Thoughts about keeping working modes separate

[Julie Jones]

GTD talks about keeping working modes separate (capture, clarify, organize, reflect, engage), and shows how this leads to more efficient use of time and the ability to get more done. I would like to start a discussion based on my observations from personal GTD use and extensive reading about the subject.

Engage - it is very easy to see how choosing one action from the Next Actions list and working on it to completion with no distractions will be the most effective way to get things done. The one exception is when an idea pops into your head during that work and you want to follow the rule of capture everything as soon as it occurs to you. I believe that the most efficient way to do that is with some sort of voice capture. The simpler the better, and the idea is to just capture the idea and not think about it in any other way. (For me, "Hey Siri, email nirvana my new idea" does the trick.) If the capture is quick and requires no real thought it doesn't distract from the current action being done.

Capture - @DavidAllen talks about this at length, especially when he discussed doing an initial capture with his clients and how there is a huge tendency to start to sort physical things or do something more than just collect. I have seen something similar when reviewing various tools and seeing comments about how some customers are very vocal about wanting a tool that allows them to capture an item with all kinds of additional information using a natural language.
For example: new task do something area:school context:computer due date:10-22-2022.
My belief is that this make capturing take longer, and if you are in the middle of doing something else, capturing with additional information is more likely to make your mind switch gears.

Reflecting - I don't have an very specific thoughts, except that during a weekly review some of the steps should be kept separate and done as quickly as possible because they are just work modes in the context of a review.

Clarifying - I understand clarifying from the perspective of emptying the inbox quickly and not spending more than 2 minutes on any one item. I wonder about the project loop on the GTD workflow processing diagram. What is the clarifying part and what is the organizing part.



Organizing - This is what I have been pondering the most and would really like to hear everyone's opinions about. Looking at the advanced workflow diagram,


one can see how the lines are drawn between clarifying and organizing. It seems like clarifying is putting items in the correct organizational bucket. Normally, people talked about organizing something, say a silverware drawer, they mean putting the items in the correct section of the drawer.

If clarifying is already putting things in the correct "category" then what is the definition of the organizing step?
Am I right in thinking that it is adding more information after the sorting is complete?
My current thought after rereading GTD and Making it all work, is that clarify is to decide what it is and which category it belongs to quickly to empty the inbox and that organizing it is the more detailed process of adding contexts, notes, deciding which area, whether it needs a due date, etc.?
Then my brain starts thinking that part of a review is looking at everything and deciding if all the information is still correct (verifying the organization).
I seem to just get caught in a big mental loop. I could be overthinking it, but as a software engineer that is how my mind works. (What would my perfect GTD app look like?)

So that leaves me with the question of how to draw a concrete line between clarifying and organizing.

 

[DKPhoto]

Clarifying is the “What is it?” and “What is a successful outcome?” part. Organising is deciding the Next Action and the putting it in the right place part. IMO.

I’ve not seen your second diagram before which seems to confuse this, but is does seem very busy.

K

 

[kelstarrising]

So that leaves me with the question of how to draw a concrete line between clarifying and organizing.

These are often done in quick succession, so they can sometimes feel like the same step. But they are distinctly different in what you do. Clarify is deciding. Organizing is choosing a place to track that decision. I wouldn’t worry so much about drawing a concrete line between them as much as making sure you are not skipping the clarify stage (which is a common thing people do, which leads to organized lists of unclarified stuff that they then procrastinate on and wonder why).

 

[Julie Jones]

So that leaves me with the question of how to draw a concrete line between clarifying and organizing.

These are often done in quick succession, so they can sometimes feel like the same step. But they are distinctly different in what you do. Clarify is deciding. Organizing is choosing a place to track that decision. I wouldn’t worry so much about drawing a concrete line between them as much as making sure you are not skipping the clarify stage (which is a common thing people do, which leads to organized lists of unclarified stuff that they then procrastinate on and wonder why).

What you said seems backwards to me and I feel more confused.

Given that I use nirvana, clarify to me is open the inbox and empty it by dragging each item to the correct list, or doing it in less than two minutes. When I am done clarifying I believe everything is on the correct list.

When you refer to organized lists of unclarified stuff I can't understand what you mean. If I follow the GTD decision tree for clarify (which is the original workflow diagram above) then how can I end up with unclarified stuff?

Looking at it another way, I though that clarifying was deciding what it is, is it actionable, and which list it belongs on and putting it there. If putting it on the list is not part of clarifying and instead part of organizing then I can't empty my inbox during the clarify process without interjecting an organizing step for each item.

