I disagree with that. My work time is time purchased by my employer. They do not pay me to do anything for them outside of working hours, and I make sure that I don’t. It’s hard to do though, especially when technology makes it possible to work 24/7.

The big problem with GTD for me is that it was always “on”. Even when I was working on my own stuff, there was never down time because it wasn’t a project with a next action.

So I use GTD at work, because my work lends itself to that structure. And I don’t at home, so that I can live my life without the constraint of lists and structure.

By the way, I don’t use contexts at all and keep one project list and one next action list. I think the context list thing is only important for busy executives.

I just completed my final year at university, and although I really wanted to get a first class degree, I felt it was very important that I maintained my work/life balance. By keeping lists, one for work and one for home, I was able to keep on top of all my work and still fit in time with my friends in the evening. Not everyone did this and they were the ones who were still working late into the night as they hadn’t organized their days!

I have found I still do home related tasks while in a @computer context at work and visa versa.

Given that the top priority is to get it out of your head I suggest embracing the different contexts when looking at an area of focus. A bit like the Six Thinking Hats system. For example, the energy and optimism of a playground has regularly give me inspiration for a better way to do a work task. Or the more formal environment of work has gotten me to “book a meeting” with an old friend for lunch.

Courtney, I am very jealous of your discipline! I still fight the “school night” guilt. I wonder if the number and complexity of next actions/projects in each area of focus drives how you use the system? You sound like you have more home actions than work actions, whereas I think I have the opposite (my wife may disagree).

There is a misconception that adopting GTD turns you into a productivity machine, spending every waking moment… well, getting things done. This makes a lot of people hesitant to adopt GTD, because they picture themselves coming home from a busy day at work and continuing to work through context lists.

It doesn’t have to be that way. You can get home from work and take a nap on the couch. The important thing is, as you’re drifting off to sleep, you’re not worrying about the things you must do by tomorrow and all the bills you can’t forget to pay, because you have it all written down and know the world can wait while you nap. David Allen answered exactly this question in one of his podcasts.

I used to feel guilty about my ever-growing @home context lists when I came home exhausted on weeknights and played video games. But now I know the list can wait until the weekend when I have more energy, and I can relax as much or as little as I need to.

GTD has been an awesome tool for me both at home and at work.

You’ve brought up a relevant item to think through here. I would lean towards a similar side to what you are saying – keeping GTD for the vast majority of work-related items and then having certain items of interest, leisure or social value left GTD-less. On the other hand, David Allen might say that GTD is not so strict and orderly that it wouldn’t help in those aspects as well.

I’d say that GTD could be performed in the home context, but only should be done if the interest was there.