Every so often, I get an itch or a twitch, a flash of something pops into my mind that I know I need to deal with.

You know the kind, you actually experience a physical nervous sensation that possibly even triggers muscle movement.

At that moment there is the choice of:

1. Ignoring the twitch
2. Making a note of it to deal with it later
3. Go straight to dealing with it now

My personal preference is increasingly to deal with twitches by pausing to evaluate the likely time requirement to take the first concrete action towards realisation of a positive outcome.

If there is an initial action I can take that will take less than two minutes to initiate a chain of events that will lead in the desired direction, I stop whatever it is I’m doing and take that initial action.

In other words, straight into 3. Dealing with it now.

Otherwise I grab the nearest available information capturing tool and note the twitch and the desired direction and define the initial action.

That is, 2. Making a note of it to deal with it later.

This can usually be done in 30 seconds or less, especially if I’m at the keyboard of my G5 Mac. Hitting F5 pulls up an iGTD task dialogue box. I enter the twitch’s descriptor as the task title and put the additional details in the task description box. Then add the task and that’s done.

If I’m AFK I will either grab a pen, write it on nearest paper, pocket that for later or open my diary to record it in there. Otherwise, a quick voice memo on the iPhone is the go.

After that, I can get back to what I was doing, with twitch resolved and concentration not unduly disturbed.

Once or twice per day, I review all my collected To Do’s, or Twitches, enter them into iGTD, add Contexts and Priorities, any additional supporting information and if appropriate add them to a Project or create as a new Project.

This minimises time wasted due to excessive contextual switching, allowing me to get more time into the highest priority tasks without experiencing that horrible feeling that grows and grows from ignoring the twitches.