Movies to watch as separate context?

Y

ykphuah

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I know in the book, Read/Review is a separate context. So I put all my books that I bought and wanted to read, in there. It actually sort of serve as a reminder of books that I need to read, instead of chucking them into the store and forget about them.

Next up is Movies that I want to watch, from time to time, I will get some recommendations about movies to watch either from my friends, or from web reviews. I store them in the 'Movies" context. And when I want to watch a movie, I will go back to this list, and go through the list to see which one is available on netflix etc.

Do you use Context to keep track of such things as well? I guess another options for me is to put them under "Reference".
 
It is more of a someday / maybe list, unless it is your job. Context is the tool you need or place to be in order to get something done. Read / Review for me is almost exclusively used for critical or important items. The only exception is physical Read / Review where I might look through catalogues. Think or Next Action lists are more action-oriented with a certain purpose or outcome attached to it. Having movies to watch as a context can dilute how you see your system (I know I would take mine less seriously), not to mention you might be looking at that context more and leave less room for others. Basically, keep it in a someday / maybe list under a subsection called "Movies".
 
I totally agree. Put them on a separate list. If you are using a GTD app, you could consider either having this list entirely outside the app itself, or you can put them all down as a "project" in the "Someday" category - or whatever your app allows you to do, where it will not be in the way.
 
What's so special about movies? There are also books to buy places to go, bands to see. There are gift ideas for other people: parents, partners, family, friends.

I don't know when I've ever been in a "movie wishlist" context and I don't need to review my gift ideas for Uncle Bob in my weekly review of Someday/Maybe. It could be project support depending on how passionate you are about movies (or Uncle Bob).

Probably all this belongs in a reference folder. It's there when you need it and out of the way when you don't.
 
Yes, personally I do not keep such lists, usually not even as reference. I only list those texts or videos etc that are a necessary part of some real project, e.g. read a request for proposal in order to be able to write a proposal.

But as DA says, if something keeps popping up and is bothering you, then it constitutes "stuff", and stuff needs to be processed etc. We have had very similar discussions in other threads about reading books that indicate that quite a number of people apparently have a bad conscience about not reading enough - even pure entertainment books - and some even create a whole project for each novel, with tasks such as read chapter 1, read chapter 2 or read for 30 minutes etc. Although this seems totally alien to me personally, I think DA is right in saying that if it really bothers you, and you need to get it off your chest, there is no better way than to write it down. I guess I am simply not as bothered as many others about my entertainment ... :-)
 
As I see it, this isn't so much a context as a tag. I would call the list of movies project support material--it's information that might serve other projects or contexts. For example, you might have a context of Video Store and a Next Action of "Choose two movies from Movies list."

I used to store a lot of lists like this in OmniFocus. I gave them a context of Info, and I set that context to On Hold so that the items would not show as actionable.

But that started to annoy me--I perceived it as confusing clutter. So I've moved my lists--of books to read, perfumes to sniff, plants to consider growing, and so on--away from my project and action lists.

I still enter things like this into OmniFocus, but now the context is List Management, because the action associated with the item is to put it in the correct list and then delete it from OmniFocus.

Edited to add: But to clarify, I don't move these things out because they're not serious but because they're not actionable. I like having silly stuff in my lists, as long as it's actionable and as long as there's a good chance I will act on it. I have no problem with a non-serious "search Netflix for movies from movie list" action in my action lists. It's just that the movie list that it refers to will be outside those action lists.
 
ykphuah said:
Next up is Movies that I want to watch, from time to time, I will get some recommendations about movies to watch either from my friends, or from web reviews. I store them in the 'Movies" context. And when I want to watch a movie, I will go back to this list, and go through the list to see which one is available on netflix etc.

Do you use Context to keep track of such things as well? I guess another options for me is to put them under "Reference".
Click to expand...

