Help needed planning my Contexts

[John . Smith]

Hello

OK, I have created my list of tasks, and I have put each task into one of about 12 Contexts. 

I now need a way to decide what order I'm going to do my Contexts by briefly looking at the list of tasks within each Context.

So I need a clever way to: 
A) Create a list of all my Contexts, which I can then
B) Manually shuffle (into the order in which I intend to execute them) by 

C) Jumping back and forth between each successive Context and the list of tasks within it, e.g. by using a simple mouse click (or using a hotkey)

To recap: From a functional/user perspective, what I'm trying to do is to whiz in and out of my Contexts, and based on what's inside them to change the sequence in which I will take my Contexts. 

Possible solutions

I have tried to create 12 dedicated Tabs - one for each Context - and then to drag and drop the Tabs horizontally on my screen, so as to put the Tabs into the order in which I intend to execute them.

The problem is that because I already have 12 other tabs in use, and because my Windows is running at a large 200% scaling, the tab names are in rather a large font and it is hard to read their names.

- Is there any way to add a bookmark to a task, so that when you click on the task you are taken to the correct Context?

- How do you folks go about planning your contexts?

Cheers

J

[robisme (Olivier R)]

I don't "plan" contexts.
When I am in a specific context, I look which tasks I may work on in this context.

[John . Smith]

Yes, I too tend to do the same thing, but I am wanting to plan better.

My question for you is how then do you move between contexts? 

How do you decide which context to move to next?

For me one problem is that I tend to get stuck and spend far too long within each context.
i.e. I "plough too deep" as it were, and by failing to switch between tasks I tend to:

a) Exhaust myself unnecessarily 
a) Tend to not cover enough ground

So I would like to put time-limits on contexts (using a nice simple kitchen timer on my desk!)

J

[SRhyse]

What contexts are you using? If they’re too personal to publicly state, you can use a standin name to mention it here, like ‘Wife’ or ‘Dog’ or something.

In my experience, fewer contexts work better, and adding more to the mix only serves as a way for me to avoid thinking through my commitments all the way by putting the ones I haven’t thought through all the way into the digital equivalent of a dust drawer that I tricked myself into thinking is not a dust drawer.

I use ‘stars’ to definitely mark a task as needing done or worked on that day. With start dates, tasks can be put off to only appear when they’re ready to be done, and using times, you can even do it by time of day if you want that level of granularity. From there, I have D for deep work that requires a lot of time or concentration, S for shallow work that usually comprises administrative stuff chores and other relatively mindless things, and W for waiting for or deferred items. I used to use time estimates and contexts for how much time or energy things will take, but in 99% of cases, short tasks are administrative or mindless, and longer ones are creative work requiring concentration.

All of my work related things are in a career folder with various subfolders or projects, my personal stuff in its own folder, correspondance and networking in its own, health and fitness in the same way, etc. If I want to focus in on only one of those areas, I just zoom in on that folder, or sub folder, and the contexts all still hold up. Stars are my main go to though for things needing immediate attention. If it’s something that just showed up, I’ll often times not even mark one of those tasks with a context or put it in a folder that isn’t the inbox, as the main point is to get tasks to be starred for immediate action.

I’ve played around with other various contexts with mixed results, this being the best setup I’ve had. I’ve never found people contexts to be useful because if I need to speak with someone, I’ll make a task to do that and put notes in there, or put it on a page for them I keep in reference apps—though I could easily do that in MLO now that it has Markdown support. I’ve also had little use for ‘errand’ contexts, keeping a grocery / supplies list in MLO instead, as that’s really the only ‘errand’ I ever do. Location reminders can always give me a notification if I want one via location, and I do use those via iOS now, but that’s probably outside of the realm of what you had in mind for contexts.

[John . Smith]

SRhyse - thanks.

At present, I only have Work, Personal (includes non-chargeable Admin and social life), Health (includes fitness), but I am planning to have more one the dust has settled a bit on my setup. 

Yes, I too use Stars for "attempt to do today".

Yes, I too use Start date, to kick things into the future (partly Tickler File, partly Waiting For), because I am using a lot of "Active" views in MLO, which will of course hide tasks which haven't started yet.

