[DrJJWMac]

Originally Posted by Indyprint

... I prioritize the tasks, and attack the work in terms of high, medium, and low priority -- obviously focusing on the high priority for the current day. How would OF approach this differently?

Likely everyone has their own suggestions here. My approach starts by setting up a project and defining the tasks with their contexts. When a task has a defined due date + time, it gets it. When a task cannot start until a certain time, it gets a start date + time. This mostly completes the collection part of the GTD effort.

Next, I process. I review my lists of tasks based on what is DUE. This spans all projects. I flag anything that needs to be done TODAY. I may flag things that need to be done sooner if I suspect that they will need the longer time. After this, I view my next action list. This again spans all projects. I generally flag things according to where I will be in Context for the day or for the given time slot of work (morning or afternoon for example - I find that digesting work loads in chunks can be more satisfying than carrying over work to the next day).

After that, I do. I work to complete the flagged list of actions.

Originally Posted by Indyprint

... I'm still not clear on how best to utilize Contexts. It seems like they help one focus on a particular action (e.g., Email) or place (Office versus Home). That seems like how Things uses Area of Interest. Is there another way in which Contexts should be radically reconsidered? Are there some templates that I should look at to better consider how best to utilizes OF's approach?

My first suggestion is to search the forums here for postings about Contexts. There are a lot of good ideas to glean from the many postings. In short, and again for me personally, I use Contexts to denote an action as being tied strongly to one location, an outcome/energy or frame-of-mind, or certain people. A short list might be as

@Location
- Home
- Work
☼Outcome/Energy
- Plan
- Harvest
- Cook
- TidyUp
☺People
- Colleague
- Family
- WaitingFor

I avoid making contexts for "Computer" or "Email" or "Phone" or ... because, should I need these "tools" for a task, I will find and use them rather than let them restrict me from completing a task. My one exception here might help clarify this -- I do have a Context called "Internet" specifically because, where I live at the moment, I have no internet connection. So, all tasks that require me to use the internet require me to be somewhere specific with an internet connection. Once I get to where the internet is always present, that context will become irrelevant.

Originally Posted by Indyprint

...sometimes I don't have due dates, but just a sense of the order of projects based on priorities. Take home maintenance: I don't have due dates for all the things I have to do around my home, and to create due dates for my errands would be contrived (and even cumbersome to set up). Setting up priorities for such tasks seems a simpler approach for those tasks. So, how would one approach the organization of those tasks in OF?

You are right (IMO) to avoid setting due dates on such things you mention above. In a strict sense, unless a task has a deadline imposed from outside of it, it has no due date. However, as an exception (to prove the rule), should your water heater start leaking, I imagine you would certainly put a due date on calling the plumber!

Otherwise, you might consider why installing a new air filter for your AC unit really has a higher priority than getting the groceries. Is it just that you "want" to install the AC filter more than going out for groceries, or is it because your AC filter is clogged beyond recognition and should have been DUE to be replaced three years ago?

Beyond this, the transition away from priorities is one that you have to consider on your own terms. I took a while in my transition from Things to understand that priorities were less important than I initially thought.

Originally Posted by Indyprint

... Is there a way to mark or view select tasks w/ notes (i.e., notes that log how a task was competed)?

You can add copious notes to the note field of a task or project. For example, I sometimes have the Outcomes in a project note field. A few suggestions here for the direction you are heading with regard to summary notes:

* Create a task called something like END OF PROJECT at the end of the project where you store all such notes. This will give you one consistent place to look in each project for its summary. It could also give you a consistent marker "task" that you check off when the project is really completed.
* Be careful if you start using the Archive Data feature of OF. Recognize that it archives completed tasks across all projects and then removes them from your currently active view. You may prefer instead to archive completed projects one-at-a-time. You currently have to do this kind of archiving manually (I and others have a feature request in to allow archiving by project).

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JJW