New Projects - How do you get them into your project list?

[taxgeek]

Help me out with your ideas - often a bunch of new projects will enter my world during the day, and I'll forget to put them on my projects list. I remember to add the new thing as a next action: (i.e., "JONES TRUST AMENDMENT: talk to Sally re xyz"), but I don't remember to also go to my project list and add it as a new project. It seems duplicative to have to add the item in two places.

Is the place these get caught the weekly review? When I go over my todo lists? But that depends on me seeing the todo and knowing that it isn't on my projects list - not guaranteed that I'll notice it.

Am I approaching the project list wrong?

I also have the added complication that my boss wants me to give him, every other week, a chart showing each of his clients, the status of that client's work from the previous week, and the current status. This forces me to create additional documentation - I do the list before our every-other-weekly meeting, by using my project list and searches using the "find" feature of the palm os to find @NAs for each client - but this is TEDIOUS! And, it seems like a time waster since it doesn't help with GTD any, but is just a format requested by boss. Oh. The list of projects for the boss's clients isn't but maybe 1/4 of my total list of projects (including personal).

Any ideas on how to make this easier?
Thanks!
Susan

[bdavidson]

As far as duplicating effort, perhaps you're complicating the next action lists by trying to embed the project description. The project list item should answer the question, "What is the successful outcome?". The next action list item should represent the next physical, visible action to move that project forward.

I know a lot of people get hung up on trying to link next actions to projects for tracking purposes. I'm starting to believe that kind of overall view of a project's progress should be contained in Project support materials (e.g. project plans, mind maps, etc.). The next action lists should be populated based on actions identified in those support materials.

When you review your next action lists, ask yourself the following question regarding each action, "Is there a larger outcome driving this action that won't be completed by this one action?" If yes, then you probably have a "new" project that needs to be recorded on your project list.

I imagine you could catch these in your Weekly Review, but the real key to the weekly review is reviewing your project list for potential next actions. Doing it the other way around is OK, but probably not optimal use of your brain. The Weekly Review optimally occurs at the 10,000 ft level (projects).

I don't think this will solve your particular challenge, but it's food for thought nonetheless.

Good luck,
Brian

[taxgeek]

When you review your next action lists, ask yourself the following question regarding each action, "Is there a larger outcome driving this action that won't be completed by this one action?" If yes, then you probably have a "new" project that needs to be recorded on your project list.

Yes, good point, I'm supposed to be asking that question each time I make a @NA. I'll have to try to be more conscious of that.

The reason I like to put the project description in the title of the next action is so that when boss walks into office and says "where's Jones's trust", I can quickly do a search and tell him the status of it, no matter which list it's on. I don't really keep project tracking materials, keep that kind of stuff ("sent to client on 11/26/02") in the note attached to the next action usually. Maybe I need to rethink this and put that info in the project list instead (as a note perhaps).

[jkgrossi]

The reason I like to put the project description in the title of the next action is so that when boss walks into office and says "where's Jones's trust", I can quickly do a search and tell him the status of it, no matter which list it's on. I don't really keep project tracking materials, keep that kind of stuff ("sent to client on 11/26/02") in the note attached to the next action usually. Maybe I need to rethink this and put that info in the project list instead (as a note perhaps).

This is where I also run into trouble. I've managed to get to the point where I'm comfortable not directly linking NA's to their respective projects, however, I get frazzeled when my boss comes over to ask me the status of PROJECT X and I have to do a mad search through my NA's list.

I guess that this is something that I'll have to live with because I've tried something like what you've done, and it makes me nuts! What happens though is that I end up looking stupid (yes, I've found this to be a by-product of the GTD system; I don't mean that it has actually made me stupid - I mean that since now that everything is litteraly out of my head and not in the center of my focus my imediate recall isn't as good) because I can't remember a given project's status on the spot.

As far as missing projects, what I do to remedy this is whenever I process my inbox, I ask myself of each item I touch "what is the desired outcome for this".

