Struggling with "MUST do" daily task list...

[Roger]

Problem: My natural instinct is to put the tasks I *desire* to get done today (vs. strictly "MUST do" tasks -- for which the line often feels blurry) as due today, so they'll show up on my Outlook Today task list.

Outlook is certainly a problem for a lot of people. You may want to try using a tool that inflicts less pain on you.

If I have to go sorting through all my active projects' tasks after completing any given task to remember what I want to work on next

There's no good reason for this, although it does seem to be a popular misconception around GTD.

You don't need to look at your entire Next Actions list every time if you don't want to. You can stop as soon as you find a Next Action that you feel like working on.

I've often found it useful to sort the list occasionally so that I see certain things before certain other things. There's nothing anti-GTD about that.



Cheers,
Roger

[Gardener]

I just tried setting a Start Date on an Outlook 2003 task, but it requires have a Due Date too. Setting the Due Date to "None" wipes out the Start Date too.

Ah, yes, I forgot that - another reason why I prefer OmniFocus. One possibility is to give all of those tasks a Due Date in the distant future, like five years from now. So they have a due date, but it doesn't blur your real due dates, because it never comes up.

Or, yes, you could use a tool other than Outlook - I find Outlook incredibly clunky. OmniFocus isn't an option if you're not on a Mac, but there are probably some good tools on the PC.

Gardener