Vitalist has come through for their users and put the ability to sort your Next Actions by Context back into their web service. According to their recent post, it took them less time than they originally anticipated. Earlier than expected works fine for this user.
As users of the Getting Things Done methodology know, the ability to view your next tasks by project is extremely important. For example, if you have an @errands Context, you can write down Next Actions like “drop off water payment”, “get the lawnmower from Joe”, and “top off the tank” together. This way, when you’re out doing errands, you can take your notes with you and knock them. Without Contexts, you are forced to look through all your notes and figure out what items you could do on your errand. If you have to think about it, your chances of getting it done diminish. Another Context could be @Joe for when you want to talk to Joe about certain things. Next time you call Joe, pull up the card and talk about the items you wrote down.
Achieving a “mind like water”, where your mind is in a constant state of peaceful readiness to take on the next task (stone dropped in the water), is your goal. To achieve this peaceful state, you have to have pre-thought all your actions. This way, you merely show up and perform the tasks. Again, if you have to think about or hunt through your notes in the heat of the moment, chances are you’ll miss something. This is why Contexts are so powerful. When you have your Next Actions grouped by Context, you’ve already done the thinking. When the moment arrives that is in that Context, you have a list of Actions ready to go.
When Vitalist put Context back into their service, they took out the extra step where you have to hunt through your gi-normous list of Next Actions. Eliminating this step makes it more likely that you will be able to get things done at the appropriate time. Now that they have cleared that major hurdle, I can’t wait for Vitalist to fix the mobile version of their site, which is currently limping along, back up to the level where they had it.
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