Separating Personal and Professional Systems

[kelstarrising]

We get this question pretty often, and I've seen some great forum discussions about it too. Here was my latest reply on separating personal vs. professional to someone today:

Q: I'm struggling with whether to use separate systems for my professional vs personal organization. Having only one makes sense, though putting personal info onto my office Outlook bothers me. I am well into setting up my Outlook per your Guide and am going to love it. I am upgrading to an iPhone 5 this month, and will be able to link to the office. Current plan is to use the iPhone Setup Guide to setup my personal system on that and keep them separate. I also love scribbling notes on legal pads and have carried a Day-Timer for 20 years. do you have any general advice on this?

Kelly: I can tell you that one system is generally easier to keep clear & current. David Allen has only ever used one system and wouldn't think of separating them.
I did that too for years, but find I now prefer a separation between the two. I don't want to be seeing personal next action choices when I'm at work in work-mode.
Nor do I want to see work items when I'm home in personal-mode. So last fall I split them in two.

My work system is in Lotus Notes. My personal system is in Evernote for lists and in iCloud for mail and calendar, which all syncs to my iPhone.

So I'd say it's personal preference. Just watch for any signs of the wheels on your bus starting to wobble where it feels like a lot of effort to maintain
two systems. They should be both be seamless, accessible, clear & current to be efficient.

---

Do you keep two systems for lists and Calendar or separate?

 

[CJSullivan]

I'm a two-system gal

I've so often been in an environment when I couldn't, for corporate policy reasons, have a seamless personal/work combined system. So I have learned to separate. Work is Outlook, and it hums along quite nicely. My personal system gets tweaked far more frequently -- in fact, more frequently these days than I'd like to admit! I was totally in paper, but have just transferred my lists to Reminders on the iPhone because I'm going to be traveling and didn't want to lug my Filofax across the pond!!! So far, so good...

But the bottom line is - I don't feel any more separation with two systems than I do having a "day job" and a personal life. I can see why people like David could live quite easily with one system, but as a daytime "worker bee," I'm happy with some separation.

 

[KatyV]

Two Systems

I agree with what has been said above regarding wanting some separation between work and home, so I too have two systems.

But another reason is, when I tried to have one system, I could not get it to work for me in one of the contexts. So when I set it up ideal for work, I didn't use it at home. And when it was ideal for home, it fell apart at work.

So for me google mail, calendar, and tasks (for lists) for work and google calendar (on Iphone) and paper lists for home. I can happily get the work and personal calendars to play well together which is helpful. I am still playing around with my home system however, so am interested in what other people do as well.

Katy V

 

[MarkDillon]

One Life/One System

I have found it easiest to have just one system. I combine everything in Nirvana. I tag all my Projects, Next Actions, Someday/Maybes, etc., as needed so if I am at work I can just see work related tasks.

But here's the thing that happens in real life...I am at work and need to make a call during work hours for a home task. If I had two systems I may not see it but because I have one system it's right there. So, I make the call at work. But wait...there's more! When I am home and a thought arises about a work task I can add it to my system. My system is my mind/thought gatherer. I can't tell my mind to only think of work at work and home at home so I use just one system.

 

[Mtk8]

I use a single system. In practice, I find that the sorts of things I do at work and the sorts of things I do at home are different enough that home and work tasks end up in different contexts, so there really isn't that much "in system" overlap -- most of my personal tasks are @home, @home_alone (a useful additional context if you have toddlers running around), @computer_home, and @errands and those virtually never have work tasks. The only places where there is much overlap is @anywhere and @calls and I've never found that particularly aversive.

The issue with comfort having personal stuff in a work system is, I think, stickier and probably more case-by-case. My entire system is on my work Outlook w/ Exchange server (which automatically syncs to my iPhone). I've always felt comfortable with this, partially because of trusting our IT folks, but mostly because when it comes right down to it my employer knows a lot of things about me that are much more sensitive than what's in my lists and on my calendar. It is incredibly rare that there's something I need to have in my system that I care about being (potentially) public and I find that it isn't hard to capture those in a way that makes sense to me but wouldn't to anyone else.

--Marc

 

[Pisces]

Do you keep two systems for lists and Calendar or separate?

