Getting Things Done: Contextual Task Lists

One might ask, "How does all this actually work in practice?" Well, functionally, I see my system as having three main components — contextual task lists, processing "stuff", and periodic reviews.

First, I have my to-do lists. They’re categorized by "context" and by project/role. By filtering my list down to the appropriate category/categories, I can quickly see what I have that needs to get done in a particular setting or for a particular role.

When I say "context" I mean "mode" or "location". My contexts include:

• @Agenda — Contains items that I need to talk to someone about the next time I meet/call them. This context includes tasks like "Bob: Travel budget projections for 2007" if I know that I need to ask about those projections the next time I talk to Bob. Tasks that go in this category aren’t particularly urgent; just something I want to remember the next time I meet with different folks.
   
• @Blog — Tasks possibly related to maintenance of my blogs. For example, when I finish working on these pages, I’ll be checking the "Write about GTD" item off.
   
• @Call/Email — For tasks that need to be done when I’m in phone call or email mode, that condition where I’m just catching up on and churning out emails, or when I have a little bit of time undisturbed with the phone (e.g., while I’m sitting in a parking lot while my wife is shopping or keeping an appointment). Some would argue that I ought to break this up into two separate contexts, but I operate under a "less is more" philosophy.
   
  Yes, there is a bit of overlap on this context with @Agendas. For me @Call/Email is a slightly higher priority than @Agenda. Items in @Call/Email require me to proactively make a call or send an email; @Agenda tasks are just reminders for whenever I happen to make contact with a particular person.
   
• @Doctor — Hopefully this is a fairly unique need to my family, but we do spend a lot of time with various doctors. Concerns that need to be raised with particular docs, prescription renewals, etc. go here.
   
• @Errands / @Errands-Grocery — Oversimplifying, these form my shopping lists. My grocery list goes into "@Errands-Grocery", while everything else goes into @Errands with the subject indicating where (e.g. "Hardware: Hammer" to remember to pick up a hammer the next time I’m at a hardware store).
   
• @Home — For tasks that need to be done at home, while "off-duty" — chores, for example.
   
• @Read — Things that I want to read. They may be work-related or recreational. For example, if I encounter an interesting email, blog post, or web page that doesn’t actually require me to do anything, which I do want to read more closely, but don’t have time/energy to do so at that instant, I’ll clip it and categorize it as "@Read". Next time I’m in reading mode (lower energy, quiet environment, etc.), I’ll catch up with a few of those items.
   
• @Study — This is a category I hope to need in the future, and which I preserved as a hold-over from a prior organization system. While I’m an associate member of the Casualty Actuarial Society, I lack a few exams to become a full Fellow. Unfortunately, life doesn’t permit me to tackle that goal right now. However, if/when circumstances change, items related to studying for the actuarial exams will go in @Study.
   
• @Waiting-For — Items that I’m waiting for someone else to act on. Tag them with a reminder in the future, and we have tickler file functionality.
   
• @Web — Things that I want to do/look at when I’m online, in web-surfing mode. Some would argue that these are things I ought to flag as either @Home or @Work, depending on their nature, but because my work arrangements are flexible, and because I’m not always online, it made sense to me to have a class of tasks specifically related to web-surfing.
   
• @Work — Tasks that I would want to tackle while in "Work" mode. Almost all of these tasks get subcategorized depending on my role/the business I’m supporting, and whether it’s related to a particular project. So, for example, if I need to pull data for Project X for business ABC, I might create a task "Project X: Pull such-and-such data", and categorize it as "ABC" and "@Work".

Don’t think there’s anything magical in those contexts, by the way. That’s just the bucketing that naturally came to me based on how I live and work. Your mileage may vary.

I should also mention that I have a couple of other special contexts/categories:

• !Goals — Tasks, concepts, ideas that form things that I want to work towards go into my task list tagged as !Goals. They’re there for me to look at periodically (more on that later), trackable but not cluttering up the context lists.
   
• zzProjects — A list of the projects I’m currently working on or which are in my queue go here. I know that some folks swear by having a separate list of projects maintained in a separate file/folder from regular tasks. However, I’m naturally scatterbrained enough that I do better just having one filter-able list.
   
• Travel, zzReference — These aren’t contexts, but they do form fairly major categories for me in Outlook. I mention them because in Outlook, tasks, calendar items, email, blog posts, notes, etc. are increasingly interchangeable. Therefore, I make no distinction when assigning categories to email, appointments, tasks, etc. I find it very helpful to have a category for "Travel" items, simply because OL07 color-codes everything and it’s nice to quickly see on my calendar what times I have blocked off due to flights, driving to/from meetings, etc. And material that I want to keep for reference (e.g., collection of links to data dictionaries for work; next year’s company holiday schedule) gets tagged as zzReference when it’s filed away

With everything I need / want / might want to do neatly tagged, it becomes easy to keep track of what it is that I could productively be doing in any situation. Armed with that information, I can "work" on the appropriate task given current priorities, and time and energy available.

As new tasks or ideas arise, I just drop them into my task list with the appropriate categories set. Even those odd ideas that occur to me while driving home or sitting in an airport ("hmmm…I wonder if there is any money to be made by doing X") make it into my to-do list. And, by making it a point to put every idea or assignment into the task list, I don’t have to waste energy on remembering that-thing-that-I-wanted-to-do-and-am-trying-not-to-forget.

In his book, David Allen makes a point of extolling the virtues of not expending "psychic RAM" maintaining ideas/thoughts that could be placed in a "trusted system". And, when I read Getting Things Done, the idea was pushed to the point of actually annoying me (in the way that self-help books only can). However, I do have to admit that there is something a little relaxing at not having to worrying about remembering things.

On the next page, I’ll explain how the task list actually gets populated.

Previous: Tools | Next: Processing "Stuff"