I know that I probably do have far too many Context tags, but I use them for completely different purposes:

[Note: These are NOT the exact context names that I use but roughly what i am doing is this: ]

a) Traditional "context" - i.e. physical location, and/or type of equipment to be used (e.g. @Errands, @House, @Office (means paperwork), @Calls, @PC-very-quick, @PC-not-quick

b) What is my core level of commitment to executing it - is it one of a small number of "Goals", if so over what period? Useful to help make sure my priorities stay on target.

c) What, in principle, is its status of 'do I want to do, and if so it now?" 

e.g.
- Live, (Do ASAP)
- Do Someday (Maybe never do)
- Do Soon  (Coming up, but not yet urgent/important enough to be of "Do ASAP" status)

- Archive - look again say in a year. But completely exclude from all weekly/monthly reviews before then.

- Information only (not executable)

d) What is the level of psychological resistance? - e.g. Have I already put it off a few times?

If so, special attention may be required to stop avoidance.

e) What time of day to execute it? - e.g. Evenings only

PERSONAL ENERGY
f) Is it fun i.e. is it an energy generator? 
g) Can it be done when I have lower energy

h) Does it demand higher energy &/or deep reflective thought 

i) I also have a temporary MLO context-tag for "was starred yesterday" which sounds slightly nuts but which I find easy to use and surprisingly useful when allocating my Stars for today.

j) Currently, I also need to have a tag to flag up tasks which I have publically committed (on a different system) to executing them within some time frame. 


Yes, yes, I know that's probably far too many MLO context-tags but I currently do find them all useful. 

Fwiw, what I also find incredibly powerful is that I am using the Icons column to indicate visually which MLO context-tag(s) each task has. I am currently using about 6 icon positions so that I can have up to 6 different icons visible on each task. This creates an extremely compact view of what context-tags I have allocated on each task. This also means that I dont have to keep reading my tags, and for this reason they currently are able to have very long names (This is v. useful whilst I get used to what my own tags actually mean...).  

Note that it is very easy to allocate tags to tasks because I have allocated hotkeys to almost all of my MLO context-tags (all of which FWIW, involve with Control+Alt+...)

However just the same, I do like the sound of fewer, much shorter tags...


But SRhyse, I am intrigued by your setup.  Are you saying that you only have 3 contexts in total i.e. D, S and W?

Also if you don't mind sharing I would be intrigued to know what your folders you have in the root directory i.e. in effect what your areas of life (AKA Areas of Responsibility) are. I don't need exact names, just a sort of generic description would be of great interest to me as I am currently re-thinking this aspect of my data...

J

[SRhyse]

My D and S contexts take care of the energy aspect. Deep, creative work always requires energy, and my success there would determine whether I felt energized or not. Shallow work usually adds energy because I’m accomplishing things and building up moment with relatively little effort.

It’s your setup, but I’d be wary of having contexts for archive, do someday, and do soon. If you’re regularly reviewing your tasks, everything that’s tagged to be done at all is a someday. If something needs done by a certain date you can put that on it, and if not, it really is just whenever you can get to it. Things change as you work, so I’ve found no value in trying to make time commitments like that. And if something is on a list to be done at all, you should be committed to doing it when you can. If you’re not, it just shouldn’t be on that list. At least for me. I’ve actually taken a great deal of things out of MLO to that effect, like movies I’d like to see or books I’d like, or things I’d like to write or do.

It would depend on the nature of your work, but if I have my iPad Pro with me, I can do 90% of what I’d need to do for work, whether it involved writing, designing, drawing, correspondence, or otherwise. I also work from home, so I don’t need a separate context for that. If I didn’t, I’d just put those tasks in a “Home” folder to ease the management of them. If I’m out, I’m either working, running an errand, working out, or doing something for leisure, so I wouldn’t need to distinguish what I could do there because I’m actively in the act of doing something. All errands for me consist of buying something, so it’s all on a grocery list.

My folders largely look like the following:

Inbox
Career
-Client
—Specific Client folders
——Different projects for each client as relevant
-Larger Project I work on folder
-Leads
-Sales
Relationships
-Friends
-Family
-Dating
-Networking
-Elly (my dog)
HAF (Stands for Health and Fitness, don’t feel like typing it out each time to parse things there)
-Various folders related to that
Finances
Learning
-Different folders or projects for learning initiatives, etc, but no itemized lists of books or research, that’s all elsewhere, if anywhere
-Self-improvement stuff is here too
-Things I regularly do to stay in practice, mostly drawing, design, writing, and related things
Chores
-Admin Work, including things meant to remind me to review MLO
-Upkeep (things around my place to do, like cleaning, etc)
Fun
-Exclusively things I’m planning on doing reasonably soon, usually non specific, like ‘see a movie’ or ‘play games’. I find I don’t like committing to specifics on things like this, but do better categorically, and it saves me the trouble of making needlessly numerous entries for relatively mundane things
Grocery List
Reminders
-Things that won’t fit elsewhere and I exclusively want to act more or less like a Tickler to pop up in the starred view on a particular date
BS
-I throw things in here sometimes if I can’t bring myself to delete them yet. This often includes entire MLO databases worth of tasks, sample hierarchies or things I was experimenting in, project plans, etc.