For me separating work and home is vital so one system at this point in time wouldn't suit my frame of mind. I would find it too distracting to have personal things claiming my attention during work time.
However, I do include in my work calendar any personal appointments that have to be kept during my work day or immediately after work finishes.
Aileen

 

[Oogiem]

One System Separate Contexts

I work from home and am self employed so my situation is different but I have a single system because it's all one life. I use contexts to separate work from home tasks. More realistically it's work from hobby tasks. SO I have contexts for Inside by Myself and Inside By Myself Hobbies. My computer contexts right now are by application, and I don't really care if I'm working on things that are for "work" or "personal" because in my business a lot of my hobby stuff will help me at work and vice versa.

For example, knitting is a hobby, but if I am using my own yarn on my fun stuff I can more effectively answer questions from buyers about what sorts of projects it's good for. That in turn helps me sell more wool yarn so one feeds the other.

 

[LizH]

One system but split categories

Working full time in office, two kids, split home. Outlook synced to Iphone. One mutual calendar. Categorized tasks and notes, grouped by categories all duplicated into work vs home, groups collapsed to that I don't see home tasks at work and vice versa - but adding tasks as ideas come up at the "wrong" time is real easy.

 

[SherGTD]

I work in a corporate office 8-5 then manage a busy family at home. I keep separate calendars (but combine both into one view on my iPhone). I keep separate projects lists and S/M lists for "Home" and "Work". However, I combine all of my next action lists (@home, @office, @errands, @calls, @online) so when I'm on my lunch break I can run errands or make personal phone calls to move my personal projects along. Alternatively, this allows me to do my "@online" research in the evening after the family is asleep.

This works well for me because of the way I review my lists - I glance at my personal project list during my weekly review, but rarely during the week. I scan my project list for work most workday mornings, when I also scan my calendar and action lists. I tie them all together during my weekly review. Long story short, it's the action lists that I use throughout the day, so I keep all my actions together so I can see them all throughout each day.

Regards,
Sheryl

 

[MJP]

I think I would prefer one system, but...

...my 9-5 office job operates within a firewalled environment, with no connectivity to outside devices allowed. So I have to maintain a separate system at work (Outlook). My home system is Things on iPad/iPod. If I have anything personal that has to be done during the work day (e.g. call the doctor), I have a category in Things called "At Work", which I look at each morning on my iPod when I arrive at the office, and transfer those things into my work system so I don't forget to do them. These items may not be actual to-dos - they could also be unprocessed work-related thoughts or notes that I then process into my work system. Likewise I duplicate relevant personal appointments in my work calendar, but luckily they don't intersect very often.

Like many people (I've heard), my work system is much tighter and more evolved than my home system :???: If I were an entrepreneur, or in a different kind of job, I think I would prefer the whole-life integration of one system.

 

[vbampton]

I think I've got the best of both worlds, because I keep everything in the same programs, but within different folders. So within Postbox (email) and OmniFocus (tasks), I can see everything in one go, or I can focus on just Work or just Home.

 

[OF user]

I think I've got the best of both worlds, because I keep everything in the same programs, but within different folders. So within Postbox (email) and OmniFocus (tasks), I can see everything in one go, or I can focus on just Work or just Home.

Do you use Postbox' todo function at all?

 

[vbampton]

Do you use Postbox' todo function at all?

Only as a way of marking emails as action support material. I clip from Postbox to OmniFocus, but then I mark the email with a Postbox To Do marker before hitting Archive. The OF task has a link back to the email in Postbox when I come to do the task, but that link doesn't work on my iPhone. That's not a problem if I've flagged the email as a Postbox To Do, as I can just navigate to the Starred folder in my Gmail account and see all of the action support emails that way.

 

[OF user]

Only as a way of marking emails as action support material. I clip from Postbox to OmniFocus, but then I mark the email with a Postbox To Do marker before hitting Archive. The OF task has a link back to the email in Postbox when I come to do the task, but that link doesn't work on my iPhone. That's not a problem if I've flagged the email as a Postbox To Do, as I can just navigate to the Starred folder in my Gmail account and see all of the action support emails that way.

Good idea - I think I'll try it.

 

[Kevin_AB]

One system for me

I think of my life as integrated. I do work tasks from home or out and about and I do some personal tasks throughout the work day (ie Calling to make a doctor's appointment, reminder to go for a walk over lunch hour, check RSS feeds over lunch hour, etc. I actually worked full time from home for a few years and that really blurs the lines.

We use Outlook at work but because accessing tasks remotely is difficult I use OmniFocus on the iPad for all my next actions. I have work projects in a work folder and personal projects in a personal folder so I can focus on either or both. Forwarding an email from either my work or personal email to OmniFocus is easy and I have my iPad with me pretty much anywhere I go.

I have considered having two systems in the past but keeping one system in use and up to date is best for me.