Task managers - what should they be able to do?

Posted by Daly de Gagne
Mar 31, 2008 at 03:33 PM

Chris, re contexts—admittedly not for everyone.

However, the intention of contexts is to simplify and shorten task lists.

In your example, the context could simply be “Errands”—and you’d group your errands together. For me, I know right away what items I want from Safeway, what I have to go to the bank for, what I want to go to the drug store for. In the case of Safeway I might have a separate shopping list to make sure I buy everything I came for.

Without contexts, one can get a list of 20 or more items for the day, sometimes more. If you are like me, you go out and might come back with two of three things because you overlooked one item on the list. I find with long lists I overlook things unless I continually review the list.

Or I get overwhelmed, and then in my typical ADHD style start to spin my wheels.

So context is meant as a tool to simplify, to make sure nothing gets left out, and that everything gets done.

I`d agree that some people do better with more freeform systems—or are able to carry in their minds what they need to be doing. Allen`s idea, however, is that many of us don`t, so empty the mind of the stuff that can be put on paper or in software.

Daly

Discuss and learn about David Allen’s Getting Things Done:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Getting_Things_Done

Chris Thompson wrote:
>As far as I can tell, Ecco does all of the things on your list except “definable icons per
>task”... I suppose even that one could be done with a customized bullet column.
> >Ecco
>will probably never be bettered as a total package of good user interface +
>functionality for task management. (I think of it as an operating system for
>projects, really, it’s so customizable and poewrful.) SQL Notes looks like it’s
>coming along and betters it in several ways functionality-wise, but the UI leaves a
>lot to be desired. On the Mac, OmniFocus is similar in some ways but is too
>GTD-inspired. Good if you really want to get into that methodology, but what makes
>Ecco genius is its freeform nature.
> >I honestly think “GTD” is a liability, and
>software developers are in some sense chasing a false grail by trying to jump on that
>bandwagon. For instance, David’s notion that every task should have exactly one
>context is poorly thought out. For instance, what about an item I can buy either at the
>grocery store or at a drugstore? What context do I use for that. OmniFocus tries to stay
>within the GTD mindset by keeping the single context restriction but introducing
>hierarchical contexts, but that only partially solves the problem. Also, contexts
>are in some sense inherently counterproductive… a big part of the GTD approach is
>the idea that you should be able to dump items into your inbox as quickly as possible.
>Yet as soon as you introduce contexts into a program, you not only have to hit some
>hotkey, enter your task, then you have to tab to another field, decide what context
>this task should be in (is it “business” or “phone”?), type some more stuff, then hit
>OK. Too much work for no payoff.
> >Some of Allen’s ideas, like delegation, periodic
>reviews, etc. are useful though. But I’m skeptical of systems that aim too much to the
>GTD paradigm. The better systems are freeform like Ecco or Things.
> >—
>Chris
> >Graham Rhind wrote:
>>I did find one personal task manager that did
>>almost
>all of this but had a problem with database corruption. I am therefore
>>currently
>having to use a blend of Outlook, Zoot and Sciral Consistency.
>