I'm sure I'll have more insight after I watch the latest GTD connect video about clarifying vs organizing.

 

[TesTeq]

Given that I use nirvana, clarify to me is open the inbox and empty it by dragging each item to the correct list, or doing it in less than two minutes. When I am done clarifying I believe everything is on the correct list.

@julie777 If you drag items from your inbox to your lists you organize them. And it can mean one of two things:
Everything in your inbox is already clarified (you were clarifying during capture).
You are dragging unclarified stuff from your inbox to your lists and you end up with organized lists of unclarified stuff mentioned by @kelstarrising.

 

[Gardener]

@julie777 If you drag items from your inbox to your lists you organize them. And it can mean one of two things:
Everything in your inbox is already clarified (you were clarifying during capture).
You are dragging unclarified stuff from your inbox to your lists and you end up with organized lists of unclarified stuff mentioned by @kelstarrising.

I always need examples for this sort of thing. I'm going to give a long example of what I THINK is meant by clarifying, and see if people tell me that, no, that's wrong.

Let's say that my Inbox has these items, all hurriedly typed while doing other things, all of them related to my vegetable garden:

Grow carrots
First cole crop?
Fertilize roses
Dryfarm spacing

I sit down to...do stuff with them. Clarify and organize. I think.

I look at "grow carrots". I put this in my inbox in a flurry of ambition, but when I see it I realize that, no, I will not be growing carrots this year. There's just too much other stuff to do. So I just delete it.

"First cole crop". This is a bit further down the planning road than "grow carrots". I have already decided that in summer/fall of 2022 I'm going to add ONE crop to the usual set. And that it's going to be a cole crop. (Cauliflower or brussels sprouts or broccoli or kale or...) I look at "First cole crop?" and decide that it's a project:

Project: Choose the first cole crop
Next Action: Research sprouting cauliflower.

I create that project and that action. Done.

Now, "fertilize roses". Do I have appropriate fertilizer? Is this enough steps to count as a project? I generally assume that when in doubt about that question, the answer is yes.

Project: Fertilize Roses
Next Action: See if that flowery bag on the farm shelves is appropriate.

Now, "dryfarm spacing". What...did I mean here? What DID I mean here? I know what dryfarm spacing means, but what was I going to do about it? I'll puzzle over this for a minute or two and then delete it, resolving to add a little more detail when I put things in my inbox in the future.

So I believe that stuff is both clarified and organized.

Now, it might get RE organized when I move on with my review. I might realize that I also have a project for "fertilize asparagus" and "fertilize blackcurrants" and I might reorganize that into "fertilize perennials".

But for now, those Inbox items are clarified and organized.

I think.

 

[mcogilvie]

What you said seems backwards to me and I feel more confused.

Given that I use nirvana, clarify to me is open the inbox and empty it by dragging each item to the correct list, or doing it in less than two minutes. When I am done clarifying I believe everything is on the correct list.

When you refer to organized lists of unclarified stuff I can't understand what you mean. If I follow the GTD decision tree for clarify (which is the original workflow diagram above) then how can I end up with unclarified stuff?

Looking at it another way, I though that clarifying was deciding what it is, is it actionable, and which list it belongs on and putting it there. If putting it on the list is not part of clarifying and instead part of organizing then I can't empty my inbox during the clarify process without interjecting an organizing step for each item.

I'm sure I'll have more insight after I watch the latest GTD connect video about clarifying vs organizing.

Here’s another example. You get email with medical billing information. You think your health insurance should cover the bill, but you’re not sure. What do you do? Most people, if they know how, will drag that email over to their @desk list. That”s organizing. Then for the next four weeks, they stare at the title: “Billing information for October 2021” from Unknown Caller Billing Services. That’s not clarified. Clarifying is figuring out what it means and determining what to do next: “Look up the phone number of Unknown Caller.”

 

[Julie Jones]

Here’s another example. You get email with medical billing information. You think your health insurance should cover the bill, but you’re not sure. What do you do? Most people, if they know how, will drag that email over to their @desk list. That”s organizing. Then for the next four weeks, they stare at the title: “Billing information for October 2021” from Unknown Caller Billing Services. That’s not clarified. Clarifying is figuring out what it means and determining what to do next: “Look up the phone number of Unknown Caller.”

