[Lucas]

I take a different approach to the firehose that you may find useful. I arrange my projects by general importance so that the most important projects (though generally not the ones with upcoming due dates) are at the top of the sidebar. I also arrange my contexts so the hardest ones are at the top and the most brain-dead are at the bottom. Most of the time I work in context mode and group by project. So instead of moving projects in and out of on hold, I just look at the first project and concentrate on getting it completed. If there are so many actions in it that I feel overwhelmed, I limit the contexts to just, for example, writing, and say, let's start with just getting all the writing that I have to do for this project done. When you have that done, maybe the rest of the project is not so hard and you can just wrap it up.

I personally handle due dates entirely differently. I look at my contexts grouped by due in the morning and determine whether I will have anything due from my work contexts in the next week. If so, I pretty much do it. I come back at 4pm generally to do the non-work contexts that are due that week. The point is to take due dates off the table so that I can work on my projects strictly by priority.