iPhone era has begun for me and I was using Nozbe and Things. Recently I've significantly reduced the number of my commitments and switched to a paper based system. It is a Bullet Journal but NOT used according to Ryder Carroll's instructions. My system is based on Alastair Johnston's ideas: https://alastairjohnston.com/tag/the-alastair-method/ .
Additionally I use iPhone Reminders for errands and iPhone Calendar for time-sensitive recurring and nonrecurring actions. It's very convenient that iPhone Calendar displays birthdays from iPhone Contacts app!
In the meantime I was testing TaskPaper for Mac. I love the idea of storing GTD lists in a text file but the user interface of this app is rather geeky. And there is no TaskPaper app for iPhone.
 
TesTeq said:
@Mark Aitken Yes, a long time GTDer indeed. I've read the GTD book in 2003 and attended both GTD Summits: in 2009 in San Francisco and in 2019 in Amsterdam. And here is my photo with @DavidAllen taken in Warsaw in 2008:


In those days I was using Palm palmtops for GTD. Then Nokia smartphones (yes, there were real smartphones before iPhone and Android but without a touchscreen). Then the iPhone era has begun for me and I was using Nozbe and Things. Recently I've significantly reduced the number of my commitments and switched to a paper based system. It is a Bullet Journal but NOT used according to Ryder Carroll's instructions. My system is based on Alastair Johnston's ideas: https://alastairjohnston.com/tag/the-alastair-method/ .
Additionally I use iPhone Reminders for errands and iPhone Calendar for time-sensitive recurring and nonrecurring actions. It's very convenient that iPhone Calendar displays birthdays from iPhone Contacts app!
In the meantime I was testing TaskPaper for Mac. I love the idea of storing GTD lists in a text file but the user interface of this app is rather geeky. And there is no TaskPaper app for iPhone.
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What an awesome photo and what an experience to meet the man with the plan.

I've not looked at that method before, thank you for sharing.

Yes similar here. My first device was a monochrome Palm (best list app ever in my humble view), PocketPC, then Nokia, now Android and I've not tried paper yet.

Half the fun is experimenting and learning, very grateful to all who shared their own experiences - makes this community come alive!
 
My entire system is inside Evernote where I use a combination of notebooks and tags.

Because I work from home, I don't use things like @Work or @Computer and I don't many phone calls, so there is no @Phone.

Besides my inbox, I have the following notebooks:
Personal Projects
Consulting Projects
Teaching
Archive - Work
Archive - Personal

I also use tags to identify tasks and next actions:
  • Now
  • Soon
  • Long-term
  • Someday/Maybe
  • Errands
  • Waiting For

I also use tags for agenda followup. As an example from when I had a regular 9-5:

  • Business Manager
  • Revenue Manager
  • Marketing Manager
    Etc.

Now that I spend most of time as a productivity coach and college instructor, I have a tag for each client.

Hope that helps.
 
The challenge I have is that a lot of my work files are company files that have to be stored on the company SharePoint, in our company's CRM or in Quickbooks. In practice, this represents more than half of the project support materials I use.

For stuff that's specific to me, I use Devonthink in the following format

Inbox - as the name implies
Archive - 99% of stuff gets put in here with at least 2 tags so I can find it easily. I find it saves time to just search for stuff rather than spend time moving files around into folders that I'll probably never use again.
Meetings - This is where I put minutes and papers for the meetings I attend, with each meeting getting a sub-folder or sub-sub-folder as neeed
Project Support - I use a script to make a folder in here that matches the name of the folder in Omnifocus and links the two via Hookmarks. Then everything about that project goes in the folder (meeting notes, drafts, project plans, etc). I have another script that moves unused folders in the Archive folder after a period of time, so it doesn't build up too much.
Support Tools - this contains a a series of checklists and a pile of boilerplate texts that I copy and paste a lot

For stuff that's stored elsewhere, like online places or my synced SharePoint files, I use either Alfred to find it quickly or Hookmarks to link it to whatever project it relates to.
 
PhillyBass said:
I am soliciting feedback for the proper ordering of GTD folders that I use in both a digital and a paper system. Do you agree with my ordering of folders, and if not, please comment on your thoughts as to why and what order folders should be sequenced. I presently believe that I have sorted my folders in order for most urgently needed to least.

Inbox
Essentials (Information I need to access very quickly)
Agendas
Waiting For
At-Phone
At-Computer
At-Errands
At-Office
At-Home
At-Anywhere
Active Projects
Future Projects (These are nearly ready to start)
Incubation (Someday/Maybe)
Project Support Material
Reference Material
Archives
Click to expand...

As others have said, order and configuration of your system is very personalized. In my experience, it really never stops evolving as your life and work evolve.

The best practices are basically:
  • Clearly separate actionable reminders from non-actionable information
  • Organize next actions by relevant contexts (physical, cognitive, or otherwise, but this is also personalized).
  • Have a list of all the outcomes you are committed to finish (projects)
  • Make the whole thing easy to maintain (quick to add, update, organize, and rearrange)
Despite trying numerous methods, I have always returned to alphabetical listings because I don't have to remember anything, alphabet is second nature.
 
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