Follow these simple steps to create a new To Do category on the Palm handheld:

1. Press the To Do button.

2. Tap the top right-hand corner of the screen where you see a category name, such as All. A drop down menu should appear with the names of your current To Do categories.

3. Select Edit Categories.

4. Tap the New button.

5. Enter each of the five new categories listed above one at a time. You may wish to rename or delete the default Business and Personal categories, if you don't use those.

When you're finished, your Edit Categories screen should resemble Figure A.

FIGURE A

Your Edit Categories screen should look like this.

A logical question then might be, "Shouldn't I be creating a category for each project and listing the action steps under that category?" Many time management programs certainly teach this method, and this works for some people. What's different about setting up context-sensitive categories versus creating a running list for each project is that context-sensitive categories are a more logical way to organize projects and action steps.

Consider this: you're in an airport with 15 minutes to kill before your flight. About all you can effectively do is make phone calls. It's far easier and faster to scan your Calls category for the phone calls you can make instead of tapping through each of your project lists, notes, and plans to find the calls. We will still be tracking overall project plans, milestones, notes, and ideas with each project, but the current action steps are filed under the appropriate context list.

The Projects category you create is simply a list of all of your current projects. Consider it the umbrella view of where your focus is. It's the list that drives your actions. Let's say that category includes the following project: "Plan team-building trip."

You may be asking, but what about all of the notes, ideas, future steps, etc. I need to remember about the project? In the Note field for each project, that's where you would do your project planning. For example, "plan team-building trip" might have random notes and ideas for completing the project, such as places to go, making hotel reservations, possible team-building exercises, attendees, etc. Don't worry about the order or hierarchy of the text in this Note field. It's a place from which to grow and build the project.

Only the very next action step for each project is filed under one of the four key action lists: Calls, Errands, Next Actions, and Waiting For.

For example, if the very next action on the team-building trip is to email the team members about their availability, then that would be the only action step in the To Do list under the Next Action category. Future action steps, or steps you can only take after the very next step is taken, would remain in the Note field attached to "Plan team-building trip" in the To Do list under the Projects category. As soon as you complete a next action, such as sending an email to the team, you would then scan your project plans for the very next step.