Hi everyone. First time caller, long time listener, ya know the drill. I’m a full time college student and am about to leave one job and am starting a new one this week. I also do some photography ([shameless plug] part of the new Nikon D80 as campaign [/shameless plug]) and just have a lot going on, as many of you do too. So I have a few questions, and I hope that by just going over my system and what I’m doing some of you might be able to offer some suggestions. I’m going to list my contexts, projects, and the problems I’ve been running into. I know when I see someone else’s implementation I gain something, so maybe this can help someone else as well. Also, most of these pertain to the kGTD/iCal system; so sorry if this isn’t relevant to a lot of how you guys and gals operate. Ok, so here it is:
My contexts:
@LUMINATIONS [for work I do at the internship office]
@SOMEDAY/MAYBE [use this a lot]
@CAMPUS
@ONLINE [any internet connection anywhere]
@WAITING ON
@POWERBOOK ONLINE [have my comp, but don’t want to be distracted by www]
@POWERBOOK OFFLINE
@READ
@FITNESS [at the gym, at basketball game, at tennis, etc.]
@CITY BELT [at billable hours for newsmagazine, on the road, at my desk, anywhere I am billing]
@ERRANDS
@HOME
SYSTEM:
-Reference folder is standard A-Z with file folders in a plastic bin next to my desk. Easily accessible, but out of my way when I don’t need it.
-PO BOX- I have an A-Z for things like papers or other things corresponding to S/M or things in the future in my calendar (iCal) so I can find them by letter. For example, if I come across a clip from a magazine I might want to use in a design down the road, I’ll put a note in S/M “clip in PO BOX D” and leave it there.
-Post Office- I forget the GTD term for this, but this is for mailing yourself stuff in the future. This thing is essential for me and I mail my self stuff all the time (bills, birthday cards, etc.)
iCal- appointments, classes, meetings et al. Go here.
MOTO Q- I sync my iCal with my Motorola Q and I’m working on syncing kGTD/iCal with the Q, but with limited success. For my calander stuff this is great, but for my NA's, not so much. I try to capture things here too, but it requires syncing to iCal (and now kGTD, but this is inconsistent and I've been flakely about actually converting things I make in notes to NA's in my system)
Folders- I usually carry an “IN’ folder for capture when I’m out. I also have an @TODAY folder for things that are on my NA”s for the day, but I’ve been using this less and less and think it might be redundant in the system. Each class gets it’s own folder I keep active (meaning in a folder system on my desk) and then each class also has a folder in the archive for the notes and papers I’m no longer actively using. I also have project folders for the old job, new job, and just other projects of things I’m working on. So now onto the fun problem stuff…
(1) In kGTD, I created all the contexts you see above. I create my projects (for example a class I'm taking, Social Uses of Food) and have a list of NA’s for that class/project. I sync this to my iCal, which generates a calander for the context of each NA. One of these NA’s would be “create outline for term paper” with context of @POWERBOOK OFFLINE. The problem is how does this task have priority over all the other @POWERBOOK OFFLINE tasks that are part of various other projects? ICal just lists them all together in that calendar/context.
(2) Is it possible to bring over the project title for each NA from kGTD to iCal so I’ll know, for example, what project “create outline for term paper” is part of?
(3) For those of you that use kGTD, how do you handle NA’s that have an obvious context but are not part of a project? It seems that NA’s can only be created if they’re part of a project?
(4) For the GTD’s in general, not just kGTD/iCal’ers…how do you handle the priority of NA’s that are all part of a given context if a couple are more important than another but don’t warrant a definitive due date?
This might be a bit confusing, so any questions please fire away. If you see any holes here, fire away. I’m still just learning this system (about 3 months into it) and I haven’t read the book yet. So any advice is greatly appreciated.
My contexts:
@LUMINATIONS [for work I do at the internship office]
@SOMEDAY/MAYBE [use this a lot]
@CAMPUS
@ONLINE [any internet connection anywhere]
@WAITING ON
@POWERBOOK ONLINE [have my comp, but don’t want to be distracted by www]
@POWERBOOK OFFLINE
@READ
@FITNESS [at the gym, at basketball game, at tennis, etc.]
@CITY BELT [at billable hours for newsmagazine, on the road, at my desk, anywhere I am billing]
@ERRANDS
@HOME
SYSTEM:
-Reference folder is standard A-Z with file folders in a plastic bin next to my desk. Easily accessible, but out of my way when I don’t need it.
-PO BOX- I have an A-Z for things like papers or other things corresponding to S/M or things in the future in my calendar (iCal) so I can find them by letter. For example, if I come across a clip from a magazine I might want to use in a design down the road, I’ll put a note in S/M “clip in PO BOX D” and leave it there.
-Post Office- I forget the GTD term for this, but this is for mailing yourself stuff in the future. This thing is essential for me and I mail my self stuff all the time (bills, birthday cards, etc.)
iCal- appointments, classes, meetings et al. Go here.
MOTO Q- I sync my iCal with my Motorola Q and I’m working on syncing kGTD/iCal with the Q, but with limited success. For my calander stuff this is great, but for my NA's, not so much. I try to capture things here too, but it requires syncing to iCal (and now kGTD, but this is inconsistent and I've been flakely about actually converting things I make in notes to NA's in my system)
Folders- I usually carry an “IN’ folder for capture when I’m out. I also have an @TODAY folder for things that are on my NA”s for the day, but I’ve been using this less and less and think it might be redundant in the system. Each class gets it’s own folder I keep active (meaning in a folder system on my desk) and then each class also has a folder in the archive for the notes and papers I’m no longer actively using. I also have project folders for the old job, new job, and just other projects of things I’m working on. So now onto the fun problem stuff…
(1) In kGTD, I created all the contexts you see above. I create my projects (for example a class I'm taking, Social Uses of Food) and have a list of NA’s for that class/project. I sync this to my iCal, which generates a calander for the context of each NA. One of these NA’s would be “create outline for term paper” with context of @POWERBOOK OFFLINE. The problem is how does this task have priority over all the other @POWERBOOK OFFLINE tasks that are part of various other projects? ICal just lists them all together in that calendar/context.
(2) Is it possible to bring over the project title for each NA from kGTD to iCal so I’ll know, for example, what project “create outline for term paper” is part of?
(3) For those of you that use kGTD, how do you handle NA’s that have an obvious context but are not part of a project? It seems that NA’s can only be created if they’re part of a project?
(4) For the GTD’s in general, not just kGTD/iCal’ers…how do you handle the priority of NA’s that are all part of a given context if a couple are more important than another but don’t warrant a definitive due date?
This might be a bit confusing, so any questions please fire away. If you see any holes here, fire away. I’m still just learning this system (about 3 months into it) and I haven’t read the book yet. So any advice is greatly appreciated.
