[jefferyn]

Originally Posted by joelande

Funny, I started that thread!

yes, that was a good thread for me... i still don't have good contexts, but i am doing something...

Originally Posted by joelande

You know the things that you do, aren't that different from me in IT (and I think we struggle with the same context problems):
I design and analyze systems, I come up with processes, I share them with others, I train others, make presentations, develop documentation, update the website...

i'm an EE and do a lot on computers... also i used to run our networks of suns, macs, x-windows, windoz, etc in the late 80's and early 90's... i still distribute everything on our web server... we have a lot in common...

Originally Posted by joelande

A year later, I can tell you this much:

•*I started off with a long, complicated, heavily-nested set of contexts. I based it on a relatively strict interpretation of GTD: base your contexts on the physical limitations of the task. So if it was "update website" I used the context "@Computer: Adobe GoLive".

•*That ended up being needlessly complicated, and I stepped back and streamlined my contexts. I haven't strayed too much (from this much smaller, simpler set of contexts) for a year.

i am very reluctant to make too many contexts because i know it will become overly burdensome... i keep my working notes in text files... i learned in my text files that i just needed a bookmark approach to find things... recently, i started using "taskPaper" which is a text editor that has a GTD perspective to help me with my files full of notes. it is a great compliment to OF because it lets me tag lines which i can find later an transfer to OF, when necessary... before i never had a good way to find my notes to myself to do something, buried in the meeting notes... now i just tag the note in TaskPaper with @2Do... then later i set aside a few minutes in my office to review my meeting notes... TaskPaper lets me filter out everything else in the file and focus on just those lines with that tag... for things that i need to do later, i transfer them to OF and if appropriate put a date on them... otherwise i dispatch them in taskpaper, which lets me mark them as done, with a completion data... i keep my master list of projects and activities in OF...

Originally Posted by joelande

• I am still not comfortable with my contexts (I think because I want multiple contexts/tags)

tags seem very instinctive to me... i think of them more like bookmarkers so i can find it again later easily... contexts seem similar but are much more difficult, maybe because the contexts are supposed to "organize" the information into lists, whereas tags are things i search for when i know i need it... in that regard, tags can be more freeform and dynamic... contexts put things into lists when i'm not searching for something specific... and it's hard to know how i want to see the items grouped beforehand, since in my case the resources don't seem to be limited in a way that restricts what i can do at any given time...

Originally Posted by joelande

•*Being a person still struggling to completely implement GTD (based on time constraints: still have to clean my office, have years of crap that needs to be cleaned through, do the "big" collection, get new furniture, etc); I still fall off the bandwagon for a couple of weeks at a time; I also struggle with working out of context mode, and find myself spending most of my time in project mode (which is a result of not completely living in GTD); failing to do a weekly review;

we have a lot in common... also i try to work in context mode, but i find myself just picking the things i want to be a higher priority and changed them to a "today" context, where i keep to only a few things (which are more like projects that take many hours)... i've been using the scheduling to make things pop-up that i want to remember or plan for... but sometimes i'm not doing it right because i'll know that i need to do something and not see it pop-up OF... so i'll search for it and then find it... obviously better working contexts would help with this...

Originally Posted by joelande

For what it is worth, I now have (and as an aside, these work well in iPhone view as well):

@Work (I place work-related tasks that can be done at work or at home at this level, so if I click here, I "get it all")
-----Office (this is reserved for things that I have to be physically at the office for)
-----Calls (I go back and forth between having a calls and e-mail category and not)
-----E-mail (having an e-mail category, helps keep me from "living" in e-mail, so I almost use it as a negative filter!)
-----After Hours (for server maintenance when nobody is logged in)
-----Agenda (this level captures people who are not important enough to warrant their own dedicated sub context)
----------CoWorker1
----------CoWorker2
-----Waiting (this level captures people who are not important enough to warrant their own dedicated sub context)
----------CoWorker1
----------CoWorker2
Errands
Home
Reading
Training

the waiting is an interesting context... i usually put a deadline on those items so that OF will remind me on a given date that i want to ping someone if i haven't heard back from them... i'm not very good at this yet... i know the "reviews" should be the tickler... but i get buried in "doing things" and i haven't been "reviewing" everything regularly... it seems a little confusing because i am accomplishing a lot, but not keeping up with the background management of the task... (me GTD process becomes a zombie process sometimes).. i'm sure i'm not being very GTD when in that mode... but it helps me accomplish a bigger task, then i can resume with the GTD processing to catch up on odds 'n ends... i'm not sure if that is "falling of the bandwagon"...

Originally Posted by joelande

Oh My God, don't start that again! ...

That being said OmniGroup has stated they will provide this feature in a future release.

search finds my word that i put in the notes so i can find it later... so it is my way of tagging, even if it isn't quite the same... i'm surprise how tagging seems to be the big thing these days... there are a bunch of programs that do "tagging"... this one really made me laugh because it seems like the vitaminavegiment from "i love lucy" episode but for tags... http://gravityapps.com/tags/overview/

i'm sure the software is very good, but the screencast seems a little over the top... but wait, not only can you tag everything on your mac, but you can also tag everything in your house, your car, your pets, your friends, your life! act now and you can also get #?!@... [-;

thanks for your post... it's encouraging to know that i'm not the only one struggling with this... see you around-