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Deciding What To Do
I just started with kGTD a couple weeks ago, right after finishing DA’s book. While I think the system of projects, contexts, and next actions is fantastic, and really helpful for deciding whom to call while walking to the subway, or remembering all the things I want to talk to my boss about when I see him, I am having trouble with the surface treatment of traditional to-do list management - i.e., priority.
The GTD way seems to be “get all your stuff organized into contexts and projects,” and when you need to actually do something, scan through the appropriate context list, and decide based on available time and energy and priority.
Now I know many people are having great success with GTD and kGTD specifically, so perhaps (in fact, I hope) I’m missing something. But doesn’t this scanning process require you to keep all the details about a) how much time and energy an action will require, and b) how an action’s priority compares to all the other posslble actions in your head? Isn’t that sort of contrary to the whole “trusted system” concept of GTD?
From a practical standpoint, I find myself staring at an @Home context with 100 actions (I do most of my work from home), many of which are next actions. In a situation like that, the items at the bottom always suffer. This almost seems worse than my old text file To-Do lists, as I could at least keep these in order of priority, and the items at the bottom were less important. I’ve tried ordering projects by priority, but that will change from action to action.
This might seem like more of a general complaint about GTD than a kGTD question, but here’s the real question. How do kGTD users deal with deciding what to do? One thought I’ve had is a section like the “Next Actions” section featuring only actions with Due Dates (ordered by Due Date if possible).
Any advice would be greatly appreciatedl. I love the concept, and kGTD (along with duus’s kgtd-ipod scripts) have definitely put my projects into perspective in a way they’ve never been before. But this priority thing is making it hard, ironicallly enough, to actually Get Things Done.
There is no rule about what
There is no rule about what contexts you can have. For example, I work from a home office. Therefore, the distinction between a “Home” context, an “Office” context and an “At Computer” context are not very helpful.
Therefore, I use contexts that describe where my head is at rather than where by body is at (except for the “@ Errands” context which does describe that fact that my body isn’t at home when I do those things).
Sample contexts for me: @Brainstorm, @Desk, @On-Line, @Bank (for when I’m in the mood to do financial stuff), @Studio (for when I’ve the recording/editing software loaded and I’m working with sound files).
Also, make good use of your Someday/Maybe List and the Waiting For List to keep the other lists managable.
I've been playing with KGTD
I’ve been playing with KGTD for all of 1 hour, so I may be missing a configuration option (or I may be missing the point), but the Actions view seems flawed in that it doesn’t sort next actions to the top of the list when you view by context. If I decide that I’m in context @Brainstorm, I don’t want to scan every possible Brainstorming action to pick out the ones that actually move one of my projects forward - I want to focus on the ones that actually represent next actions.
Has anyone else had this problem / worked around it?
—brian
Sorry admin,i tested your blog:)
zxxsdjisif4244243fbsd454vnmzxc202
hey, i'm glad you're using the scripts
i like ‘em.
I also have a lot of contexts, even though i usu. work at home:
@home
@online_WORK
@online_nonwork
@office_WORK
@office_nonwork
I wasn't quite clear about
I wasn’t quite clear about my contexts. I have an @home context, an @Online context, an @Email context, and an @Studio context, all things that can be done at home. But when you get down to it, most of the things I need to do during the day happen when I’m at my desk in front of my computer. Chunking those into six different contexts just means that, when I’m at my desk in front of my computer deciding what to do, I need to choose from six different context lists, instead of just one. It doesn’t actually get me closer to “Which next action do I act on next?”
Someday-Maybe seems like a way to get around the question of priority by dividing the world into a two-priority system - do it now, or do it someday.
duus, it’s been a while since I’ve messed around with Perl, but does your script parse the Start/Due Date information in any way? Perhaps I might add in a sorting mechanism by Due date, and use Due Date as an indicator of priority.
Or maybe just manually sorting the Next Actions list is the answer. I can’t be the only one who has this problem. Has anyone else found themselves flummoxed by GTD’s cavalier treatment of priority?
Backgammon online
Backgammon online Super :)
what i meant to say was...
…”I’m glad someone finds the scripts useful!”
No, the scripts don’t really do any parsing. They’re pretty rudimentary. They just strip off some stuff in the beginning of each line. the scripts, as written, don’t actually understand different columns.
Prioritizing
I definitely feel your pain about this. DEFINITELY. I struggle with it, too.
My “solution” is to look at the day and decide what I can actually “get done” what I really need to get done and find tasks that intersect those two points. I don’t think this would fall into the Strict GTD doctrine, but… Anyway, I put them in a “special context” which means copying them onto an index card so they have Very High Priority as opposed being in my Palm with the other 1,082 things I have to do.
