Contexts are a key part of Getting Things Done, in fact they are the first step in deciding what action to work on next. The basic idea is to list tasks by what you need or where you need to be to complete them e.g. computer, telephone, shop.
When I developed my current organiser I did not include contexts because I spent most of my time in the office. I recognised in May last year that utilising the contexts could be very helpful. As things are very busy at work again and I’m away from the office for about the half the time I think now is the time to consider contexts further; particularly as I now have a Blackberry and a laptop that both open up lots of possibilities of getting actions done as I travel.
My current next action list has hardly changed since I wrote about it in June last year; the only change is the addition of a priority column. I’m not convinced that by adding a new column for contexts will necessarily help because they will be all mixed up.
So, how do you use contexts? What would you recommend? Do you know of any good examples that may be relevant to my system? Please let me know.
My contexts are: @Anywhere, @Calls, @Computer, @Errands – Bike, @Errands – Car, @Home, and @Hubby (a list of things I need to discuss with him). By far the @Computer context is the one I use the most; I rarely have things in the other contexts that I can’t do in two minutes and I rarely have to run errands.
Hello Corrie,
Thank you for posting about your contexts, I’ve got a couple of questions about how you use them
* do you write separate lists for each context?
* how do you deal with the multiple contexts that are in some places e.g. when you are at home, how do you choose between your anywhere, calls, computer and home tasks?
Hi again, Kate! I keep my action lists in Remember the Milk, so each context is a separate “tab.” (Full description of how I use Remember the Milk is here.)
The “computer” task list generally gets hit when I’m at my desk. If I have a moment where the computer is slow and I’m waiting for a process to finish, I might tackle my calls list. “Home” tasks are usually few and far between, actually, so I don’t work with it that often! “Anywhere” tasks often can be taken with me when I go out and know I’ll be waiting somewhere.
Corrie,
Thanks for the additional information. I’m going to give a few things ago and find out what works for me. I’ll report it on here when I’ve incorporated it into my system.
Kate