lost my November folder

Go figure - I had pulled out my November folder, put it in my inbox, and then didn't look at my inbox for about a week (yes, big mistake) - I've been shuffling papers and spinning my wheels. Well, I reached for my November folder yesterday to retrieve my property tax bill, and the folder is nowhere to be found.

I'm obviously not doing this very well. Time to get serious. I'm finding that my "old" system was working fairly well (simple lists and recurring tasks in outlook), and that I'm wasting TONS of time trying to implement GTD in my life. I've decided that I don't need as many contexts. @Work, @Home, @Errands and @Calls work just fine. I spend all day in front of the computer at work so @Computer and @Online are irrelevant. I do have a @Recurring category in outlook to keep track of those items that are recreated monthly, weekly, etc.

My biggest stumbling block is projects. The GTD add-in doesn't work because I like to have my project outline in front of me, and I don't want all the N/A's to show up on my N/A list all at once. In that case I either need to list them all in the notes section of the project and add them one at a time to my N/A as needed, or I create them as I go along. Seems counterproductive, seeing that I still need to keep it in my head. I thought of having a master project list on paper and designating a sheet of paper for each project, which I may have to try. :???:

There should only be one Next Action per project. Are you pulling ALL the actions (not just the Next Physical Action) from each project into your context-related lists of Next Actions?

David

hi David - thanks for responding. That's my point exactly about the GTD add-in. If I want to outline a project using that program, all the tasks will show up as N/A's at the same time (I suppose if I didnt' assign contexts the tasks would all show up on an unassigned list together). If I do it on paper, I can outline the tasks needed for each project, and pull N/A's one at a time from there into my context lists.

The benefit for me to plan out a project in advance is that it's out of my head, and I don't have to decide what the next step will be every time I look at that project - as I complete a step I just pull the next item from the list. If the steps need tweaking as I go along, fine, but at least the "big picture" is mostly all planned out.

Why do I feel like I'm going about this a completely different way from everyone else? :oops:

Your approach sounds fine to me. Just because the GTD add-in exists, that doesn't mean you have to use it to be doing "correct" GTD.

Katherine

Thank you, Katherine. I enjoy reading your posts, BTW. You always bring such clarity to the table. :)

The GTD add-in definitely doesn't do more for me than I couldn't do before. It complicates things, actually, and makes it harder for me to be focused. I think I'll keep my projects and related NA's on paper. Outlook always has worked for recurring actions - mostly to serve as reminders, and for my long-term calendar.