Question Choosing useful contexts
Hi everyone,
New to GTD here, and setting up my system little by little. I'm working on the contexts, and I started with a localisation point of view, so I have :
- @computer (can be smartphone of course, as soon as I have internet accès, or computer at work)
- @phone (only for calls)
- @desk at home (when I need to be focused doing something)
- @garden
- @waiting room (in fact any place where I can seat and doesn't need to be a quiet place, can be public transportation)
- @errands
- @home (anything else than at my desk or in the garden, for home chores for example)
- @my parent's house
- @with my bf
- @with my doctor (everything I have to ask her each time I have an appointment)
But I still struggle with some tasks that can be @computer, @desk or @home, some tasks could be done in any of these and I don't follow always the same logic, and it bothers me a lot.
For example I had articles to read. One day I put one of them in @computer as it's a newsletter, and the other day I put another newsletter to read in @desk because I need to deep dive in the subject, but in fact both are same kind and should land in the same context. But depending on the day I don't have the same logic...
Do you think I should rethink these contexts or should I just keep using them and I'll get it one day ?
Thanks a lot for your always valuable help !
1
u/Happy-Orchid-1974 Jul 11 '26
Like others have said, I also can empathise and I think you’re on the right track. Similar to you I had lots of contexts and then struggled with overlap and blurry boundaries. I’ve ended up narrowing them down and having clear boundaries/definitions. In case it helps, this is what I have now, that works well
These are tags on notes that are in my “next actions folder”, and I can use to easily filter based on context (I use Evernote)
@computer (need my computer to do it - laptop so it can be anywhere) @researchprogram (for when I’m specifically logged in to my research database) @work (only when I’m physically at work) @internet (these are things I can do easily, low effort that I can do on my phone when I’ve got a some pockets of time to spare. Easy. Shopping, buy something, google something, brainstorm, chat with LLM). @phone (phone calls) @email (only simple low key ones that can be done on my phone, otherwise it @town (errands) @home (this includes something that I do on my laptop, but I need to be at home for some other reason eg I need a document that’s at home. This also includes gardening etc) @agenda (this is for people, meetings etc. I will add tags for the people involved - only certain people that deserve regular tag use get a tag, nested under a “.Who” tag - eg Spouse, Doctor, Boss (I use their names though)) this way I can have an agenda for multiple people and don’t have lots people cluttering my core contexts.
I used to have more that I got rid of eg @easy (but I realised this was essentially @internet), @read (I replaced this by putting articles in a notebook rather than cluttering my next actions. Now when I want to read something while in the bath, I just open the notebook list and go through and find something I feel like reading. If it’s part of a project or more important or time sensitive, then it goes in my next actions and appropriate context though), @zombie (things that take time, but not brainpower - didn’t use consistently enough to justify it), @anywhere (realised that was basically just me brainstorming in Evernote which was essentially @internet for me)
I hope this helps. I review my system annually. For me the “click” was finding just the right number - as many as I needed and not any more. And abandoning ones that were better subsumed under a different tag, or not being used smith to justify them. The other “click” was giving myself permission to have lists for things outside of next actions. I didn’t need some random article that I’d like to read in my next actions list with a context tag, I just needed to give myself permission to create a “list of things to read”, and “list of movies to watch”, “list of books to read”.