That’s pretty much it. Sometimes I’ll have a top level ‘templates’ folder, but I’ve found it’s usually easier to have subfolders in an area with templates because that will usually be where I’m going to place them eventually anyway. I sometimes have ‘waiting for’ subfolders, but I try not to as I’m not really waiting for very much at all. If I’ve been paid already and someone’s supposed to get back to me, that’s on them, not me, and I don’t want it sullying my attention in the meantime. Some subfolders might be along the lines of ‘Maybe’ or ‘Hold’ and are turned off in todo lists. Some might also be for notes, but I tend to keep relevant info in MLO on the task reminders to do them, and extended info outside of it. This may change with Markdown support having been added, however. Also sometimes have a top level Waiting folder, but I wait on so few things that it tends not to last.

I’ve had a personal folder in the past, but really, there’s work commitments to others I might want to focus on, and there’s everything else, so there was little point in foldering all of that together.

Yes, I only have 3 contexts, D, S, and W. 4 if you count the Star, which is kind of the super context for things I want to do that day or be aware of that day. Folders sometimes change, but it’s always basically something like that.

[John . Smith]

Hi SRhyse

Interesting...  It looks like you've put a lot of demanding thought into your system. I don't know if the extreme simplicity of your tagging would work for me, but it's an interesting approach and I shall ponder on it.

One thing I still can't decide is how best to use folders within MLO. In Particular how many root folders should one have? Indeed, how many folders to have at all? 

If I read your correctly you have about 9 folders in the root directory:

- Inbox

- Career

- Relationships

- HAF

- Learning

- Fun

- Grocery List

- Reminders

- BS

==> Yes? 

But to what extent do you use the David Allen's GTD 5 stages of workflow ?

1. Capture

2. Clarify/Process

3. Organize

4. Reflect/Review

5. Engage/Execute

The main problem with having too many folders is that all new stuff needs to be moved into the correct folder, and that can be a serious pain. How do you do that - by copy and paste, with lots of scrolling? e.g. Do you use F7 to open up all the folders?

When I am doing a review of ALL my tasks, obviously it's easy to stick any new tasks directly into the correct folder, BUT
when I am busy executing other tasks, I just need to get it all out of my head and dump it somewhere ASAP so as to avoid distraction.

i.e. At this point, I am using GTD Stage #1 "Capture"

At some point, this requires me to come back and do GTD Stage #2 to "Clarify/Process" the new stuff as to what each item is.
Personally, at the same time I would tend also do GTD Stage #3 and Organise them - i.e. move them into the correct position within my folders. And give everyting a Context (using a hotkey).
i.e. I can't see any point it separating Stage #2 from Stage #3.

Then about once a per day I will do a GTD Stage #4 "Reflect/Review" where I do a pass over all my "Live" / "Active" / "Do ASAP" stuff, to decide what to do today by giving it a Star.

Then, during GTD Stage #5 "Engagement", several times during each day, I will then keep reviewing everything on my "Do Today" (i.e. starred)  list to see what to do next.
I will then set about anything seriously urgent. 

Then if the list is too long (it generally always is), I find it useful to step through my different Contexts [depending on my variables like my mood / my location tools / urgency....]

NOTE: This is a dangerous time to get lost down rabbit holes. When my energy levels are high I take on the harder stuff - particularly anything that I have already put off ("Frogs" - from "Eat that Frog" book).
I'm not sure I have any real answers... but one thing I like to do is time things with a kitchen timer and force myself to move on.

 

What about you - where do you put your simple stand-alone tasks? Do you even put them into the correct directory within the "root directory" or leave them all in one place?

J

[SRhyse]

Hi John,

Those are my basic root folders. Sometimes I’ve had variations where I’d put some of that in a personal folder, or if there’s a big thing going on like building renovations I might make a temporary folder for that, but that’s the gist. BS is by far the biggest folder. My Finance folder is sparse enough to be merged with Reminders, but I like having it top level to be 150% sure all my bills are paid and I’ve been paid everything I’m owed.

