Trying to understand lists of actions

[genelong]

Hi - I'm a newbie still trying to get the basics of GTD down, and I find the process of separating items confusing.

I'm trying to figure out, after trashing, doing 2-minute items, and delegating actions, what I am left with. Here's my understanding:

reference (non-action items)
someday (actions waiting for weekly review decision to be made active)
calendar (actions waiting for a specific date)
deferred (actions waiting for some other event to occur)
action (action within a project list but waiting for the next action)
next action (actions to be done next)

Is this correct? It's not clear to me from the flowchart if this is where things wind up, but it's the best I can figure out.

I'll ask this much first, because if my understanding is wrong, it may solve my other problems. Thanks.

[kewms]

Yes, that's pretty much it. Deferred and future actions might go on your calendar, in your tickler file, or in your Waiting For list, depending on your system, but it looks like you've got the basics down.

Good luck!

Katherine

[genelong]

Okay, thanks. Then I have some questions. Since projects consist of groups of actions, should an entire project goes on the "someday" list if it's not active? I have probably a few hundred projects - since I've dumped every wish, hope, and need into my system - and if they are all active, and every one is supposed to have a "next action" item, I would have hundreds of "next action" items. What I've been doing is putting some items within a project on the "someday" list, and others on the "active" list, in order to keep my active list down, but I'm thinking that all actions within a project need to be moved to the "someday" list if I decide to postpone the project itself. Is this how people do it?

The basic problem I have had with my implementation of GTD so far is that I have so many projects, and so many individual action items, that my "someday" list is huge, and takes forever to go through, so I wind up not doing it - and then of course it becomes a black hole, and I never see my actions again. I have not seen any way of prioritizing the someday items within GTD, so going through hundreds of items is really very painful.

Also, my next actions list has also become unmanageable. I almost never empty a single context list within a day, because there are too many items on it, and more get added every day so that each context list keeps growing, and (my understanding is that) since you do each list from the top down in order, there is no prioritizing.

So some questions:

Are you in theory supposed to empty each context list every day? If not, how do you add items? Bottom of the list? Random? How do you prevent items that fall to the bottom of a context list from sitting there forever?

If you have hundreds of someday items and projects, how do you choose which ones to move to active during your weekly review? Again, without prioritizing, if I just pick the ones I "want" to get done this week, I wind up with so many next action items that they just never get done.

I'm sure I'm doing something wrong, but working from the book without seeing an actual system in action, it is hard to know where I am going wrong.

[Brent]

I think you're doing fine! Your questions are common ones.

Yes, the Someday/Maybe list is a list of Projects that you've consciously deferred. Actions are immediate Actions that you can do now on active Projects. Anything in your Someday/Maybe list shouldn't have corresponding Next Actions.

(That said, nobody will punish you if you decide to sneak forward on a Someday/Maybe project.)

You will probably never empty your context lists, and you're not supposed to. The context lists exist to tell you what you can do in a given context to move your active Projects forward.

Think about Next Actions as bookmarks in a Project. They exist to tell you where to start. You may get into a context, start on a Next Action, and continue in that vein until you leave the context. That's fine, as long as that's truly top priority and nothing else needs to be done.

About prioritizing: People often get confused about this. You need to consciously and mentally re-prioritize your context list every time you look at it. Decide what's most important right now. Because priority changes from one day to the next, and sometimes one hour to the next.

You wrote, "how do you choose which ones to move to active during your weekly review? Again, without prioritizing, if I just pick the ones I 'want' to get done this week, I wind up with so many next action items that they just never get done."

My favorite answer for this is metrics. How many projects did you complete last week? How many next actions? How many the week before? If you don't know, keep track for a few weeks. Then limit your number of active Projects to a number in that ballpark.

In other words, pick as many projects as you can comfortably make progress on. If you don't know how many that is, keep track of your actual progress for a while.

Does that answer your questions?

[TesTeq]

If you have hundreds of someday items and projects, how do you choose which ones to move to active during your weekly review?

Use your intuition and the higher levels (20k...50k) which define your goals and life mission. GTD will not make the choices for you.

Be realistic - do not activate new projects when you have no time to finish the projects that are already active!

[dschaffner]

Excellent questions, genelong.

I'd suggest that if a project is on the someday/maybe list, then it doesn't need a next action.

One of the things I've been working on over the long holiday break is getting my projects and next action lists pruned down so they are less overwhelming. It's been a very energizing and rewarding process.

One other tip that you might find useful: I've split my someday list into "someday/maybe", and "someday, just not this week" to distinguish things that I might do and things that I'm probably doing to do. In any event these are quick to review because it's just a matter of looking at an item for a second or two... even a list of 200 items can be scanned in a few minutes.

One other comment - its not that "you do each list from the top down in order, there is no prioritizing", it's my understanding that to look at each context list and choose the item that intuitively feels right.

I don't think you are "supposed to empty each context list every day", but ideally you should clear a significant percentage each week. Not that I'm the best example of this One of my [oh I hate to call them new years resolutions] "thingies" is to spend less time doing work as it shown up, but rather getting work on to my lists, and working from my lists.

