Tag Tasks with GTD Contexts AND Covey Roles

Posted on December 12, 2007 by Bruce Keener

You won’t catch me saying that you have to use PDA’s, computers, or other technology to help you manage your time. A lot of folks do just fine with paper-based systems. I’ve been successful using them, too. (I am comfortable using either system, but recommend that people use what works best for them.) Each approach has advantages and disadvantages.

But, using software to manage your tasks does give you the ability to tag the tasks in multiple ways:

  • The Task applications in modern PDAs, such as WM Smartphones and Pocket PCs and BlackBerry’s, are great at this. You can assign as many different categories to a task as you want.
  • Outlook and Entourage are great at allowing you to organize your tasks in a variety of ways.
  • iCal is limited in this regard but you can “trick it”. We’ll talk about how.
  • Palms are limited in this right out of the box, but some added software can give you all the Task management flexibility you could ever want.

The two most popular ways to tag tasks are with Getting Things Done contexts or with Covey Roles. (Tagging by Project Name is also pretty popular.) I personally prefer the GTD method … When I set down at the computer, I like a list of @Computer tasks that I can knock out. But sometimes I also like to add in a Covey Role. The reason for my doing this occasionally double-tagging is to see if I am in unbalanced in my roles.

Just so you can get a visual idea of this, here is a list of the GTD contexts and Covey Roles that I use:

GTD Contexts and Covey Roles

I can use my x51v or BlackBerry Curve, without any extra software, to assign both a GTD Context and one of my Roles to each task. I can do that in Outlook or Entourage as well. If I want to do it on my Palm TX, I have to use third-party software, such as Beyond Contacts or KeySuite. If I want to accomplish this using iCal, I assign a task to a “context” Calendar (such as @Computer) and start the name of the task with a Role (such as “Family — task description”). iCal is a calendar application, and everything that you put into is assigned to a calendar and not to a category. You can use it for managing tasks, but it was designed as a calendar application, not a full PIM. I am not criticizing it, just reminding us all that it was not designed to be a full PIM and has some limitations when used as one.

Right now, when I tag my tasks by role, a disproportionately large amount gets tagged “Publisher,” which are basically my blogging-related tasks. “Active Learner” has a few tasks, but none of them are dated for the near-term. Interestingly, when I retired I expected that this would be one of the areas that would occupy a lot of my time. I envisioned that I might get a theology degree, for example, not that I would ever do anything with it, but because the subject fascinates me. Yet, despite having bought close to a hundred books on theology in the past couple of years, most of them are only partially read and some have not even been opened.

As I go through my tasks and project lists, I find that I am far from balanced in my Roles. Of course I would not expect every Role to have exactly the same number of tasks. And some weeks, a couple of Roles could easily have no tasks, while a couple of other Roles could have the majority. Over time, though, I should be seeing some sort of balance among my Roles. And, of course, you should as well.

So, clearly it is time for me to address these imbalances. And, as I noted in my recent post on Covey’s 4 Quadrants, it is time for me to get back into Quadrant 2.

Retirement has made it so easy to drift from sound self-governance principles. But, you don’t have to be retired to “slip.” It takes effort to stay on track, and exercises such as the one described herein can help you get back on track when you do slip.

Your thoughts and insights?

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  • Prashanth

    Another utility of using tags with software based PIM; is that most PIM products offer filters; so you can view your calendar based on category, tag filters.
    So @work; you see only those tasks that you ought to see; not the nagging list of “Pick milk on the way home” or
    “today is the day you go out for cigarettes…..”
    :)

  • http://www.keenerliving.com/ Bruce

    Very true, and a good point. Thank you.

  • pritchett4

    Bruce,

    I would be interested to know how you decided how to organize your day or plan what to do first, second etc. How did you lay out the day. I have been using GTD concept, but the list gets pretty overwhelming and just because it is @office, doesn’t really help all that much. So, so then use a filter to try and get it down to something manageable. I have been working off from a PDA, but have also been recently trying to transfer the 6 -10 items that really need to be done to paper so that it is always kept in front of me. But I haven’t been doing anything like “from 8 am – 10 am” will work on item #1, from 10 am – 10:30 am item #2, etc. Not sure if anyone does that or not, what are the tools that are most effective. I also have my PDA synced to Outlook on my computer – not sure if that is where I ought to do the planning — interested in your thoughts!

  • http://www.keenerliving.com/ Bruce

    pritchett4,

    Excellent questions!

    First let’s distinguish now from when I was working: now that I am retired, I really do not have to do anything, except occasionally pay bills and shop. This explains, partly, why I have let myself drift a bit over the past year.

    When I worked, I found the “weekly review” period, or as I prefer, the “weekly planning” period to be the time when I could stake out a schedule for a few Q2 activities that really mattered most to me. I found it helpful to print out a weekly view of my Outlook schedule, and set and tinker with it, pen to paper, for a while. I personally liked to schedule Q2 activities for times when I knew from experience that there would be the fewest interruptions, which typically would be the 9:00am to 11:00am period. I would lay out a few of the really important items over the course of the week.

