Actions versus Next Actions

[validatelife]

Being away from California, I've been stuck in a place where the career things that I should ( and will ) be taking up my time are on hold. Being in somewhat of a temporal purgatory, I've found posting on these boards the best use of my time, to get primed up for when I get back to a resource-rich environment. Thanks for bearing with me.

 

[kewms]

Okay, yeah' you're right, that definitely would NOT be reference becaust it's still actionable! However, i like your idea of seperate folders but would, following the "complicated forms" idea, would i have -- possibly -- a Project folder and in that a "complicated financial forms" folder and possibly in that a "real estate transaction" and "taxes" folder or something of that? The main thing here is that I should have folders within the projects folder? That's easy peasy lemon squeazy with computer folders (electronic folders), but you'd have to get a larger mini-filing folder for projects, or maybe just a a cardboard box for projects.

Devote as much space to filing as the project requires. For some projects, that might be a few sheets of paper. For others, it might be whole rooms full of files.

Personally, I like to keep my filing hierarchies as flat as possible. So I wouldn't have "complicated financial forms" as a category, I'd have "2007 taxes," "Boston house sale," or "January trip expenses."

In short, I have 4 seperate GTD systems running each with their individual (and often overlapping) projects, NAs, reference, and maybe somedays! It's the EPITOME of chaos from organization!! haha. I think the best remedy to that convoluted quagmire is to just consider 1 of those 4 electronic GTDs the MAIN system and then just dump all contents of the other 3 GTDs in the inbox of hte Main one.

That's what I would do. You might eventually decide that you need parallel systems--for instance if you work on some projects *exclusively* in particular physical or online environments--but in general consolidation reduces the chances that things will get lost.

Katherine

 

[validatelife]

validatelife,

I'm impressed that you use so much of your valuable time to test various GTD methodology implementations and implications and report to us the results of these tests.

Hey, what can I say, I had a LOT of open loops, projects, and next actions clouding my brain. GTD Works! I finally found a system that works. I exercise better, think more clearly, have a MUCH greater sense of mobility. I wanted to share my gratitude for the GTD system! It's awesome! Finally something that works for me and my needs instead of some structure that creates problems. i just put problems INTO gtd and it processes them to get successful results!!

But, yes, I DID go a little overkill on sharing my findings, experimentations, and evolution of getting to a good blend of a working system using GTD, and probably should have been using my time elsewhere (like actually doing some of the stuff I've now categorized and now have a handle on) from GTD, but I just wanted to 1)Share the excitement and gratitude and 2)work out any other kinks to the system that fits PERFECTLY with my personality. I have a lot of computer science and some cognitive background and the "loops" and thinking about thinking (cognition) was immensely congruent to my needs.

I even have no time to read everything you are writing!

Said, the person with over a 1000 posts on this board!!! haha.

Thanks.

You're right though. Gotta move forward now that my "stuff" is no longer a burdening amoprphorous mass, but a pristine, precise, and "mind like water" system (it's getting there at least )!