First, I have @action and @waiting folders for email. I use those like you would imagine for simple request/response.
For email that requires more than a reply I send the email to Nirvana where it arrives in the inbox.

In my earlier example I simplified some when I said I clarify by dragging items to appropriate lists. That is what I do for many items because when I captured them I created an inbox item that was actionable such as "call the eye doctor and make an appointment"

For inbox stuff that isn't titled correctly such as "dentist", I will remember that I was thinking about a painful tooth and will change the title to "call and make an appointment with the dentist for my tooth pain" before dragging it to Next Actions.

I often change the title before adding the item to the correct list. I ask myself "what is it?" and "is it actionable?" and then change the title to change it to a physical action for next actions, to a desired outcome if I am going to make it a project, or whatever seems appropriate if it is a reference item. In all cases I am deciding what it is and what to do next.

What I am not doing currently as part of clarifying is adding a bunch of detailed notes, tags, context, area, time and effort. I am trying to avoid any deep thought about the item that would prevent me from quickly deciding what it is and where it belongs. This does mean that some items go into next actions and later might be changed to have a start date, and projects are alway created as active, but I might later defer them by adding a start date or move them to someday.

Does my approach sound reasonable?

 

[mcogilvie]

What I am not doing currently as part of clarifying is adding a bunch of detailed notes, tags, context, area, time and effort. I am trying to avoid any deep thought about the item that would prevent me from quickly deciding what it is and where it belongs. This does mean that some items go into next actions and later might be changed to have a start date, and projects are alway created as active, but I might later defer them by adding a start date or move them to someday.

Does my approach sound reasonable?

If your needs are simple enough, you can get away with a handful of lists: next actions, projects, agendas, waiting for and someday maybe. Contexts are useful to me, but time and effort aren’t worth the time and effort for me to use. I don’t find Nirvana to have a strong sense of place, so maybe not using areas is ok. The questions only you can answer is “Am I seeing what I need or want to see when it’s appropriate? Am I getting the right things done?” If that’s happening, roll with it.

 

[TesTeq]

"First cole crop". This is a bit further down the planning road than "grow carrots". I have already decided that in summer/fall of 2022 I'm going to add ONE crop to the usual set. And that it's going to be a cole crop. (Cauliflower or brussels sprouts or broccoli or kale or...) I look at "First cole crop?" and decide that it's a project:

Project: Choose the first cole crop
Next Action: Research sprouting cauliflower.

I create that project and that action. Done.

@Gardener Thank you! It's a perfect example of the "clarify then organize" GTD workflow!

Here’s another example. You get email with medical billing information. You think your health insurance should cover the bill, but you’re not sure. What do you do? Most people, if they know how, will drag that email over to their @desk list. That”s organizing. Then for the next four weeks, they stare at the title: “Billing information for October 2021” from Unknown Caller Billing Services. That’s not clarified. Clarifying is figuring out what it means and determining what to do next: “Look up the phone number of Unknown Caller.”

@mcogilvie A great example of organization without clarification.

 

[Oogiem]

If clarifying is already putting things in the correct "category" then what is the definition of the organizing step?

Clarify is deciding what the item really means. It has little to nothing about where it ends up but what you think is important about that item.

clarify is to decide what it is and which category it belongs to quickly to empty the inbox and that organizing it is the more detailed process of adding contexts, notes, deciding which area, whether it needs a due date, etc.?

Not for me at all. If I did that I'd end up with a horrible mishmash of junk in my list manager. Clarify can take a long time for some items. Deciding which context an action belongs in is the final result and happens long after the clarifying piece.

 

[OF user]

The clarify step forces you to think deliberately about what you are doing. When you first start GTD, if you just begin processing your inbox by just moving things everywhere, you tend to defer most items to a next actions list before you are finished thinking about them.

 

[Julie Jones]

My Conclusion

When I started this topic, I was struggling with the notion that each of the 5 steps of mastering workflow for GTD should be kept separate, and that focusing on one at a time was the best and most efficient way to succeed with GTD. My issue was that based on current tools and writings that clarifying and organizing had no obvious dividing line.

In my attempt to clarify the difference between organizing and clarifying, I have reread all of David Allen's books and many of his other writings. I have taken into account thoughts by @kelstarrising about clarify/organize micro steps. I have been working on cleaning up my OneNote notebooks prompted by discussion with @Roman (German speaking) .

This is probably too long, but it is a reflection on about 15 years of attempting to use GTD and how I still keep finding that I can always improve my understanding and implementation. I recently started trying to coach a couple others, and as always happens, teaching prompts a much deeper learning.