Also, I think that ideally items that sit for on your lists for too long need to be reviewed, and moved to someday/maybe or have the next action refined or clarified.

Hopefully, these comments help. And others are sure to chime in too. This site is a great place to learn about how others are GTD.

- Don

[TesTeq]

I've split my someday list into "someday/maybe", and "someday, just not this week" to distinguish things that I might do and things that I'm probably doing to do. In any event these are quick to review because it's just a matter of looking at an item for a second or two... even a list of 200 items can be scanned in a few minutes.

Check this comment http://www.davidco.com/forum/showpos...15&postcount=3 about Someday/Maybe lists.

[genelong]

Thanks, many of your comments are helpful.

Some more questions:

- I think of single stand-alone action items as the same as a "next action" in a project, and the other actions in a project as deferred until the "next action" is done. Is that how others see it?

- On prioritizing, I thought (I'd have to look it up) that the GTD magic of doing the context lists as opposed to a standard task list was that you don't decide in the moment which one to do - you decide when you make the list, then always do the next one on the list. I've found that useful in that if I keep choosing in the moment, the more disagreeable tasks tend to always be avoided, but if I go through in order, I have to face each one. Did I misunderstand?

- Here's a typical dilemma on prioritizing. I just completed my inbox, and I have a simple task, "buy a comforter", to process. Yes, I could break it down in to a project, but for now, assume that it's simple enough for one step. Now I try to decide should it be someday, or an action item for the "shopping" context. What I wind up doing is looking at my shopping context, see the huge number of undone tasks that feel more important, and so I stick it in someday. But I also know it will never come out of someday, because I will never empty my shopping context list, so it remains on my mind OUTSIDE of the GTD system as something I have to worry about, or it will never get done. Obviously counterproductive. But with too many things in my context list, I am doing my weekly review every time I try to pick the next task to do. Does this make sense what my dilemma is?

Thanks for the help, especially those of you who are patient and encouraging. I really like GTD so far, but it is still a struggle to make it work, and I want to make it work. I really need a good task system in my life. Thanks again.

[Brent]

- I think of single stand-alone action items as the same as a "next action" in a project, and the other actions in a project as deferred until the "next action" is done. Is that how others see it?

Yes, but to clarify: There's no need to write down or otherwise record any actions beyond the Next one. You can, but it's something else to keep track of. You only need to write down the next thing.

- On prioritizing, I thought (I'd have to look it up) that the GTD magic of doing the context lists as opposed to a standard task list was that you don't decide in the moment which one to do - you decide when you make the list, then always do the next one on the list. I've found that useful in that if I keep choosing in the moment, the more disagreeable tasks tend to always be avoided, but if I go through in order, I have to face each one. Did I misunderstand?

That's not how I understand GTD. You do decide in the moment which one to do. If I make a list on Sunday, how can I know which item will be most important on Friday?

Here's a typical dilemma on prioritizing. I just completed my inbox, and I have a simple task, "buy a comforter", to process. Yes, I could break it down in to a project, but for now, assume that it's simple enough for one step. Now I try to decide should it be someday, or an action item for the "shopping" context. What I wind up doing is looking at my shopping context, see the huge number of undone tasks that feel more important, and so I stick it in someday. But I also know it will never come out of someday, because I will never empty my shopping context list, so it remains on my mind OUTSIDE of the GTD system as something I have to worry about, or it will never get done. Obviously counterproductive. But with too many things in my context list, I am doing my weekly review every time I try to pick the next task to do. Does this make sense what my dilemma is?

Woah, woah, woah. You may never empty a list, but you will remove things from it. You will be always finishing things and replenishing lists from Someday/Maybe.

Here's my workflow:

Things come out of your head, and into an inbox.
Things come out of your inbox, and into Someday/Maybe.
Things come out of Someday/Maybe, and into your Projects and Next Actions.
Things are completed.

(Obviously, the above isn't ironclad; sometimes a to-do will go straight to an active Project.)

Looks like you're suffering from a common problem: You're over-committed. You literally can't do everything.

Here's the thing: Let's say about half of your projects are going undone. Those half of your projects are going to go undone. You can either try to get them all done--in which case some 50% will not get done--or renegotiate your commitments. To quote one queuing theorist, "Drop off all the stuff that you won't be able to get to. You won't be able to get to it anyway, now you're just being honest about it."

This may seem crazy, but what if you renegotiated half of your projects for a month? Give them to someone else, or extend the deadline, or just temporarily drop them.

Failing that, at least put everything in your system. If you're really working on it, put it on your Projects list. At the very least, it'll show you just how much stuff is really on your plate, and you can decide on what to do from there.

[sdann]

You may also find it useful to have lists. An example would be "books I'd like to read", which I personally don't put in my someday/maybe list. If you are not already doing this, then that will reduce your someday/maybe list. I do a lot of reading and will go to that list only when I want an idea of something else I have always wanted to read. (Please note, that I do have "Must reads" in my someday/maybe list though and they do turn into next actions.)