Slay the Leviathan Context

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by Bill Van Hecke on June 24, 2011

If you're like us, nearly all of your OmniFocus actions seem to want to go in some leviathan-context called "Computer" or "Online" or something equally unhelpful. Here is one way to break that huge context down using hierarchical contexts in OmniFocus. Instead of organizing actions strictly by where the work needs to happen, this approach also considers the kind of work your brain needs to do in order to get them done. That way, when I'm sitting in front of the Mac or the iPad wondering what to work on, I can choose based on where my mind is, instead of paging past tons of stuff that seems too boring or too demanding.

Work — This used to be called "Mac", before the iPhone and iPad. Now this sort of work can happen pretty much anywhere. Nothing goes directly in here, only in the subcontexts. The subcontexts are arranged roughly by ascending cognitive expense.
- Maintenance — Mindless stuff like shuffling files around, paying bills, and fixing little problems on sites.
- Study — Research, Googlin’, finding out stuffs I need to find out.
- Communication — Contacting people by email or chat.
- Planning — Serious thinking, outlining, drafting ideas, and so on.
- Design — Grafflin’ & Photochoppin’.
- Writing — Production writing tasks for things that need to be written well.
- Code — Coding tasks that are likely to require a warmed-up brain.
- Translation — Making things that are in Japanese not be in Japanese anymore.
Input — Videos; music; articles that won’t go in Instapaper.
Output — Informal blog posts ("macrotweeting") and such that don’t require intense thought.

This strategy is probably common knowledge among serious GTD theorists, but I still run into folks who are surprised by it. The inspiration for adopting it myself came from my DavidCo GTD coaching session a while back. This context arrangement (in addition to the standard Home, Errands, et cetera) pretty seriously improved the way I work. I hope it yields some usefulness for you too.

Comments

Great advice. I’ve had trouble with this in the past. At home, my tasks fall into a variety of contexts. But, at work, pretty much @Computer and @Communications. And that’s probably typical for a lot of folks in IT-related jobs.

I’ve recently taken advantage of your project folders feature. I discovered that my life can be pretty easily divided into Home, Work, and Freelance/Hobby. So every project goes in one of those top-level divisions.

Wheat

06.24.11 6:03 PM

I think there’s a lot of value in keeping contexts aligned to the tool (not the mindset or kind of work) required to accomplish the task. Here’s why - there are some tasks that require a specific tool (like a computer) yet there are some mindsets that can span multiple tools (like drafting an email). I use “tool based” contexts like “Computer” (which can be done on any computer - my office PC, my MacBook, my iPad, my iPhone) and “Work” (which requires being at the office - which can include being at my office PC).

I absolutely agree in the necessity of having something to distinguish “mindset / kind of work” so that it’s easier to pull out tasks/actions that are relevant for not only the tools you have (your computer, being in the office) but also your mood (higher level thinking work, tactical detail work, mindless work). I also find, importantly, that the “mindset/mood” spans across multiple contexts quite often.

My solution is to use very specific “action verbs” to designate the type of work. For example “Draft” can be used to draft an email or a document and generally requires some serious thinking (example: Draft Thoughts re: New Marketing Campaign & Email to Joe”). Which is different than “Send”, which designates things that don’t require serious thinking (example: “Send Marketing Summary to Joe” - which could relate to something I previously drafted but wanted to re-read before sending to do a small clean up). It’s a subtle difference - but, to me, an incredibly powerful one. What’s powerful is I can see all of my various “types of work” across all of my contexts.

My action verbs include things like Draft, Send, Update, Brainstorm, Think. Again, very subtle differences - but as I’m skimming my available contexts based on where I am and the tools I have with me, it takes seconds to process down to the work I am in the mood to do.

Chris Villar

06.24.11 8:31 PM

Sounds awesome. I could see a lot of these subtexts transferring to home. Some obviously won’t or could be replaced by some other good ones. Anyone have any advice for personal subtexts? I mainly end up using OmniFocus for personal stuff to help with organizing my (literally) ADHD brain.

Also, any more examples of Input context? I’m still a little murky on it.

Chris Birdsey

06.24.11 9:45 PM

Awesome, Bill. I’ve been struggling a little with this, and your suggestion gave me the Aha! reaction. So simple, now why didn’t I think of it?....

Alan Schauer

06.25.11 11:41 AM

A nice idea. I’m willing to bet, though, that after you’ve lived with it for six months, you won’t be finding much use for the hierarchy. My three year experience with GTD has taught me that the simpler the structure of my GTD system, the more time I spend actually performing tasks (as opposed to fine-tuning my system structure). I imagine this will be true with most people.

GTD lends itself to endless tweaking if you’re not careful. The power of Omnifocus (largely unnecessary for GTD, in my opinion) makes that attractive nuisance even more dangerous. The key, I found, was to give up trying to understand GTD and instead try simply to use it. The right structure/system for you will arise as a result of use, not in advance of use.

Bob Lieberman

06.25.11 10:27 PM

Interesting. I’ve used Brain+, Brain~ and Brain- for some time, but your approach may well be a bit more useful in thinking about things in a practical fashion.

I’m also with Bob too :)

Stephen Watson

06.28.11 10:37 AM

I find that it helpful to think of contexts as buckets of things that one does at home, at work, usually but not always defined by a particular person, place, or tool. Sometimes it is a particular mindset that defines the “place” you want to be. However, I think the single biggest failure in Omnifocus is the lack of a category or keyword support more specific than “flag.” Depending on where I am and what I am doing, there may be different things I want to “flag” for different reasons. This is not a problem you can solve with contexts alone.

James L

07.03.11 5:53 AM

Just say it. Tags. Ok, I know there has been alot of debate about tags in OF. Contexts are just a tag. A single tag at that. Many people are afraid to use the word tags in forums where OF is discussed. Many have requested “multiple contexts” be included in OF. Guess what? These are nothing more than tags.

Just forget the words “context” and “tags” and instead call them “categories” as James L has pointed out above. Categories are more customizable and flexible. If we could assign categories to action items, then that would solve alot of problems and make OF much more powerful to a larger audience.

No one has been willing to explain to me why it would be a violation of the GTD philosophy to have a metadata attribute of an action object such that this metadata could have a many-to-one relationship with this action object.

GeorgeV

07.04.11 11:49 PM

I just started doing this. I originally had work subcontexted as Work: Phone, Work: Computer, Work: Computer: Online, Work: Computer: Email, etc. Then of course, I had Home:.... The challenge I began to find was that the context really needed to be the tool I had at hand. For example, I can make a phone call right now. It wasn’t particularly relevant what my location was in this instance. It was more relevant what kind of phone call did I want to make. As a result, I have done a lot of restructuring of my contexts to Computer: Online: Home, Computer: Email: Office, Phone: Home, Phone: Office, etc.

So far, it has made a lot more sense to me.

Chris vR

07.07.11 10:08 AM

Useful advice. I’m breaking down my large “computer” context already. I also use several “errand” sub-contexts. I have Errands-on the way to work; Errands-at lunch time; Errands-on the way home; Errands-on the weekend. I also still have the overall “Errands” category for an errand that I could do in more than one of these categories. I find these sub-contexts allow me to focus just on the errands I can do on the way to work or just on the ones I can do at lunch time etc. That’s kinda what you’ve suggested for my leviathan “computer” context so I’m confident your advice is going to work for me. Thanks for the idea.

Scott

07.21.11 11:18 AM

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