Projects without an end / criteria for completion - labels instead?

Hi everyone. I am using www.nozbe.com for my GTD implementation, but this is a general question: suppose you realise that you are behind in some regular task, and that your aim is to both catch up with that task, but also to continue doing it in an ongoing way. Where does that fit into the system? If I make it a project, then it means that the project will never be complete. Yet I seem to think that in GTD, projects should be SMART, ie they have an end, and criteria for completion. In Nozbe it is possible to assign a 'label' to a project (in others perhaps it would be the use of a tag). I am thinking that it might be best to keep labels for this sort of ongoing aim (eg 'keep up to date with important contacts'), and specific plans to do so (eg 'organise a party for important contacts') could be projects. How do others handle this sort of thing?

With thanks, Will

Don't know about the software, but in GTD terms they can fit in one of the two things: Areas of Focus, and Checklists (and of course calendar for scheduled tasks). You can search for these two terms on this forum and other GTD resources to get more information.

Hi everyone, long time reading, but this is my first post; sorry if my English is not good enough, as it's not my mothertongue, ;-)

I agree with abhay. If there is a project without end, perhaps it should be classified as either an Area of focus or a checklist.

Areas of Focus are those 7-10 areas you should/need to care about in an ongoing way, but without any deadline. They cannot be checked-off.

"Family", "friends", "economy", "car maintenance", "human resources"... could be some examples of them. They can have attached a project or maybe not: you don't finish economy, but you can pay your yearly bills.

There is a very clarifying public podcast regarding this issue by Meg Edwards - Creating a Projects List

Good question. i've struggled with this and truthfully got no ideal single answer.

An example for me is that once a week I need to tally up the number of bookings of our public spaces for monitoring purposes. Takes about 25 minutes.

This is too specific to call an area of focus.

I dont like to put it as a day specific task, because I dont have to do it that day. I could do it once every couple of weeks if I wanted to, as long as I did them for when I needed them (once every 6 months). I just try and do it weekly or so because if I do it every 6 weeks its 6 X 25 minutes to complete.

What I do currently is have a checklist of weekly tasks and add them to the NA list when I do a review. However the downside to this is that you have a task on your list pretty much every time you look at it, which after a while becomes easy to look straight past. So I dont feel this is a perfect solution.

Any recommended ideas welcome.

Abhay thank you, the concept of Areas of focus is just about right for me.

Reuben - thank you, that link/talk on Areas of focus vs Projects was exactly what I was looking for.

I will read the links in this forum, and follow this thread some more, as I would be interested to hear the answer to bishblaize's issue.

Will

There is a simple solution:

use your reminder system.

Your calendar for three types of information: 1) day-specific activities, 2) time-specific activities, i.e. appointments and meetings, and 3) day-specific information (that you want to think about, remember, or be reminded of).

Therefore, put it on the calendar.

However, you want a quick way to distinguish information reminders from scheduled commitments. Therefore, use a different format.

Example:

FRIDAY:
(taken new vitamins today?)
4 PM - AT&T WCB re call quality issues on 5555 number
(Henry back from Hawaii)
6:30 PM - help RG move furniture
(7:00 p.m. - special on HBO)
8 pm - jazzercise class
(called Mom recently?)

In your case, you could put a reminder for the next 4 weeks that you want to do something. You may also want to put reminders mid-week to remind you of the upcoming deadline. Around the 4th week, you could put a reminder to add in more reminders. :-)

Hope this helps,
JohnV474

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Originally Posted by willnapier

Hi everyone. I am using www.nozbe.com for my GTD implementation, but this is a general question: suppose you realise that you are behind in some regular task, and that your aim is to both catch up with that task, but also to continue doing it in an ongoing way. Where does that fit into the system? If I make it a project, then it means that the project will never be complete. Yet I seem to think that in GTD, projects should be SMART, ie they have an end, and criteria for completion. In Nozbe it is possible to assign a 'label' to a project (in others perhaps it would be the use of a tag). I am thinking that it might be best to keep labels for this sort of ongoing aim (eg 'keep up to date with important contacts'), and specific plans to do so (eg 'organise a party for important contacts') could be projects. How do others handle this sort of thing?

With thanks, Will

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Most good list tools have advanced repeating options that allow you to repeat things in various ways, e.g. every week no matter what, or one month after the last completion, et cetera. If your tool doesn't do what you want, do it by hand. If it's a small thing, it's a recurring task. If it's bigger, it's a recurring project.

Frankly, I have found that putting stuff like 'keep up to date with important contacts' on lists is mostly pious self-delusion. You need more bottom-up crispness to succeed. How will you keep up to date? Which contacts? Why?

It's an area of focus. For example:

area of focus: car is maintained
project: car brakes have been replaced
project: car has been washed
next action: google car shop near work
next action: drive to car wash

I always want my car to be in good condition, so I have that over-arching area of focus that I review every once in a while. The two associated projects have a definite successful outcome that could be met within a week or two as well as physical next actions to do; you're covered all the way up.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by context

It's an area of focus. For example:

area of focus: car is maintained
project: car brakes have been replaced
project: car has been washed
next action: google car shop near work
next action: drive to car wash

I always want my car to be in good condition, so I have that over-arching area of focus that I review every once in a while. The two associated projects have a definite successful outcome that could be met within a week or two as well as physical next actions to do; you're covered all the way up.

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This answer is correct. You might want to go back to the book and re-read the definition of a project carefully. It will help a lot to answer this question: "What does 'done' look like?" If you can't answer that, it likely isn't a project.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JohnV474

use your reminder system.

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I think that's a better solution than the one im doing.

My slight concern is about having 50-100 reminders per year in my system for one task. In actual fact I have many of these weekly recurring tasks and couldnt do it for all of them.

I also worry slightly about having anything in my calendar that I dont have to do. I've been pretty disciplined about what goes in my calendar, and dont get out my NA lists until my calendar lists are done. at the moment my reminders are either there to remind me to add something to my project/NA lists or to remind me that something thats already on my project/NA lists is getting close to deadline.

However I think its preferable to renewing an identical task each week, so il try it out and see where it goes.