[jasong]

Originally Posted by avernet

Does this make sense?

The short answer is “nope“.

A slightly longer answer follows.

I think we're approaching how to get stuff done from different angles. The time I choose to do my next action is a function of context, time available and energy, or what I like to think as “I don't feel like it”. Just because I artificially said I'd do something “today” doesn't mean I will, or even that I should. Heck, it doesn't even mean that I can.

Picking the ones flagged as “today” is as good a gating factor as any other method someone can use to pick an action, it's just not a way that makes sense for me or for how I approach my “list of agreements” (aka “projects”).

Instead of going through all your next actions every time you select one, just pick one flagged as “today“. How did it get there? Because you put it there, and this is called planning.

Planning is something you do naturally. You do it in your head. You keep track of “what you're planning to do today“. What I (or other people here) propose is to dump into the system this information you have in your head.

Indeed, planning is something you do naturally, and the point of using OmniFocus (or iGTD or Google Calendars or a Moleskine or any of a thousand other methods) is to get stuff out of your head. It's basic Getting Things Done. I think we all understand that; it's why we're here, on the OmniFocus forum.

I have found that breaking down things this way doesn't help me. I am not deciding what to do next based on whether I feel like doing research or maintenance. I am doing research or maintenance based on whether it makes sense for me to do research or maintenance. And instead of figuring out what makes sense next (research or maintenance?) every time I pick a next action, it makes more sense to capture this output of this thinking into the system.

Isn't that the point of Contexts? I don't want to presume anything other than you've read Getting Things Done a bunch of times, and understand the concepts, so I won't go into any detail. I will note that “ deciding what to do next based on whether I feel like doing research or maintenance” is exactly what you should be doing. If you're in a “research mood”, it's useful to have “research items” you can focus on to move a project forward. If you choose to “do research” because it “makes sense to do research” how is that any different from “deciding I feel like doing research”?

If today I want to do some research, instead of putting that next action in the “research“ context and keeping in my head that I want to do some research today, I put that next action in “today“.

OK... what does it take for you to “do research today”? Does it require that you're at your computer? In a library? Have online access? Can you “do research” for your action at the grocery store?

If you're looking at a list of “actions to do today”, and you can't do half of those actions because you don't have a cellphone to make a phone call, aren't in the grocery to buy the eggs, or aren't online to search Google, all you have is a list of To-Do items you have to mentally scroll through until you find the one action you can do today.

That just would stress me out.