The key, for me, is to really look at what is a Next Action and eliminate (for the time being) those things that are a Next Next Action. I find that I sometimes will merge a few actions together which make prioritizing more difficult than need be…
So, that’s my hack. Hope it helps.
my priority workaround
This is really more of a hack but…
I noticed that the Next Actions view lists Next Actions in the project order found in the Projects view. I go to the Projects view every morning, collapse all, and move projects around based on relative priority that day (it’s rare that the priority yesterday is the same as today. Of course, part of that is because I’ve accomplished some pressing subtasks, but it’s mostly the way my work environment is. There’s always something that suddenly becomes “needed yesterday”.) I also physically separate work items from personal items by placing a fake project (a text string of underscores) between them. This also keeps them separated on the Next Actions list so my work-time issues don’t compete with my personal needs.
Next I print out my Next Actions view and, if needed, sit down with a highlighter to find those things that I MUST do. Then with a second color I pick those things that will fill the remainder of my day with the tasks that make the most sense.
Of course, if I find myself in a particular context - I will use the appropriate context list.
By the way, my contexts include different “work modes”: @planning, @writing, @research, @analysis, @code
I’m still feeling my way through how to make GTD work. The key for me is getting rid of the clutter in my brain. kGTD helps me organize & plan all the things I need to do but I do the prioritizing. Some days it makes sense to work from context to context (ie. I’m in a series of physical locales where I have a limited choice of items I can accomplish) but most days I have total control over what contexts I can work in so a GTD context-only approach doesn’t work. Maybe I’m mis-understanding something about GTD (I don’t think I ever finished reading the book…)
Anyways, hope this makes sense. I’d be interested to know if anyone else works this way? Or has a more efficient system :)
lanhsin
Sorry admin,i tested your blog:)
zxxsdjisif4244243fbsd454vnmzxc202
Doesn't kGTD go too far?
If I recall, Dave A specifically called out that your project list SHOULDN’T be a long list of things. The idea was to have project list that you reviewed every morning and you created a single NEXT ACTION for that project.
I personally find this hard as when I go into ‘planning mode’ it helps tremendously to write everything out of my head and the prioritize what really is my next action. I assume many of us do this as well.
The problem, however, shows up and justifies why DA says this, you get a LOT of stuff you have to keep parsing and reparsing throughout the day, your GTD list becomes something you tweak/manage/review/worry over constantly.
That is my problem. I was a big GTD user before but now that I’ve started using kGTD it’s turned me into a nervous wreck: My NA lists are huge!, *what* should I do next?, where is that action again?, Should I Sync now or can it wait?
I hate to say it but kGTD has actually slowed me down. I’m not giving up but I’m finding that I have to use kGTD in a VERY disciplined manner or it will eat up more time than it saves.
1) I REALLY want a setting to “Show only first action in project” This would allow me the freedom to dump lots of crap in my projects but keep my NA lists short, requiring little thinking when I context switch.
2) I want a Sync button that DOESN’T sync to ical, save, shine my shoes, and brush my teeth. I’m finding out the hard way that you HAVE to sync often or things just don’t get updated but clicking that sync button is such a love/hate thing. I want to change an item’s context, hit sync and wait only a few seconds, not the 15-20 I currently have to. Right now I play ‘chicken’ with kGTD waiting as long as I can before I hit sync, hoping that I’m not changing any twin items simultaneously…
Sorry for the rant, but this tread just brought everything into focus for me…
Scott
>1) I REALLY want a setting
>1) I REALLY want a setting to “Show only first action in project” This would allow me the freedom to dump lots of crap in my projects but keep my NA lists short, requiring little thinking when I context switch.<
I don’t assign contexts to things I don’t want in my Action section. This lets me plan out the project, and I assign contexts later, when I want to see the Action. (My actions are quite clear as to context, so I don’t have to carry that in my head.)
>2) I want a Sync button that DOESN’T sync to ical, save, shine my shoes, and brush my teeth.<
You can turn off the iCal synching, and it does save time. Go to Settings, and type false in the line under iCal Synch Settings. You can also save time by NOT creating a Next Action Summary section and NOT auto-archiving.
I would like the program to brush teeth, especially my kids’ teeth … which setting is that? (just kidding)
-Liz
Squeaky wheel or chunks of time
I found this helpful - having a number of different strategies to work your way through tasks depending on energy level and mood is useful.
http://www.43folders.com/2005/04/25/choosing-a-daily-gtd-action-plan/
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