The main point of anything you put in MLO, or any other app for that matter regarding productivity, is either to:

1) Give you a list of options to select what you would like to do immediately
2) Act as a reference when you are prompted to need it by the world around you

I go through all the stages of workflow outlined in GTD, though like everyone a lot of that will happen all at once and back and forth. It seems like an issue you’re running into is that you’re trying to use MLO to manually manage every stage of that process in a linear fashion, which isn’t really the point of Allen’s model there, nor is it really what MLO is intended to do.

If I’m planning or thinking about something complex, I might make a mindmap, or an outline, or any number of things, all with that intention of thinking all of that through. Once you organize your thinking in that way, then you don’t usually need much if any of that material as anything but a reference, from there making lists of specific projects and actions you want to do, and deciding when and where you’d like to be reminded of them. For Allen, he uses context lists as those reminders. It sounds like what you’re trying to do, however, is use a great number of contexts to guide anything that pops into your head through MLO. That’s actually a much greater effort than being looser with things and using MLO to hold the results of your thinking, and one you’re unlikely to get anything out of. I also recommend not writing everything down, in MLO or otherwise. It’s fine to let plenty of your thoughts go, which I say as someone that has hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of megabytes of plaintext with ideas and similar things in them.

The main point of any context list, or productivity system, is to help you decide what would be the best use of your time right now in the moment you are engaging with the system. For me, Starred tasks are what I’m committed to do that day, at times at that particular time if I get that granular, which I try not to be. Because of that, plenty of tasks that show up don’t make it out of the inbox if they’re that urgent, they’re simply made and starred. If they’re small tasks, I often do them as I’m processing my inbox anyway, like “email john about ABC.” I primarily use MLO on iOS between my iPad Pro and iPhone X, but it’s pretty much the same on all platforms now as far as how this workflow would apply. If I’m making a task I know would need to be in a specific folder, I can parse things there directly when writing it in the inbox popup, drag it to that folder from elsewhere—which is easy when you have so few—or simply click on the folder and add a new task under it. All of those things are basically a click. Sometimes if I’m in starred views, adding a new task makes it directly under the one selected in the main outline, so I’ll click it after and move it to have the proper parent after, though plenty of times I’ll just leave it. The Career folder is one of the only ones I focus in on, at times the relationships one too.

When Allen says engage/execute, he means doing your tasks, though he also wants you to regularly ‘engage’ with your systems to help that. Capturing is writing anything down. Reflecting and reviewing your systems is more where that other meaning of the word engagement comes in. The ideal point of all of this is to keep as much out of your head as you’d benefit from, and take you from thought to action in as frictionless a way as you can.

Whatever contexts you use, they should likely be selected on the basis of how well they facilitate that, not guiding anything that came into your head through a linear model. Context lists and other elements of the GTD system were not meant to house or facilitate any of that. Allen was actually adamant that you probably shouldn’t because it’s a monumental overhead that’s very crazy-making without any real benefit, and hierarchy has a cost, the latter of which you’ve noticed.

I think everyone that gets into GTD or productivity and apps goes through an OCD phase with it—myself included. I’ve done the infinite context thing, infinite hierarchy, all manner of things. But my current setup is the result of getting over and around all that over the years, and over my feelings on it, to the point that if something isn’t in the right folder, I’ll sometimes just leave it there if it has a star on it anyway because it’s going to get checked off at the end of the day.

Might also help to change how you’re viewing your tasks that you write down and organize. I know now that most of the things I write down will never get done. My continued use of MLO has proven that without a doubt. New work comes in, the nature of what I’m doing changes, and on and on. The point of an app like MLO is to help decide what I should be tackling at the moment, and not get behind on anything because I forgot about it, with the understanding that I’m not going to be able to get everything on there done. My BS folder tends to house of lot of that stuff that just didn’t make the cut compared to all else I had going on and what’s in my system.

[SRhyse]

As another quick note, you don’t have to always copy and move things after writing them down. I guess it depends on your typing speed, but plenty of times I’ll have something in the inbox and rather than moving it, I’ll just make another task where I want it and delete the original when I get a chance or am later processing.

[Venessa G]

I just want to thank you guys for this conversation. I'm almost done with my trial period and I'm still trying to work out my system, so hearing how other people do it helps me to add things (or repurpose) that resonate with me so that I can drop things that I find I trip over in my process. Thank you guys so much! :)