[djbell]

I'm currently struggling with hard landscape issues, and though I think my solution is maturing I'm still figuring it out. I started creating my GTD system while listening to "Getting Things Done FAST," which is a recording of David Allen's seminar. He says something like, "You already have a calendar . . ." and breezes past the concept way too fast for someone who really had NO organizational system to speak of. Unless a GTD app of the future contains a "hard landscape" (fun to imagine what such an app would look like!) I do way better when some categories of items live outside of my GTD app:
-- If it's a daily or weekly routine, I make an Omni Outliner checklist which I print out and review with my physical inbox.
-- Any routine items with a longer frequency (monthly or annually) are on my calendar.
-- If it's a timed event it goes on my calendar.
-- Things that must get done TODAY (which I believe GTD recommends go in your calendar), I transfer to my ubiquitous capture device (I put them in my pocket). This gives me a constant tickler without messing up my calendar.

I came to the conclusion of putting all of the above in a system external to my to-do list after putting daily checklists in iGTD. I literally put every daily task I could think of, up to my exercise and food journals inside iGTD. After my 60th day in a row of retyping the notes fields to update my progress on a variety of mundane daily tasks, I had a "BFO" realized I could scratch a couple numbers of a piece of paper stuck to the refrigerator much easier with an equal reminder.

Lately, the trend I'm seeing is that the cleaner and "emptier" I keep OF stuff I've already planned and thought about, the better I feel and the better I "work." Who knows if this is the most efficient way to organize, but it's way better than where I was 2 years ago!