Ok, I need to admit right at the start of this post: I have not been too disciplined and have neglected my weekly review too often. I just finished my WR at home today - after missing it by about 10 days. Working at a “foreign” lab has not helped me get into establishing a gtd place the new office as I was just hopping from free desk to free computer. My iBook was at home - duh. GTD where are you?
Which has made me realize one important thing: I cannot rely on using a computer as my main GTD system. It only works when I am using my Ibook on a daily basis - everything else makes things complicated and is anti-productive. GTD really lives on those easy-to-adhere-to-Rules and accessibility. So even an online version of a gtd system is nice, but not really the best thing for my day2day basis.
What are the alternatives?
- I can do my lists and everything that needs to be written down on paper. This would mean that my LabWork and all related projects will be in my lab notebooks, my private stuff in my private notebooks - is this feasible? There never is a common place for anything. Somehow having my @context lists even more complete as gtd systems. So instead of one GTD system I now have a @home-system as well as an @lab system.
- One global system with one notebook, which needs to be large enough to fit everything in and small enough to be carried around.
- Or one global notebook with all the lists, projects etc. PLUS a collection of other notebooks for on the run. Still not the perfect solution.
Maybe I should still have all my projects on my ibook, and just generate the @context lists as well as the @nextActions from it - and everything else will be in carry-around-notebooks, lab-notebooks. Then during my weekly reviews I will update the Computer lists and create new @carryaroundcontext lists. Sounds like more work but might actually be useful.
I am sure I missed an important point in Dave Allen’s book - time to re-read it? There really should be specialized versions for different working requirements as well as “profiles” 
[Stumbled into this post through Technorati, by the way.]
Remember, your system needs to be “trusted,” and you can’t trust it if you don’t have it with you. When I started using GTD a few months ago, I knew I needed a lightweight system, so I could (and would) keep it handy. I went with paper — but I’m a pen freak, so your choice may be different.
You can either keep your iBook with you all the time, or print the stuff you need each day. I keep my lists in Word (on a PC), print them, and tuck them in my little notebook.
Think about what you can and will realistically keep with you on a typical day, and cook up something that fits within those limits.
And I’m also hoping for some more specialized GTD options/examples/suggestions, either in a second edition of the book or as some sort of supplements. In the meantime, we have online resources.
Robert, thank you for your comment.
Yes, indeed I can see that I need something that I can “breathe” with all day long. I do have a moleskine that I usually carry around but it also contains a lot of specific notes on dancing - my major hobby. So maybe I will need another one where I am not worried about writing “temporary” stuff into.
Or I will go with a hipster PDA.
But as Merlin has said it so well: the meta-part of GTD - namely the “hacking” and the “tools” are just so much fun it keeps you from getting anything done.
A very interesting post. What I increasingly tend to do is keep my lists on Backpack pages, which I regularily download in Devonthink. As Backpack very saddly does not offer a calendar solution, I use Airset for my “hard landscape”, this is available online and can be, if needed, be downloaded in ical and my Siemens T60 phone.
without having to always carry around my G4 Powerbook.
Using backpack allows me to have easy access to the NA lists in questions when I am at the university where the standard issue desktop computer is a wintel machine