Next actions with Things - separating home from day job.

B

bignose

0
I should mention that my tool of choice for GTD is Cultured Code's "things", that is probably relevant.

I fill my inbox with anything that needs doing when I walk past it. It gets pretty full.

During the day time, even tho I work from home I can't really work on my "home things" and I don't want to make just a "home" project or area of responsibility, however when scanning my inbox during the work day i'd like to be able to ignore my home tasks.

I think perhaps I'm failing on the Process/Organize side of things and maybe I should make a "Next Actions Work" and "Next Actions Home" project/area of res. ?

Thoughts?
 
Ha! Reply to my own thread 5 minutes later. Classic.

What I'm thinking, is I'm going to start tagging things "home" or "work", and then fire them into my next actions list, which with things you can filter very very easily by tag.
 
I prefer to separate my tool for collection from my tool for holding projects and actions. So, although Things and the other GTD apps have an Inbox, I would never use it.

Instead, I use email as my collection tool. So I have a personal collector separate from my work collector. At the office, my inbox is work-related email from colleagues plus my notes to self. My personal email inbox is personal emails plus notes to self about personal stuff.

Then, in Things, I have contexts such as @office and @home to cover the execution side.

Firstly, I think a good collector tool is different from a good GTD app. Another reason for this separation is that I think it is tempting to rush the clarification step. When all you have to do is drag & drop, it's too easy to skip to organise without giving clarification it's due.
 
Things - My favorite

I actually run a small business from home and therefore pretty much anything I do falls in either @home or @errands. Since so much is done in just those two basic contexts, I needed to create further distinctions. Examples: waitingfor, home is subdivided into the rooms in the house (kitchen, bathroom, etc.), @computer is subidvided into frequently used softwares (skype, Amadeus, etc.), @Internet is subidivided into frequented sites (portuguese dictionaries, facebook, twitter, google docs, etc.). Agendas based on cites, areas, and people.

I use my tags as my contexts. Currently, i have about 12 contexts(tags) and then the names of a large number of individials(tags) or situations(tags) under "Agendas"(tag). about thirty tags total. That's why Cultured Code has such a powerful tag system. More powerful than most.

My system is pretty complex so I won't startle you with that but from what you said in your post, I think you're right about your processing hangup. Your inbox should be completely emptied at most every 48 hours, 24 hours is better. You should work from your lists, not your inbox. If you're just scanning your inbox (instead of your lists) then you haven't actually processed your inputs and put them in the correct contexts which cripples the benefits that GTD brings.

I hope that makes sense!
 
Hi All,

It all helped. Thanks.

It came down to contexts. I made a few basic ones. work, home, workshop, yard, followup and cottage.

thats a good enough start, and the filtering of both the inbox and the next actions of 'Things' does exactly what I need.
 
Keeping Things Separate.

bradenchase;87955 said:
I actually run a small business from home and therefore pretty much anything I do falls in either @home or @errands. Since so much is done in just those two basic contexts, I needed to create further distinctions. Examples: waitingfor, home is subdivided into the rooms in the house (kitchen, bathroom, etc.), @computer is subidvided into frequently used softwares (skype, Amadeus, etc.), @Internet is subidivided into frequented sites (portuguese dictionaries, facebook, twitter, google docs, etc.). Agendas based on cites, areas, and people.

I use my tags as my contexts. Currently, i have about 12 contexts(tags) and then the names of a large number of individials(tags) or situations(tags) under "Agendas"(tag). about thirty tags total. That's why Cultured Code has such a powerful tag system. More powerful than most.

My system is pretty complex so I won't startle you with that but from what you said in your post, I think you're right about your processing hangup. Your inbox should be completely emptied at most every 48 hours, 24 hours is better. You should work from your lists, not your inbox. If you're just scanning your inbox (instead of your lists) then you haven't actually processed your inputs and put them in the correct contexts which cripples the benefits that GTD brings.

I hope that makes sense!
Click to expand...

Hey,

All the programmers may have to do is let the user swap between THINGS databases. For example, the user is using THINGS for ALL work related tasks but then wants to create a new database for home. The user clicks "New Database" and it's as if the user deleted all previous data files created by THINGS and starts with a clean slate, but in reality those files are move, or renamed, or otherwise ignored. It would be fairly simple to toggle between 2 or more databases just by pointing to different files. The only other issue might be when syncing with another device, THINGS would have to check that your are syncing with the same database, but even a checkbox asking "which of the following databases would you like to sync: Home, Work, MyJobJar" etc.

I'm so weary of having my personal mixed with my professional, I'm currently moving the datafile to a hidden folder and then recreating a new "work only" file. It's a shame, but I need to get a better grip on my professional tasks and will not restore my personal tasks until THINGS let's us separate them OR I find an app that will. :-)

John
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top