Concept
Context Lists
Context lists are next-action lists grouped by the place, tool or person each action requires, so wherever you are, you see only what you can actually do there.
Once every project has a next action, you face a new problem: a list of sixty verbs. Some need a phone, some need the hardware shop, some need your manager in the room. Scanning all sixty every time you have ten free minutes is tiring, and tiring systems get abandoned. David Allen's answer in Getting Things Done is to sort actions by context instead of by project or priority. Context means the place, tool or person that makes the action possible: @phone, @computer, @errands, @office, or a person's name for things to raise with them. Standing in a pharmacy, you open @errands and see only what can be done there. Two companion lists keep this clean. A Waiting For list tracks what you've delegated, so it doesn't pose as your own work. A Someday/Maybe list parks not-now ideas where they can't crowd today. Contexts don't replace judgment. They narrow the choices so you can decide quickly. Five to seven contexts are enough for most people.
A real-life example
Maya has 47 next actions. On Tuesday she has a 20-minute gap downtown before a dentist appointment. Instead of rereading everything, she opens @errands: pick up the printed banners, return a library book, buy a birthday card. She finishes two. "Ask Daniel about the Q3 budget" stays on her Daniel list until their Thursday one-on-one. "Learn Portuguese" waits in Someday/Maybe, out of sight.
How to use it
- 1Pick five to seven contexts that match your real week, such as @phone, @computer, @errands, @home, plus one list per key person. Then move every next action onto exactly one of them.
- 2Start a separate Waiting For list for delegated items, noting who owns each one and by when. Add a Someday/Maybe list for ideas you aren't committing to yet.
- 3When a free moment appears, check only the list for where you are and what you have with you. Go through all the lists in your weekly review.