Associating "Next Actions" in "@" contexts with their parent projects

[tjrandell]

One aspect of implementing GTD I have struggled with is how to associate "Next Actions" when they are in "@" contexts with their parent projects and vice verce. For example, let's say I have a project named "London trip" that has several next actions.

It would look like this in my Outlook task:

Subject: London Trip
Category: Active Project
Notes:
Next Actions
1. NY car reservations
2. LN car reservations
3. Dry cleaning and laundry
4. Pack
5. Notify alarm company

Desired Outcome: Have a stress-less trip to and from London.

Completed Actions:
1. Stop mail - 6/25
2. Stop newspaper - 6/25

Now, I need to have several next actions in motion because there are a few things I can do on any given day in any order. For example:

Subject: NY car reservations
Subject: @Calls

Subject: LN car reservations
Subject: @Calls

Subject: Drop of suit to dry cleaner
Subject: @Errands

I have a few questions about how I am setting myself up. These questions express some of my frustration of how to easily associate hundreds of items with each other without opening tasks repeatedly. Keeping track mentally is not workable and goes against one of the GTD principles of having a trusted system and not having to mentally track things.

1. Is it "dangerous" to have more than one "Next Action" active in my "@" contexts at once?
2. Does anyone have suggestions for how to associate a next action with its parent project so it can easily be identified?
3. How about a simple way to "know" that a next action listed in the project entry is active in an "@" context or needs to be added?

I just started playing with the following ideas

1. Keep project titles short and use them in the "Next Action" subject, i.e. "LN Trip > NY car reservations"
2. Use the exact text of the "Next Action" subject, minus the project name" for what goes in the notes of the project task, i.e. "1. NY car reservations"

My main concern is I am leading myself into a cross-referencing tangle that will frustrate me more. I'd love to see some "worked examples" of what successful GTD'ers do.

[kewms]

I assign multiple Outlook categories to each task. One is for context, one is for the associated project, and others are for areas of focus.

Beyond Contacts gets around the Palm's category limits, making all these categories visible on the Palm.

The underlying data is in ResultsManager, a MindManager add-in. It gives me both a context view and a project view, and explicitly flags projects which have no Next Actions associated with them.

Katherine

[Julia]

I'm having exactly that same dilemma. I want to know that I have something set to do next for each project.

I started by listing my projects all the same way (ex. >> Fall Conference). Then, at the end of each "next action" task for that project I would add the project label (ex. Call Kevin for budget >> Fall Conference). That way, each individual task only had the context category (ex. @Calls), but I could use the find feature to search on >> Fall Conference and get everything related to the project.

The trouble with this, I'm finding, is that I have so many projects to go through on my weekly review, that would take a really long time to use that search feature on each project. On top of that, even if during the previous weekly review, I listed tasks that should keep me on target and on time throughout the week, things change (and I end up doing that search and check by project multiple times during the week).

I like the idea of assigning two categories (context and project) to each next action, but then I lose the nice list of project names (because all of the next actions are mixed in). I might have to sacrifice that that so that I have that way to check on whether or not next actions are assigned. The only change I'll have to make is to switch my next actions to have the project listed first (ex. >> Fall Conference >> Call Kevin for budget) so that I can sort by subject and put each project's tasks together in the list.

Katherine, do you give the project name the category of "Projects" (ex. Task: Fall Conference; Category: Projects) or do you make a new category with each project name (Task: Fall Conference; Category: Fall Conference)?

I used to keep all of my tasks sorted by project... it wasn't working out at all. This system has been wonderful in helping me make better use of my time by "batching" like work together. I still feel a little hesitant about knowing where all the parts are - this is a great discussion. Does anyone else do it differently?

Julia

[kewms]

Katherine, do you give the project name the category of "Projects" (ex. Task: Fall Conference; Category: Projects) or do you make a new category with each project name (Task: Fall Conference; Category: Fall Conference)?

New category for each project name. So I might have:

Task: Call John Smith; Category: @Phone, ^Fall Conference

Then Outlook's category view will give me all phone calls, all tasks associated with the Fall conference, etc. Note that the '^' for project names causes them to cluster together in an alphabetical sort.

I use ResultsManager, not Outlook, for the Weekly Review. It has a dashboard that's especially designed to generate the project list. In Outlook, though, you can collapse the category view to see just the list of categories without the individual tasks, then expand each category individually as needed.

Hope this helps,

Katherine

[tjrandell]

I'll try the double category idea. My initial thought is to name the category the same as the project, ^ and all. Then I just need to cut-and-paste for a quick creation.

[greyman]

Hello tjrandell,
I don't know if this reply will qualify as an answer to your question about How to associate NA's to their parent projects, but my experience is: I don't. I was concerned with this problem as well, but over some time of my actual GTD implementation, I realized that I simply don't need to manually associate NA to project. I usualy know which project the NA belongs to from it's description, but even if I don't know it, I would just do the NA without knowing about the associated project.

I have a suspicion that a lot of people are using context-based NA's lists as a to-do lists, and they put everything which should be done for a certain project into them. I don't work this way. NA lists are just that - lists for *NEXT* Actions. What should I do NEXT to move the project forward, so they are just "triggers" for getting things done. So my lists surely don't hold "hundreds of items". When I am going to work on stuff, I pick up NA for execution. Usually, when I am done with it, next to-do item for current project will naturaly emerge and I do it, then, next to-do will show up, and I just continue to work on the project. If the project is not yet finished and I do not have more time/energy/context to work on it futher, I will try to quickly determine the NA for it and put it into my GTD system. If I am not able to do it, I will put a short note about it, or just postpone everything for the next review.

greyman
http://quirkyalone.blogspot.com