Group items tagged

David’s list is certainly a good one. Almost everyone can organize their tasks by contexts such as @Computer, @Errands, @Home, @Office, @Calls, and so on. But, the problem is that sometimes some of these context listings contain so many items that our eyes and our brains do not process the lists well.

I made use of this principle long ago in designing my GTD contexts. I noticed that my @Home listing was large (15 to 20 items typically), and I noted that I would only do some of them when setting on my couch. So, I created an @Couch context. About half of my @Home items wound up there. I also created an !Focus context. I wanted a way to blend the Covey style of addressing the “big rocks” with the GTD contexts. Basically, I knew there were some items that were “big rocks” for me, ones I wanted to ensure I accomplished during the week, irrespective of what context they might fall into. So, the !Focus context evolved from that.