How do you plan your (GTD) contexts?

[J Smith]

Hello

I seem to have a problem getting my contexts to work well in MLO.

Rather than planning which Tasks I'm going to do in which order today, I want to plan which Contexts I'm going to do in which order today - and I want to be able to see at a glance which tasks I have got lined up in each of Context (and if necessary change the sort order of tasks within each context too).

I should emphasize that this is for planning my current day.

Of course the more traditional / 'correct' (i.e. designed-for-use) way of doing things would be to add my context for each task as an MLO "Context tag" and then later to go into the filters panel on the left of MLO  an click on the Contexts (so as just to see those tasks that match that context).

But my problem with doing this is that although you can see how many tasks there are (through the number in brackets beside each Context tag name), I can find no easy way to PLAN which contexts to do in which order.  

The only way I can find to do that is rather inefficient - which is that I create special MLO tasks (i.e. rows on MLO) which I use as containers to hold the relevant Projects & Tasks (i.e. as if they were sub-tasks). This way I can manually sort those containers into the order which I want. (And then of course to sort my tasks within those context-containers into what order I'm going to do them too.)

Where a task is part of a project this is slightly clumsy as it means I need to move and entire project tree into my context container... and this can get messy for larger projects.

How do you plan you contexts for today?

J

PS Possibly one could use MLO Flags as contexts, but you get the same problem: How do you sort your MLO Flags into the order that you intend to execute them?

Btw, I should perhaps explain that I am in the habit of spending too long on individual contexts, and that I need to put time constraints on each context so that I keep moving between contexts - as this is helps cover the ground and also to maintain my energy levels.

[Dwight Arthur]

I dont know if this helps but if I  wanted to achieve this I would use context renaming: if I  wanted to to handle @calls first,  then @email and @banking, I  would rename them 1calls, 2email and 3banking. Next time I re-plan what contexts to work on I would start by putting the @-signs back and then picking new contexts to number.

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[J Smith]

It's not drag & drop reordering (which would have been ideal) but ingenious, I grant you!

One slight problem is that when I rename Contexts there is small but irritating visual a bug in my MLO running on Windows 8.1 (with DPI Textsize set to 125%) whereby I can't see actually the cursor when I'm editing context names.
But let me chew on this suggestion and revert.

J

[Stéph]

I use the contexts view some of the time, though I don't try to use MLO to schedule times for things - just dates. Too much time can be spent sorting and planning tasks rather than doing them. I think that David Allen advocates using context lists to get a couple of extra tasks done when you're on a particular context, so it's a bit more fluid and responsive.

When planning to be in a particular context at a particular time (eg doing errands in the morning, switching the computer on in the evening, etc), I use my calendar. I find that quicker and easier to consider in the context of my other appointments.

[robisme (Olivier R)]

Le jeudi 21 juillet 2016 10:02:45 UTC+2, Stéph a écrit :
> I use the contexts view some of the time, though I don't try to use MLO to schedule times for things - just dates. Too much time can be spent sorting and planning tasks rather than doing them. I think that David Allen advocates using context lists to get a couple of extra tasks done when you're on a particular context, so it's a bit more fluid and responsive.
>
> When planning to be in a particular context at a particular time (eg doing errands in the morning, switching the computer on in the evening, etc), I use my calendar. I find that quicker and easier to consider in the context of my other appointments.

If you really want to "plan" your contexts, perhaps you could try to make use of open/close hours of contexts ?
Olivier

[J Smith]

I am slightly intrigued... are you not planning your contexts very much?
On a typical day how many contexts do you put into your calendar system?

[Elizabeth Lindsay]

I only use my calendar for items that must be done at a specific date/time. Otherwise, I follow the GTD process of energy, context, etc. to select my next action from my list of actions.  If I'm able to keep working on a single project, I look at what else is associated to that same project.

[Stéph]

No, I only really have to plan @errand. That context is a useful tag for items so that, while I'm running an errand, I can check to see if there's anything else I need to pick up from the shops.

Any other contexts (@office, @site, @home, @computer, @online, @call) tend to happen regularly enough without any specific planning.  In fact, most of my work-related tasks are @online or @computer, which is my context for most of the working day.  I'm also @home every day, except when on work trips.

Stéph

[Adam]

I had just thought of this myself and was going to post a new comment/question but thought I would do a search first and found this! Thank you John for your original post. 

I would like to go a few steps further though and I hope others would agree it could be useful. I would like to block out my entire week based on contexts. Now with the calendar sync this seems like many might find it a better use of the integration. Based on some of the comments in this forum and on uservoice, many people think that it would take too much time and effort to schedule and ultimately reschedule each individual task with exact times, so they don't use the calendar integration. Also, if using individual tasks, if one takes longer than expected, I don't think it is easy to bump all other tasks at the same time. Maybe this can be done on the google calendar but I haven't tried it. 

Here is how I envision my use: 

1. Schedule exact times/dates to be in a particular context, to block out time to finish tasks only within that context without having to put hard start and due dates which can be freed for real deadlines and being able to not think about certain tasks until after their start date. 
   
2. Be able to move the context around the calendar and adjust start, end and/or duration based on other times blocked out (contexts, events or meetings)
3. Only see available tasks when in that particular context according to the time blocked out. 

For example, my work schedule is very fluid and flexible but quite busy so it would be good to be able to schedule contexts a bit more flexibly. Here is an example of how I might think about blocking my time for a particular week.  

• Thurs work from 9-5, Home tasks from 6-9, Personal from 9-12
• Friday work 8-3 , then take 2 hours for errands around work. Nothing else until Sat morning. 
• Thus I would want work context active Thurs 9-5, Friday from 8-3 but each weekday I may work afternoons, evening or split into multiple chunks. So context hours would need to be adjusted individually each week.
• I would not want to see errands until Friday after work, but then I want to be able to be able to see all the tasks and complete as many as possible before within that 2 hours and have the rest roll over until the next time I plan errands. 

All of this would make it much easier to balance my life between my different roles by blocking accordingly, not just getting stuck in one context at the expense of others (...I'm talking to you @Work !!!! ;)).  

I know I can switch the open close hours for the contexts, but it would be really awesome to be able to see it on google calendar with other contexts and hard scheduled meetings and events and block out my times without having to do this on a per task basis. Also, it can be hard to know when I can schedule blocks of time for contexts if I can't easily see the hours of all the other contexts and if you don't remember which context you set to be open at a particular time, it isn't easy to find it. 

As a workaround, I can just create general tasks (or even just calendar events outside of MLO) for each block and give it a name of the context and just use context views during those times (without adjusting hours, just keeping it always open) to essentially do the same thing. However, each block would need to be a new task and they wouldn't automatically expire so it would add clutter and extra maintenance, but I am sure I could hack together something that can work ok.  

Does anyone else think this would be a very useful feature? Has anyone else figured out a useful workaround and/or have any tips? 

Thanks,

Adam

[Trevor Peck]

I do something similar, without using integration. I have my schedule on the calendar, and it is just as you say, blocks devoted to a particular role. Then I have an MLO workspace or view for tasks that fit the role, and I just look at the appropriate one. Many of the calendar events even have reminder notifications or emails to let me know that I should change what I'm working on.

 On case it matters, it isn't really working for me. I'm redoubling my efforts to follow this schedule, getting impacted persons involved during scheduling, and I'm optimistic. ;-)

 - Trevor

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