Contexts, Energy, and Time: Choosing What to Do Next

Over the past three months, we've covered capturing, clarifying, and projects. You now have a trusted system full of clearly defined next actions tied to meaningful outcomes. But when you sit down to work, how do you decide what to do right now? GTD has an elegant answer: context, energy, time, and priority.

Contexts: Where You Are and What You Have

A context is the tool, location, or situation required to complete an action. Common contexts include @computer, @phone, @errands, @office, @home, and @agenda (for things you need to discuss with a specific person). The idea is simple: when you're at your computer, you should only be looking at actions you can do at your computer. Everything else is noise.

Contexts eliminate the waste of scanning actions you can't do right now. If you're out running errands, pull up your @errands list. If you have five minutes before a meeting with Sarah, check your @agenda-Sarah list. You're always looking at the right actions for your current situation.

Energy Levels: Matching Tasks to Your State

Not all hours are created equal. At 9 AM after your morning coffee, you might be ready to write a strategic proposal. At 3 PM after back-to-back meetings, you're better suited for clearing out quick emails or organizing files. GTD recognizes this by encouraging you to tag actions by the mental energy they require.

In WowGTD, you can assign energy levels to your actions — high, medium, or low. When you're in peak focus mode, filter for high-energy tasks and tackle the work that demands your best thinking. When you're running on fumes, switch to low-energy tasks and still make meaningful progress. No energy is wasted, and you stop beating yourself up for not writing that strategy doc at 4:30 on a Friday.

Duration: How Much Time Do You Have?

You have 15 minutes before your next meeting. What can you accomplish? If your actions have estimated durations, the answer is instant. Filter for tasks that take 15 minutes or less and pick one. Without duration estimates, you'd waste those 15 minutes scrolling through your list, unsure if anything fits the window.

Durations don't need to be precise. A rough estimate — 5 minutes, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour — is enough to transform dead time into productive time. Those small pockets throughout the day add up to hours of reclaimed productivity each week.

Due Dates: Use Them Sparingly

Here's a counterintuitive GTD principle: most actions don't have due dates, and that's okay. A due date should mean "this must be done by this date or there are real consequences." Tax filing deadlines, contract expirations, event RSVPs — those are real due dates. "I'd like to finish this by Friday" is not a due date. It's a wish, and putting it on your calendar alongside real deadlines dilutes the signal.

WowGTD lets you set due dates when they're real and meaningful, and they'll surface at the right time. But the system doesn't force you to assign dates to everything. Most of your work gets done not because of deadlines, but because you've built a system where the right action shows up in the right context at the right time.

Putting It All Together

When you sit down to work, the decision of what to do next becomes almost automatic. First, filter by context — what can I do here and now? Then consider your energy — am I sharp or drained? Then check your time — how long do I have? Finally, from the remaining options, use your judgment to pick the highest priority item. No overthinking, no anxiety, just action.

This four-criteria model is what makes GTD feel effortless once it clicks. You're not managing tasks — you're managing your attention. And with WowGTD handling the filtering and organizing, you spend less time thinking about what to do and more time actually doing it.