If it's actionable, I try to determine if there will be more than one step involved. If there is, it goes on my projects list and I determine what the very next physical action is.

If there's only one step and it will take less than 2 minutes, I do it. If it will take longer, it goes on my NA list until I can find time to do it.

What I have observed as a result of this is that I tend to gravitate towards the things that I want to do and neglect the things that I don't (even though they might be very important). As a result, some things that need to get done don't. I haven't figured out a way to remedy this... I need to find a way (short of going back to the old A, B, C, I, II, II etc. method) to add urgency to these NA's.

Sorry for the long-winded post; I hope that you can find something useful out of all that rambling!!

-James

[Guy Bjerke]

The new GTD Outlook add-in lets you create a new project while you're creating a next action. You can then use the view by Project to get a quick status report.

Another Outlook based solution is found at:
http://home.attbi.com/~whkratz/index.htm

Bill Kratz's method uses a contacts folder to create Projects - allowing a drag and drop method of including the project name in the next action subject and/or note. HTH.

[andmor]

[quote="jkgrossi I don't mean that it has actually made me stupid - I mean that since now that everything is litteraly out of my head and not in the center of my focus my imediate recall isn't as good) because I can't remember a given project's status on the spot.

Thank goodness! I thought it was advancing age that was making me worry because I was forgetting what I should be worrying about, but it seems that it is just GTD working its magic. Takes a bit of getting used to, though.

HNY

Andrew

[jkgrossi]

Yeah, it's happened to me more times than I care to mention. Just the other day, my boss said to me "did so and so ever send you that report?". My reply was "what report? I don't know what you're talking about". I went into a panic. She just looked at me like I was an idiot.

Sure enough, though, when I went back to my @waiting for... list, there was "WF report from so and so". I haven't given it a second thought since I wrote it on my NA list 3 weeks ago...

The problem here is that my boss doesn't think that I have my bases covered, when in actuality I more on-top than I've ever been (I'm actually able to think about things rather than just trying to keep track of them). This makes me look very bad... I'm not sure how to fix this.

[taxgeek]

Hi, JKgrossi and all, I have the same problem! Once you become dependent on your lists, you mind ceases to hold anything anymore. So if you forget your palm one time when you're out doing errands, you're SOL! I suppose that's good though, because our minds are off being more creative and efficient.

Here's how to make your boss realize you're not stupid: I impressed my whole department one time when, at a dept meeting, someone asked about the status of something. I opened my palm, did a little click click click, and said "We sent that report to the client on 11/26. I called to follow up on 12/4 and 12/12 and haven't heard anything since." Their stunned amazement was followed by: "How'd you get all that IN THERE?"

Or, when she comes in, just pull up your palm os desktop, use the "find" function to pull up all instances of the client's name (if you have it embedded in your NAs somewhere). Then she'll see how organized your system is.

[rossw]

I have also been focussing on actions rather than projects. If I don't have the project down on my projects list, chances are I haven't worked through the outcome and deliverables/ constraints - I certainly haven't written them down.

I hadn't really thought this through until I saw this post: thanks!

FBA

[pd_workman]

I also have the added complication that my boss wants me to give him, every other week, a chart showing each of his clients, the status of that client's work from the previous week, and the current status. This forces me to create additional documentation - I do the list before our every-other-weekly meeting, by using my project list and searches using the "find" feature of the palm os to find @NAs for each client - but this is TEDIOUS! And, it seems like a time waster since it doesn't help with GTD any, but is just a format requested by boss. Oh. The list of projects for the boss's clients isn't but maybe 1/4 of my total list of projects (including personal).

Any ideas on how to make this easier?
Thanks!
Susan

I am using Agendus, with my projects set up as contacts in Agendus. I can look up the history of each project (it does use the global find feature, so takes a couple of seconds) but it can also log completed todo's to the note of the contact/project. Your note would then include exactly what had been completed at all times.

Pam