Speaking of context limitations...

J

jkgrossi

0
Do you guys use the "context limitation" rule with regard to @Waiting for's? I'm in the middle of my weekly review, and was just thining about whether or not I want/need to be reminded of work @Waiting for's when I'm not at work... and vice versa.

What do you guys think? Keep any @Waiting for's in that category, or dump them into my @Work list?
 
I keep two separate systems on my Palm Desktop at work: a desktop-only profile and my personal profile. The latter gets synched to the Palm, the desktop-only profile doesn't. I do keep an @office context on the Palm, however, so that if something occurs to me that's work related when I'm not at work, I can add it.
 
Here's a quick observation -- when looking at your context in Next Actions list I pretty much remember now 75% of what's in there -- this isn't necessarily good as I have it OUT of my head already, but oh well. The important thing here is that each time I have that "Do I have.. covered?" question in my head I can pretty much just look to see if my lists cover it and take it easy.

But back to the point.

When seeing 30 items that are Next Actions in the @computer at home list, I am tempted to leave the more difficult tasks behind indefinitely -- here's the limitation of the system, and I just have to push myself to make that conscious (or conscience even??) choice -- I can tell myself that I just don't have the energy or the time to do it now -- or I just don't feel like doing it.

I should go back to that "I'll do it later" conundrum" article I re-re-re-read last weekend and get inspired again..

Hmm, this turned out to be sort of a thinking aloud moment.

Help me out here if you have an idea or a tip.
 
Throw a dice.

alsa said:
When seeing 30 items that are Next Actions in the @computer at home list, I am tempted to leave the more difficult tasks behind indefinitely -- here's the limitation of the system, and I just have to push myself to make that conscious (or conscience even??) choice -- I can tell myself that I just don't have the energy or the time to do it now -- or I just don't feel like doing it.

I should go back to that "I'll do it later" conundrum" article I re-re-re-read last weekend and get inspired again..

Hmm, this turned out to be sort of a thinking aloud moment.

Help me out here if you have an idea or a tip.
Click to expand...
Every time you are in the @computer at home context throw a dice twice.
Calculate
x = 6 * (number_of_spots_1 - 1) + number_of_spots_2
where
number_of_spots_1 is a number of spots in the first throw;
number_of_spots_2 is a number of spots in the second throw.
Do the xth NA from your @computer at home list.
Then - if you have time - do any other next actions in this context that you prefer. Or you can play again and use a dice to choose another random NA.
 
alsa said:
When seeing 30 items that are Next Actions in the @computer at home list, I am tempted to leave the more difficult tasks behind indefinitely -- here's the limitation of the system, and I just have to push myself to make that conscious (or conscience even??) choice -- I can tell myself that I just don't have the energy or the time to do it now -- or I just don't feel like doing it.
Click to expand...
Give yourself a break. Do the easy next actions, if you're going to do them at all. They still need to get done. The fact that energy level isn't as absolute of a limitation as context doesn't make it less real. I've found that when I'm stuck and concentrate on doing the easy actions, two things can happen: I'm then forced to deal with the more difficult actions, because they're the only ones left on the list; or I build up enough momentum from accomplishing half a dozen things that I then have the motivation to do the harder ones.

The key thing is to avoid "procrastination by triage," where people intimidate themselves by focusing only on "worthy" activities that are just beyond the time or energy they have available, then use this as an excuse to do nothing.
 
TesTeq said:
Calculate
x = 6 * (number_of_spots_1 - 1) + number_of_spots_2
where
number_of_spots_1 is a number of spots in the first throw;
number_of_spots_2 is a number of spots in the second throw.
Click to expand...
I don't understand the logic of this formula. Can somebody explain it to me?
 
Cpu_Modern said:
I don't understand the logic of this formula. Can somebody explain it to me?
Click to expand...
Alsa asked how she could choose a Next Action from a 30-item list. My advice was: throw a dice twice and calculate the item number using the formula. The result is a random number in the 1..36 range.
 
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