Techniques to Engage appropriately

rmjb

Registered
Hi,

2020 has been a really good growth year for me for GTD. I've settled into a routine Weekly Review on Saturday mornings, I even took a remote Level 1 GTD training course. I also, based on the advice of the trainer, developed a technique to limit the amount of Next Actions I look at on a weekly basis. But I find myself still wondering if I'm Engaging appropriately.

I use Nirvana, and at the moment I have 108 Next actions, 24 Later, 96 Waiting, 26 Scheduled, 83 Someday and 169 Projects. At any given time, that is too many items to choose what is the next best thing I should be doing.
What I've adopted is during my weekly review, and definitely at the end of it, is to ensure that the actions and/or projects I want to/need to/can work on in the coming week, I star them to go into Focus. I generally try to keep no more than 50 items in Focus, these being a mix of Next Actions and Waiting For that I have to follow up on. But even at ~50 items to look at on a regular basis, I'm not sure I'm choosing the right next action.
Sometimes I would be doing planned work, or work as it comes up, then later on in the week someone would follow up with me on an incomplete task, only to realise that it is on my Focus list, but I didn't pick it up yet.
I use contexts to help, but I'm 100% in front of a computer at my job, so contexts all mix together; that limiting factor is of limited value.

What techniques to you all use to help choose the next best action to work on at any given point in time. How to you try to engage appropriately?
 

Cpu_Modern

Registered
I use contexts to help, but I'm 100% in front of a computer at my job, so contexts all mix together; that limiting factor is of limited value.
Same fundamental problem here.

I use the (digital) tickler facility a lot, which differs from @calendar in that a tickled item is out of sight.

I do have a lot of notes in there, that I would have processed to projects in the past. Nowadays I am more inclined to communicate a bit, tickle a note to myself and wait and see. In the past I had much more projects with a NA of basically "get others moving." Now it's more "let's tickle and wait if anybody else moves".

I know this sounds horrible, but it's essentially the same thing, except I stopped to have this all "on the main plate" so to speak. Which I find is the more appropriate degree of engagement.

I also find that more intense project planning helps with "intuition" when picking and choosing NAs on the main context list.

With that I don't mean to create elaborate project plans, although that sometimes can be the case. It's more about digging deeper what the real goals are. I find that a lot of projects are "duct tape" activities occurring because the real mess behind it doesn't get tackled. With deeper examination this comes to the surface.

And as I said, this makes the big NA list clearer when you scan it.

Other than that I would say a rough sorting by urgency can be helpful. Not because it is the best thing since sliced bread, but if nothing else happens, that's how it happens anyway.
 

Oogiem

Registered
at the moment I have 108 Next actions, 24 Later, 96 Waiting, 26 Scheduled, 83 Someday and 169 Projects. At any given time, that is too many items to choose what is the next best thing I should be doing.
So you have 108 actions all in the same context? The total volume seems reasonable to me if perhaps a bit small but if you are looking at them al leach time then you have not really grasped how to use contexts appropriately.
What techniques to you all use to help choose the next best action to work on at any given point in time. How to you try to engage appropriately?
I decide what context I am in and look there. I look within a single context first unless there is a clear reason to move to a different context.
 

mcogilvie

Registered
Like many people, I have suffered from context collapse. After trying different approaches, I have broken out @email and @web as separate lists. The email list tends to be populated with next actions that are small, are often not project-related, and sometimes have a degree of timeliness. The web list tends to have next actions involving getting information, like checking dates, downloading papers, or researching my next big vacation (oops, that one is someday/maybe). I usually don’t bother putting small email- and web-related next actions on these list when they are part of a larger next action. If the next action is to draft a response to editor queries regarding manuscript proofs, my last step may be to send my collaborators a copy for their comments, and I just do it. For me, this approach tends to separate out the bigger, thinky stuff from the quick, timely email next actions and the ”do I want to to do this now?” web stuff. It’s not a clean separation, but it works for me.
 

Ariadne Marques

Registered
What I've adopted is during my weekly review, and definitely at the end of it, is to ensure that the actions and/or projects I want to/need to/can work on in the coming week, I star them to go into Focus. I generally try to keep no more than 50 items in Focus, these being a mix of Next Actions and Waiting For that I have to follow up on. But even at ~50 items to look at on a regular basis, I'm not sure I'm choosing the right next action.
Hi, I also use Nirvana and I try to limit the Focus list to 10 items per area of focus (I have Personal and Work). So, I treat the Focus list as my "most-important-actions" of the day. I add and remove actions from it on a daily basis on my Daily Reviews.
The "Next" list are things that I want to handle during the week. I usually review them on my Weekly Review.
But on a daily basis, I look at my next actions list to see if there's anything in there that should be "starred" into my Focus list.
I try to keep the Focus list as short as possible.

I also mostly work on my computer, so additionally to the classic @computer, I have contexts like @email (messages I need to respond to that require some time to draft), and @deepwork to filter out actions that will require long blocks of work time.
 
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