I don't know how familiar you are with Toodledo, but you can record any project-related items without cluttering the Next Action lists. That's just how I set it up. My Next Action lists (one for each context) do contain only those things that are actionable. I do this by means of saved searches. It is only when I have my Weekly Review that I look into the project lists with all items, both actionable and non-actionable.

Quote Originally Posted by SiobhanBR View Post
Your Next Action lists should ideally contain ONLY things that you can do right now, if you are in the correct context.

There is no action to take with something like:
- Attend forestry meeting on January 23 at 2:00.
That belongs on your calendar.

If you have to do something relative to the meeting (prepare agenda, review a documents, draft some ideas, etc.) absolutely put that on your Next Action lists. If there is something else you can do to move the project forward absolutely put that on your Next Action lists.

You keep tabs on this by putting the note on your Projects List. This is where you would note that you've got a meeting to go to so when your review your Projects List you know you've got a plan to move that project forward.

You don't want to dilute your Next Action lists to the point where as you scan them to see what you're going to do you find yourself thinking "That'll wait until after the meeting.", "Can't do that until Joy gets back to me." etc.

The only factors that should derail your doing a well-defined Next Action if you are in the appropriate context are time and energy. That is, it's perfectly valid to say to yourself "That's going to take an hour and I'm still reeling from that last meeting, I'm going to do this easy thing instead."