I completely agree! I (mostly) follow GTD, but however disciplined I am in looking at only Next Actions that can be done in the current context, there are always "several" Next Actions that fit in that category. (actual number could vary from 5 to 20 depending on the day). I could keep coming and scanning that list over and over...but I am cursed with being easily distracted, and with rethinking decisions that have already been made. So every time I scan the list is a potential distraction, and a rather difficult moment where I have to make a "What do I do now?" decision all over again. Sometimes these little decisions are difficult enough that I deflect myself away from the Today list...and end up wasting time for 20 minutes or longer on a completely irrelevant task that is psychologically "easier" to perform at that juncture.
If I could manually re-order this list of 5 to 20 Next-Actions-in- Current-Context, I could do this re-ordering ONCE during the day and just work my way down the list...I would be much less tempted to distract myself with something irrelevant. For a long while I've tried to use the Importance and Urgency sliders to accomplish this re- ordering, but I always end up feeling frustrated, because sometimes it will be almost impossible to get a task to land exactly in the order I want...and I also usually spend a few seconds cursing the lack of the ability to manually reorder a Todo list in MLO! It would be fabulous to have this ability. Nick On Feb 14, 9:33 am, s2sailor <[email protected]> wrote: > Wow, I never expected to see this much discussion on this topic. > > I've read Allen's GTD book and "mostly" follow its principles, but I > think the bottom line here is that we each have our own preferred > subtleties in how we implement the system. One of the earlier > comments was that use of dates could be made to generate and provide > focus on todo today lists. I don't doubt this works for many. As > others have mentioned, I also make heavy use of rapid entry and many > new items get entered each day. I could take time and manipulate dates > for each, but for me the today goal tag (and subsequent filtering on > this tag) provides a very fast way to give "now" focus on the items > that must be done. I scan my items that have dates attached and I > scan the rapid entry inbox and can very quickly select what must be > done today. > > I purposely keep this today goal list short so it can be quickly > scanned. I scan this list many times a day. New items get added and > priorities may change. A manual sort option would allow me to arrange > this list in the order needed. I would no longer have to spend time > scanning and processing the order of this list. I would just follow > it top down. I realize this is subtle but for me would save real time > and enhance focus on what needs to be done now. I've tried using the > importance and urgency slides but they just don't work for me. > > Here's hoping that Andrey implements a few more options to allow us > each to work our tasks the way we feel is best :-) --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MyLifeOrganized" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/myLifeOrganized?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
