I'm a fan of the GTD (Getting Things Done) methodology.

David Allen talks through 5 steps of processing knowledge work:

• Collect - collect tasks, projects, and ideas
• Process - process ideas to set up action tasks
• Organize - organize tasks into projects; measurable action plans
• Review - prioritize work
• Do - complete tasks

He talks about the importance of maintaining context in one of these states at any given time; to avoid context-switching between these. Context-switching between states is inefficient and ineffective. The goal is to squeeze the tube of toothpaste (so to speak), and wring any tasks out of the work, before then deciding on which tasks to do. Don't context switch. Move through each state, in order, one at a time.

I created this very basic Chrome Extension to explore the idea of being explicit with What state am I in? at a given time. A backend server also tracks the state changes, so I can report on the CPORD events.

• Did I get through all 5 steps?
• How long did I take in each one?

The code for the Chrome Extension is available on GitHub at https://github.com/afomi/cpord-status.