TesTeq's "Movie Recommendation Workflow":

1. In-box
 
Similarly, I do keep a list of movies or TV shows I'd like to watch.
I populate it with recommendations I get from friends, or a trailer I saw and liked, etc.
I do from time to time look at the list - usually during my weekly review or if I'm just in the mood to watch a movie.

If I have the movie and want to watch it, I'll move it to my @leisure context.
This is a low commitment, purely enjoyable context, so if I don't get to an item on there it's perfectly fine.
I just like to have the options listed there in case I'm wondering what to do with free time. (Because I get soooo much of it I don't know what to do with it ;D)

Regards,Enyo
www.enyonam.com
 
Having a context like List Management is still outside the reason for having contexts. I can't regard List Management as a tool or place to be, but if it works for you. I'd only have those stuff on a someday / maybe list (on hold) as a Single-Actions folder in OmniFocus and look at it appropriately. Having an action that says "Choose two movies from movie list" in a context named "Computer" since that is where OmniFocus is, is much more logical in my view.

In general I would really advise you to keep OmniFocus a bit more pristine. Use Evernote or just text files for Some day / Maybe lists and inactive projects. Have OmniFocus only bear current active projects and single-actions. Putting everything in OmniFocus, just because you can, is a great way to diminish the overall sense of importance you get from your system. I used OmniFocus before and that was certainly one of my problems. If you are very particular about what goes in OmniFocus, because it will represent only things you want to move on, you will get better focus both when entering stuff into your active projects and working from it.
 
Another reason is also the less stuff you have to navigate in OmniFocus, which may have a tendency to disturb your concentration when working from it. Unless you are using perspectives to a high degree, you might accidentally see items that are irrelevant for your day to day activities, but essentially demands focus because it is something you previously wrote down.
 
OneCoffePlease said:
Having a context like List Management is still outside the reason for having contexts. I can't regard List Management as a tool or place to be, but if it works for you.
Click to expand...

There seems to be some confusion here. My post meant that I used to store these lists in OmniFocus, but I moved them out of OmniFocus. You seem to be advising me to stop storing them in OmniFocus and move them out of OmniFocus. You're advocating that I do what I already said that I do. :)

I realize that my post didn't say "out of OmniFocus" but I did say "put it in the correct list and then delete it from OmniFocus". After I delete it from OmniFocus, it's gone from OmniFocus. Perhaps the confusion was that I didn't specifically state that when I delete it from OmniFocus, that's because I've moved it outside OmniFocus--in my case, into OmniOutliner.

The List Management context is a context for the task of taking items out of my Inbox, moving them to OmniOutliner, and deleting them or checking them off so that they are no longer in OmniFocus. People have contexts like Phone, Thinking, Programming, and Brainless. List Management means that I have the resources I need for list management (my laptop, my devices containing OmniFocus ready to sync, time). I can't see how it's different from, say, Phone.

Edited to add: I suppose I could write out my List Management tasks as "Add the movie 'Tremors' to my OmniOutliner movie list". But that's a lot of tapping to do into a phone."movie-tremors" with a context of "List Management" tells me the same thing

Edited: Oops. Said OmniFocus in the last par when I meant OmniOutliner. Corrected.
 
Thanks for all your feedback! I am currently using the Toodledo system. And I am usually at the Context view.

Each task in Toodledo, can be marked with Status=Reference. However, this seems currently useless to me for the @movies context, as all of them are sort of Reference.

I guess the main difference here is that in GTD there's Next Action "LIST", and Someday "LIST", and Reference "LIST", but in Toodledo, everything have a context (of course it can be No Context as well).

Toodledo also have its own "Notes" section, so I can put them there as well, however, having each movie as an item that I can check off seems like a nice thing to have. Instead of having to go into a "note" of lists, and manually deleting one of them.

I do not have any issue of the @movies context diluting my attention, as when I am "DO"-ing in the context view, I almost always ignore the @Movies context. Its the same with the rest, like when I am @Work, I only look at @Work and nothing else. Probably the only time I look into the @Movies is during the weekly review, which I guess is the same no matter I put them in Contexts or in Notes.
 
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