GTD addresses the concept of “work” in the broadest sense. Anything that needs to get done is considered work, whether it’s watering houseplants or editing PowerPoint presentations. If something needs to be done, but hasn’t been done yet, then it needs to be tracked externally to prevent the overhead of having the periodically or constantly think about it.
Assuming that every task needs to be tracked, is it necessary to track everything everywhere? Do we need to keep our domestic activities parked in the same system as our work activities? And what about the reverse? Some people work in high-security situations that make it impossible to bring materials out of the office. And many of those who don’t simply want to leave work behind.
One system to rule them all
A canonical GTD implementation would be one system for everything — home and office, personal and professional. But not all GTD users find this satisfying. I felt the same way once, and experimented with maintaining a dual system.
It didn’t work for me. Whenever I would look at my action lists at work, I would always be aware that they were incomplete. I shouldn’t have mattered, since I couldn’t do anything on my @Home list when I was at work, but not being able to see it during my daily review in the morning became progressively irritating.
I could capture something on my notetaker wallet or throw any personal paperwork in my To Home folder, but I’ve always found it more satisfying to process paperwork right on the spot. As I processed my work in-basket and came across personal items, I would transfer these to the To Home folder, then transfer them to my home in-basket — so I’d handle the same piece of paper three times. Some of this “home” paperwork related to actions I could only take in the daytime, so it was ultimately more efficient to file that paperwork in my work file cabinets.
More importantly, I noticed that I starting thinking about personal issues at work more than usual. It didn’t take long to figure out why. The whole point of GTD is to get things out of my head and into an external system. The more I realized that the system wasn’t accessible, my mind became the system, taking up the slack for those absent written reminders. So I went back to putting everything in the system — my @Home, @Errands and @Anywhere list — and the problem vanished.
Going back to a single, integrated system also made my weekly reviews much easier. I could do one review from one location instead of splitting my efforts, as I had been doing during that trial period. Even though I was processing the same number of tasks in the dual-system approach, it felt like twice the work due to setup time.
A personal preference
That was my experience, but others find it uncomfortable to have their personal items potentially visible to coworkers or supervisors. Still others simply find it more aesthetic to have completely separate systems for personal and professional projects.
If it’s simply an issue of personal security and/or privacy, I’d recommend keeping your entire personal/professional system ubiquitously available, but not necessarily in the same place. For instance, you might keep your work-related list and calendar entries in Outlook, but your personal ones on paper — or on your PDA without synchronizing those items to your work desktop.
If it’s a company security issue, where the office doesn’t allow you to bring things into work or take them out, then the decision is already made for you. You have to maintain dual systems. If a personal project or task occurs to you during work hours, write it down when you’re at your desk; then as soon as you have a break, review what you’ve written down write before leaving the office. Immediately after leaving the office, do a mind sweep and put that list in your car.
How do you integrate or separate your personal and professional systems?
(Photo credit: Andrew*)
Technorati Tags: GTD, Productivity
Comments
Stephen Nolen
// Oct 16, 2008 at 5:30 pm
Interesting post in regard to work/personal systems. I too battle with the issue. I really do not have a choice to mix the two since we have a shared system we developed for incident tracking at work for our IT staff. Thus the actual ‘tracking’ side of things are separate BUT since we rolled our own web code (with next actions, contexts, and some Covey Important/Urgent tracking built in) I copied the basics from work and applied to my home system. The key is they are both WEB BASED and easily accessible from home, work, or my mobile phone.
I still capture on my phone’s task list (synced by to work) or with pen and a small note card in my small notepad. I can then do my processing pretty much anywhere and drop in any of the deferred items into the correct system.
You are correct though, Weekly Reviews are duplicated but personally I like it that way. It keeps my personal life personal. It helps me NOT think about the other while working on one since I know I’ve processed everything on that side of life. For some reason it seems much easier to make my work weekly review occur than my home one though - still working on that issue.
I would imagine if one were self employed or freelancing one system would make MUCH more sense though.
I do strongly believe in having only ONE calendar however since keeping track of more than one is impossible.
-Stephen
Anoop
// Oct 16, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Hi Andre
I faced the same problem of having to maintain 2 GTD task lists, as my company did not allow personal information on the network.
I switched to Remember the Milk and Google calendar, since they are accessible from home and work. Also, since i spend majority of my day in front of a computer it makes sense to have my lists online.
It does lead to some discomfort when i am not connected, but for having things of my mind i am willing to use this method as of today.
Andre
// Oct 17, 2008 at 2:38 pm
@Stephen & Anoop: I was more or less married to the Palm Desktop before I started freelancing, but if I had to do it all over again, I would go with a web-based solution. Next week I’ll be experimenting with Gtdagenda.
Mark
// Oct 18, 2008 at 6:25 am
First, Tools for Thought has become my #1 GTD site for its mix of in-depth yet practical articles on achieving “mind like water”.
Like the other posters, I have experimented with the extent to which a dual system was effective or necessary.
I found that 70% of what I added to my inbox throughout the day could only be done at the office AND was due the NEXT day, usually the next morning. That meant ENTERING this 70% into my trusted system at the end of the every day to clean my in-box to zero, only to DO this 70% the next morning at work. This entry seemed wasted energy.
What I came up with was a paper “next day list” that stays on my desk at work. Here’s how it works:
1) IF it has to be dealt with the next day, and
2) IF I can’t/don’t want to act on it at home, and,
3) IF it won’t be on my mind overnight (i.e. doesn’t need more thought)
then I concluded that the item was =already at widget, ready to be cranked= and letting it sit on my desk till morning was a perfectly sensible thing to do. Mostly importantly, in my case, items meeting the aforementioned criteria do not creep back up into my psyche after I leave the office.
In effect, I have a “mini-system” at work that never becomes a part of my main trusted system; and my mind doesn’t mind.
It now takes much less time to “zero-out” my inbox at work since 70% now just sits on a list overnight. I consider it “duly processed”.
Ulla Hennig
// Oct 18, 2008 at 9:14 am
I am working with http://www.todoist.com, and that I can access from home and work. So when I think of “what do I have to do when I come home” I simply add it to this tool, and same when sitting at home and suddenly realizing one thing I have to do at the office I can add that too. Works good for me.
GTD and Productivity Links - 19th October 2008 | Did I Get Things Done? - Getting Things Done GTD with Personal Development and Motivation for Success // Oct 19, 2008 at 10:41 am
[...] fifth and last link for this week is from the Tools for Thought blog about how to maintain separate GTD systems for home and work. Personally, I use the same system for home and work. I tried with multiple systems but I found [...]
Sid Savara
// Oct 27, 2008 at 7:13 pm
I maintain a single list, but multiple contexts. In practice though, it wouldn’t be much different than having two lists. The only exception here is when I need to call the dentist during work hours or something to make an appointment: just due to the times the office is open, I have to call during my lunch break or when I step into the hall for a few minutes.
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