[keone]

I know how things can sometimes get out of control for all of us, and that managing our projects on OF can sometimes feel more like a chore than a help. One suggestion I have is to try to break down your tasks into smaller bites. I've done this with much success whenever I've started to feel overwhelmed. Also, look over your projects and tasks and make sure that they are as specific as you can make them.

Example: One of your projects may be to repaint a bathroom in your house. You may have a task in that project "Buy paint." Well, no. What color paint are you going to buy? And from where? Here's how it would look given my suggestions above:

PROJECT: REPAINT GUEST BATHROOM (sequential) With start and due dates.
Task 1: Discuss the new color scheme with my wife. Context: Home
Task 2: Measure walls to be painted. Context: Home
Task 3: Get paint sample cards. Context: Errands-Lowes
Task 4: Tape paint cards to bathroom walls. Context: Home
Task 5: Decide on paint color. Context: Home
Task 6: Purchase paint color xyz and supplies. Context: Errands-Lowes

And so on. You get the idea. Now, some may say that that's a little too detailed. But it really isn't, because once you look at your contexts--errands at Lowes for example--you'll see all these tasks grouped together that you can get done while you're at that particular store, or out running errands.

After you get all of that laid out in OF, two other powerful features of the application to help you well, focus, is to utilize the FOCUS icon in the toolbar for projects or folders, and the NEXT ACTION filter in the view bar. Both of these go a long way to lessening that overwhelmed feeling you described.

Lastly, are you religiously doing your weekly reviews? I schedule mine for Friday mornings, first thing, before I start plowing into my work for the day. When I first started with GTD, and later OF, I let those scheduled review sessions sometimes slide and suffered mightily for it. Only when I started making a do-or-die appointment with myself to do those weekly reviews as scheduled did I find that I was more on top of things.

Hope this helps.