    As for the daily planning, like you I found it helpful to have a written list of what was most important for the day, and would often write that out on a printed copy of my daily Outlook schedule. As far as the PDA use was concerned, these would be the !Focus items on my PDA. Honestly, though, it’s just easier to have it written down than to continue to refer to a PDA for it. PDAs are most useful when you are away from the office, and want to see what you can do. My view on managing activities at the office was to take advantage of the office setting.

    Of these “!Focus” items, I might see one that I decided to schedule.

    A really good read on how to do this is the appendix in Covey’s 7 Habits book, wherein he walks us through an example Q2 Day At The Office: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

    Hope that helps a bit. I personally see Covey’s principles as vital for effective time management, while the GTD techniques are helpful for work flow … I do not consider them to be so much of a time management tool, but more of a work flow tool.

  • Prashanth

    I know the question was addressed to Bruce, but I was wondering if I could put my 2 cents in….

    Personally, I like to use the UI quadrants
    Important-Urgent[11]| Important-NotUrgent[12]
    Not Important-Urgent[21]|Not Important-NotUrgent[22]

    Most PIMs allow you to accomodate this by selecting an alphanumeric combination (for ex: Pocket Informant has A1, B2, etc).
    Now as I input my tasks; I evaluate them as give them a notation. Initially I was dealing with [11] or wasting my time on [22]; but slowly your activities will concentrate in the [12] quadrant -> your eventual destiny, your personal management nirvana…
    That zen like state of runner’s high that we GTD junkies so desperately seek.
    Okay I have spoken too much, (and thanks Bruce for letting me intrude).
    :)

  • Prashanth

    hmm, I notice that Bruce has spoken much more succinctly about the same technique, so please feel free to delete my earlier post..

  • http://www.keenerliving.com/ Bruce

    Prashanth –

    I encourage readers to make comments and suggestions and to share their ways of doing something. That is really the key point of this blog … this is a way for all of us to learn from each other. Maybe between the two of us we have answered pritchett4′s question. If not, then perhaps someone else has some “just the right” insights.

    Anyway, thanks for responding, and pritchett4, thank you for asking the question … And please do not hesitate to let me know if you are looking for additional information.

  • max

    there is no direct link between Contexts of GTD and Roles of the 4th generation planning tool Stephen propose… you can be @computer to do some stuff as a Spouse, a Consultant, or any other role you endorse. Etc…

  • http://www.keenerliving.com/ Bruce

    Thanks for the comment Max. Not sure why anyone would think there is some correspondence between roles and contexts, but thanks for raising the point just in case.

  • Emily Sullivan

    Although this is an old thread, it’s still an ongoing challenge for me. My issue/concern is: I have 3 part time jobs (because I choose to, and I enjoy them) plus a home/personal life with hobbies and activities. Like many people I know, I lead a very full life.

    My challenge, that I am trying to solve digitally, is that I have a different computer for each job, 9 email addresses and one new Android phone. (was on Windows Mobile 6 before). i need easy entry, easy reading, and easy syncing with Outlook to/from the 3 computers and the phone.

    Two jobs are outside the home, one is a home-based business, though it is not 100% run from my home office. So, when I go to one day job, I might want to perform some work for another business on my lunch break, or while traveling between home and one of my day jobs or my home based business.

    What I *think* would be ideal is tagging, GTD and Covey all rolled up into one, with the ability to add it to a calendar and have it be scheduled based on a time-to-complete estimation and WHEN do I have time to get something like that done, or if it’s a Covey “A1″, by gum it HAS to be scheduled for that day. Then when my To-Do list has very few Quadrant 1′s, and I can concentrate on Quadrant 2′s, I will be able to plan my days better.

    I need to be able to see the 3 jobs and the personal life tasks in one place, where I can easily filter things with multiple criteria. For example, if I need to buy an article of clothing (which might be needed for a day job, my home based business uniform, or a personal/social event), I would want it categorized [@errand[zip code], 60 minutes].

    Thanks for putting this out there, I hope everyone finds a system that works for them!

  • http://www.keenerliving.com/ Bruce Keener

    Emily,

    Syncing with 3 computers plus a mobile device is a huge challenge.

    What comes to mind to me as a possibility is that you try using Google Calendar Sync to sync each device that has Outlook (each PC) to the calendar on that computer. For example, Calendar 1 on PC1 would sync with Calendar 1 on Google Calendar, Calendar 2 on PC2 would sync with Calendar 2 on Google Calendar, and so on. You could then use Google Calendar to keep track of all 3 calendars, and you could even make changes to the either of the calendars from there. And, your Android could also work with this, since it has Google Calendar “built in.”

    Labeling as you suggested is perhaps workable, too, but I believe the best chance of keeping everything organized is to try the approach I mentioned.

    Best of luck with it. Feel free to keep us informed of how things work out for you, for whichever options you try.

    Bruce