I track deadlines by placing them on my calendar with advance notice to tickle the item to my attention. I also do some planning to estimate how much time a project will take and to schedule specific times to work on a project. On a typical day, I have large blocks of time to work straight off my next action lists (e.g., process inbox, read e-mail, make telephone calls). I also schedule concentrated time to work on specific projects that are deadline driven, such as writing a brief. The projects that I schedule are projects that I am definitely planning to work on absent some great emergency, they are not the sort of projects that I would like to get done but I can carry them from day to day. For more discretionary items, if I am concerned that I may lose track of them on my next action lists, I use the due date function on the Palm task list to tickle the items to my attention. The same is true if I am waiting for information from someone else. If I need information from the client to finish my brief on time, I create an @waitingfor task and set a due date to tickle the item for follow up to make sure that I get it on time. GTD can work for managing smaller projects, but if your projects are more sophisticated you may want to look at project management software. You may find it helpful to read Managing Multiple Projects by Tobis & Tobis (see
www.briefcasebooks.com/tobis.htm). This book is designed more toward smaller team projects. You can read the first two chapters online.