Is this really the next action? — new MindReader “b” tag

One of the central themes of GTD is learning to recognize when a task on your to-do list is not really the “next action”. David Allen typically points out that “Get New tires” needs to be preceded by “make appointment for tire replacement” and that preceded by “find phone number for garage”.

Mal sent along a great MindReader suggestion this morning to add a MindReader “b” tag that lets you add a preceding task to a selected task. For example if you have selected “New Tires”, you can now type:

Control-Q b schedule tire appointment [enter] find tire phone number today![enter]

and GyroQ/MindReader will process those tasks for context, deadline, etc, and leave you with a “next action” of “Find Tire phone number today!”. You can also do this with the ResultsManager “Alt-e-i” shortcut, but this is a bit faster and allows MindReader to process the text.

If you are already using MindReader, you can add the new tag by pasting the packed text for b from the http://wiki.activityowner.com/index.php?title=GyroQ_Tag_Library your GyroQ dialog box. Make sure you have upgraded to GyroQ 1.9.4 or later as this tag falls beyond the 20-tag limit of 1.9.3. If you haven’t installed MindReader yet or haven’t updated all the related files in awhile, follow the Quick Start Instructions for installing AO-Pack.

1 Comment »

  1. ActivityOwner said,

    October 7, 2007 @ 1:58 pm

    Note that this tag has been renamed from “i” to “b” (before) in order to avoid triggering it with phrases like “I owe”, “I should”, etc.

    http://www.activityowner.com/2007/10/07/add-tasks-before-after-or-in-parallel-to-selected-task/

    There are also two new tags for adding tags “after” (a) and “in parallel” (p) to the selected task.

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