Comments on: Should I separate personal and professional?

By: JD

JD — Tue, 24 Jan 2017 18:04:23 +0000

What about when your company already uses a Project/Task Managing Service for work? We use Active collab and I am trying to use Todoist along with it by treating AC as a HUB but all my work and personal tasks go into Todoist. At first it was nice to have but it started feeling really overwhelming once a project or task would change or move around because then it was no longer just changing it on 1 program but now I have to constantly monitor both Task managers and AC is more conducive to teams but it doesn’t work well with GTD for my work and personal tasks as a whole.

I am starting to think it would be better if I just leave all my work tasks in Ac and personal in Todoist? I don’t know either way it seems I am stuck using to task managers…:/

By: Ginny Williams

Ginny Williams — Mon, 26 Dec 2016 15:58:25 +0000

In my opinion they constantly intersect.

By: Adam

Adam — Mon, 19 Dec 2016 05:03:28 +0000

I’ve found keeping separate rewarding with one major challenge, which is that crossing context needs a custom solution. For example:
I have a First Aid certificate. My new work needs a backup First Aid officer and I’m the man for the job. They just need a scan of it for their records. BUT every day I get home, get the kids fed and into bed then relax with Mrs Adam.
The next day I rush off in the morning with no First Aid certificate.

My solution was to have scraps of paper ONLY for these things:
1. work-needs-X-from-home
2. vice versa

Only the context-crossers get special paper scrap treatment, every work thing is in the work collection and every home thing is on its little home list, but the emissaries from one to the other are written, acted on, then ceremonially scrunched up and chucked away!

By: Jack

Jack — Fri, 16 Dec 2016 08:22:04 +0000

Hi,
You could try Toodledo, it’s free and can do the separation that you want by adding the computer separation, @context.
Am using that for years. Work also on phone and tablets, excel k ent sync.

Excel can work but this is so much easier.

By: GTD Times Staff

GTD Times Staff — Thu, 15 Dec 2016 23:54:19 +0000

Hi Joe. Julie uses Lotus Notes with eProductivity to manage her project and action lists.

A spreadsheet can work for your lists. Some people create separate worksheets for each list and others simply create one worksheet, for Next Actions, and use a column for the context/category to sort by that category. The forum members might have some good ideas for you too: http://forum.gettingthingsdone.com

Hope that helps!

By: Joe Martinez

Joe Martinez — Thu, 15 Dec 2016 15:45:36 +0000

Thank you – this is very insightful, Julie. I’m curious: do you use a computer program such as a spreadsheet to sort your different “@” categories? I’m using a google docs document to implement my system. Since I am using a word processor, I am not currently using sorting capability. Also, does the community know if there is such a thing as a Microsoft Excel template for GTD out there? Perhaps this is a good reason for me to join GTD Connect… Thank you.