Tuesday, May 1, 2007

GTD: The Killer App. - Context

Many tools, services, devices and ideas need that compelling reason for people to adopt them.... The Killer Application.

For the world of GSM this was SMS, Short Message Service led to the explosion of cell phone adoption and led the switch from analogue to digital.

For Getting Things Done the killer app. is context. Context is the label that is applied to the action or project (more than one action).

The best thing about context, and in general the GTD framework, is that it's personal to you and not a system that you have to adjust yourself to.

For example I use my laptop a lot and a logical context might be @computer. However there are some tasks I need to be on the internet for some I need to be on the corporate network.

This then allows me to plan for @VPN or @www. If I'm on a plane and there are somethings that I can do without a connection at all, this becomes @pc.

The granularity is what YOU need it to be for YOU. Another example you might have write message to John, this could be @email or @gmail and @notes.

If you have the correct tool choice the lists and views should be able to flex for the dimensions, contexts, that you require and evolve your use of the framework in to.

No comments: