Contexts Are Not Categories
Every few months somebody shows me their task system, and the contexts look like this: @Marketing, @Finance, @Personal, @Health, @Ideas.
Those aren't contexts. Those are categories wearing context costumes. And the difference isn't pedantic. It's the difference between a list you work from and a list you maintain.
The question a context answers
A category answers: what is this task about? A context answers: where am I and what's in my hand?
David Allen built contexts around a blunt physical fact: you cannot make a phone call without a phone, you cannot buy lumber from your office, and you cannot fix the gate latch from an airplane. The original GTD® contexts (@calls, @computer, @errands, @home, @office, @waiting) are all about capability, not topic.
Here's why that matters. When you've got 25 minutes between appointments and you're in the truck, the question is never "what marketing tasks exist in my life?" The question is "what can I knock out from the driver's seat?" Open @calls, and every item on it is, by construction, something you can do right now. No scanning, no filtering, no "oh, not that one, I need to be at the computer." The list has already done the thinking.
A topic-based list can't do that. @Marketing contains a phone call, a design review you need dual monitors for, an errand to the print shop, and a brainstorm that needs an empty morning. Four different physical situations on one list means that every time you look at it, you re-sort it in your head. You do that ten times a day. That's the leak.
The 2026 objection: "but everything's @computer now"
Fair. When half your work happens in a browser, "@computer" stops discriminating. The fix isn't to abandon contexts. It's to slice by the resource that actually constrains you now:
- @calls is still gold. Calls need nerve and quiet, not just a phone.
- @deep needs an empty hour and a working brain. The proposal, the spreadsheet, the hard email.
- @quick-hits holds browser tasks under ten minutes. Renewals, confirmations, lookups. Perfect for the dregs of the afternoon.
- @errands because the physical world still exists. Group it or waste gas.
- @waiting is not yours to do; it's yours to chase.
Notice these still answer can I do this now? They just measure energy and attention instead of hardware. After 5 p.m. my brain is good for @quick-hits and nothing else, and the system respects that instead of guilt-tripping me with the proposal.
Keep the list short. Five to eight contexts covers almost everyone. If you've got fifteen, some of them are categories sneaking back in, and you'll feel it as friction at sorting time. The test for a context is: do I ever look at this list and work straight down it? If you never work directly from a list, it's not a context. It's a filing decision you keep paying for.
What about projects, then?
This is where category-brain panics: "if contexts aren't topics, how do I see everything about the Henderson deal?" You look at the project. Projects hold the by-topic view; contexts hold the by-situation view. Same tasks, two lenses. In SmartyTask every action carries both (assign it @calls and the Henderson project in the same breath), so the project page shows the whole deal, and @calls shows the call right when you've got the truck and the 25 minutes.
That two-lens setup is native in the app because faking it with tags and filters is exactly the kind of system-fiddling that kills the habit. (It's also one of the rows in the comparison table on our homepage, if you want the blunt version.)
Try this
Tonight, take your next-actions list and re-sort it by physical situation instead of subject. Tomorrow, work entirely from context lists. When you sit down with coffee and a sharp brain, open @deep; when you're in the truck, open @calls.
It feels mechanical for about a day. Then it feels like somebody finally took the decision-making out of your afternoons, which is the whole point.