[MacBerry]

Thanks BZ. I'm kind of doing the same thing in a far less sophisticated way - I have recurring actions that act as reminders to check various physical inboxes, with some of those having links to the relevant app/folder. But I guess I feel like I'm collecting twice: things turn up in the various physical inboxes, and then get moved manually into the OF inbox, with inevitable thinking done on the way.

That doesn't sit well with my understanding of Allen's process. I should offer the caviat that I haven't finished the book yet, but when he talks about initially setting up GTD, he literally has his client grabbing everything and putting it into his inbox pile, without thinking about each item as it goes in - that's for later.

I don't want to process things on their way into my inbox, or there's no point in having one. I want to process things on their way out of it.

I'm struggling to see why the OF inbox should be treated any differently from Allen's physical one, into which everything goes unprocessed.

I imagine that if I was running a paper based GTD system, my physical inbox would accept stuff from anywhere - including stuff others chuck into it, and the processing (including a lot of trashing) would happen as I emptied it, and that's what I want my OF inbox to be (within reason - there's no reason not to take advantage of the tools a digital inbox can offer, such as filtering etc).

At present, I look in Mail, for example, and think about each message - "does that want to go into OF? Or can I do it in less than 2 minutes? Or is it trash? Reference? Delegate?". If I'm doing that, I may as well apply the diagram at the beginning of the thread to it there and then, in which case, what's the point of the OF inbox? Why not put things directly into a project and context etc?

The point of it is to collect things ahead of processing I guess, and if that's it's point, then it should collect everything! See my sig - if I've been forced to make a choice (does it go into inbox or not), I've had to make a choice, and so can't claim not to have done any choosing (processing)!

The only things in my OF inbox that feel like they really should be there are todo's that turn up from my wife when I sync iCal. Everything else feels like it's there because that's what I should be doing to avoid having Allen slap my wrists; "Oooh, new e-mail. I know what project and context that's to go in, as well as it's due date, good. Oh no, hang on, I cant add those to it now because that'd be naughty - I have to do that as I take it out of my inbox". Talk about turning a one step process into a two step one!

For each of your physical inboxes, why not just have a reminder to check them, and when you do, put each item directly onto the relevant list? Why take stuff out of one inbox and put it into another, only to take it out again and put it onto a list? Maybe you don't, but if you don't, what's the point of the OF inbox? If each of your physical inboxes could instead be combined into just one inbox, wouldn't that be better, and more GTD?

So what am I asking for? Don't know specifically, but either; something along the lines of the clip-o-tron, but with questions asked so that the item can go onto the right list without going via another inbox (OF's), or a way to automatically get everything into the OF inbox so I can process it on the way out, not the way in.

"Questions" doesn't have to mean something wizard like, though that's what I'd like. It could just be fields to fill in on a form.

Mark