Comments on: David Allen on why sorting your lists by contexts even matters

By: Patricia

Patricia — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 04:19:05 +0000

Simply…what he said. I personally work backward from desired Goal, detailed tasks to achieve goal, then I have things sorted as to where they fit my life overall – Personal, Podcast, Mind & Body, etc. That’s working so far and I’ve been tweaking during the pandemic self-isolation so I’ll come out of this more organized than ever before.

By: Banzo

Banzo — Sat, 11 Aug 2012 22:16:20 +0000

@LBB : contexts are used to separate your different actions into reasonable chunks. I would not advise you use those contexts for you mail, simply because mail is just something that carries information you have to decide on. When you get email that requires an action, write down the action required in your tasks list, and archive your mail.

If you want to be able to go back to the mail, then you can either print it and put in the folder corresponding to your project, or keep a digital copy (for example by sending your mail directly to your Evernote account, and then giving it the tag corresponding to the project folder you want that mail to be in).

Hope this helps (your feedback would be nice).

By: LBB

LBB — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 23:25:22 +0000

Hi All, I am hoping you can help me with an issue I find confusing:
Is the @context an email folder to file the actual email itself, or a ‘to-do’/next- actions list saved on another program (perhaps with links to the original email,in case the original reference material is needed)?
If the @context is a folder of emails, once the task is completed what happens next? It goes into archive?
Many thanks,
LBB

By: marco snikkers

marco snikkers — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 10:07:57 +0000

I’ve learned by implementing GTD myself, and by coaching others, it really depends what works/feels best for you. If you only have ~20 active tasks (as my customer services peope), 1 list will work. As I’m travelling a lot, have private actions in my system as well, and >100 open actions the above works for me. My marketing person likes to work on specific topics and finish all action from that list, so she has a category ‘@tradeshows.

Kelly is right. as few as you need.

By: Kelly Forrister

Kelly Forrister — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 16:30:26 +0000

Lucy–

Luke said what I would have: use as many contexts as you need, but as few as you can get by with.

Kelly

By: Luke

Luke — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 15:47:30 +0000

I agree with Cory about minimizing your contexts. Use as many as you need but as few as you can. David’s default list is a good starting point for most people.

At first I had overcategorized and created an unworkable system. I decided to go back to the default list. Over time I added only one specialized category: @Home-Computer. I used to keep these actions on my @Home list, but got tired of hunting for them among actvities like “Clean toilets”.

By: Lucy

Lucy — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 23:24:22 +0000

Hi Kelly,

I like the idea of splitting contexts between work and home, particularly when work PCs are not accessible at home for whatever reason. I also have a work mobile and personal mobile, work email and personal email.

Q: Would you recommend splitting contexts in this fashion as well?

By: Kelly Forrister

Kelly Forrister — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 15:52:50 +0000

Cory & Camilla–

In case this helps, I’ve done loads of GTD seminars for engineering groups and I suggested they looked at splitting contexts by the tools they use or mode they are. For example, many of them would say that doing email was an entirely different mode than coding. So their lists would be split by @email and @Coding or @[name of software they use to code].

I have Computer (my PC at work) and Computer-Personal (my Mac at home). I also have a computer context that’s just for posting content to GTD Connect called To Post. It requires the computer, but it’s a specific thing to do on the computer.

-Kelly

By: Camilla

Camilla — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 08:24:00 +0000

I agree with Cory. I work as a programmer and I find it really hard to come up with other contexts for work than @computer. I just keep a next actions list too and maybe an errands one.

By: Thomas Saar

Thomas Saar — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 08:11:53 +0000

I think its important (as always) not to over-structure. I use omnifocus, and it has posibilites to sub-contexts.

I used them some time but came back to simple contexts, because it took me too much thought where should I put it, like David I am too lazy :)

Seriously it should be simple to sort your list, so 10-20 contexts should be max…