(As an aside, I found that in this rereading of everything that "Making It All Work" by David Allen was very illuminating and I encourage everyone who hasn't read it to do so.)

I have finally come to a conclusion that makes sense to me.

Change
As @DavidAllen has said many times GTD is not static. You will change your system many times based on your experience level, current needs and changes in the available tools. That has certainly been my experience in the last 20 years.

1. I never found any GTD tools 20 years ago, but there was useful software for managing parts of my system. I used email, and lists of some form, but now I use Nirvana and OneNote.
2. I never used paper for my lists, because a computer was easier, but I started with file cabinets full of reference material. That has changed to most of my reference material is digital now.
3. DA writings originally seemed to really focus on using paper for lists. I'll talk about that more further down the list.
4. Now 20 years later, with smart phones being ubiquitous and everything connect by the cloud, I can't imagine why anyone would use a paper calendar. Having your calendar with you at all times is almost a requirement. Similarly, having your next actions with you so that you can quickly check for errands to do before you head home is an obvious benefit.

Clarifying
When writing about processing the paper inbox, David Allen talks about processing (now clarifying) as determining what it is, where it goes and what the next action is given there is one.
Then

• Clarify - In my new understanding, I visualize taking each item (piece of paper) from the inbox, making the what, where and how decisions about it. Scribbling notes on the paper and putting it in a set of new piles: trash, reference, support material, delegate, projects, next actions.
• Organize - now taking each of the piles from the previous step, proceed to file each appropriately in the correct place, creating new reference files, new project lists as necessary and sorting next actions by context and putting them on the correct next actions/context list.
• This now makes sense to me as clarifying and organizing are truly separate steps and work is in different modes.

Now

• However, things have change significantly in terms of software since then. Making a bunch of paper lists and keeping them up-to-date is extra work. With tools a project action can be in the project list and the next actions list simultaneously. If one of my inbox items needs to become a project it take almost no time to turn it into a project while clarifying. This leads to the idea as @kelstarrising said that clarifying is now a micro cycle of remove the item from the inbox, clarify it adding necessary information, and then putting in the correct place (organizing).
• My thought is that instead of talking about micro cycles, that the definition of clarification has just expanded slightly. The paper reference material from the inbox still ends up in a reference pile until the inbox is empty. Then I move to organizing and file references creating new folders as necessary. But the clarifying that on paper would consist of adding details to the original piece of paper such as context, time, effort, notes, etc. and then using that information during organizing is just part of clarifying now because the act of adding that information to the digital inbox item in a software package for GTD automatically does the "putting it in the correct place".

Organizing
So what is organizing, and how is it different than planning or other things you do during the Reflect step?

• This is where my actions based on my conversation with @Roman (German speaking) Provided clarification. I started looking through my OneNote notebooks, which I starting using for GTD long before I had any other GTD tools. I noticed how the way I do things has changed. I started reorganizing notebooks, and sections. I now send receipts directly to OneNote from all sources (paper, web pages, email).
• Organizing as @DavidAllen has stated is making sure you have the correct place for everything and having everything in the correct place. You still have to take time and make sure you are creating the correct places, email folder, OneNote notebooks and section, filing cabinet folders, a place on the bookshelf for magazines and books to read. You have to maintain those places and reorganize as necessary. This is a very different thought process than reflecting about the meaning of life or anything else in your GTD system. It is a different kind of creativity. It is still a large task that needs to be done separately from clarifying.

Reflecting

• The previous thought led me to thinking about how I was viewing reviews wrong. I was thinking of reflect = review and that is definitely not the case. (I am amazed how much I still have to learn about GTD after almost 20 years of trying to use it. Trying to teach a couple others has be huge, both in terms of motivation, and it terms of my striving to learn more.)
• Reflecting is one of the things you need to do during a review. Take an hour and just sit and ponder something about a project, about you vision, your work goals, etc. Be creative in your thinking by giving it special time.

Reviews

• After all the above, I still believe that reviews are extremely important! Why? Because they are the one time when you go through every step of the GTD process and focus on that step in sequence as part of the whole.
• Weekly review
  • Capture anything outstanding
  • Empty all your inboxes by clarifying
  • Check your organization by reviewing projects, support materials, all your lists, etc.
  • Spend some time reflecting on whatever is important now and for this review.
  • Get back to engaging.

Happy GTDing!