Checklists vs "templated" projects

[ivanjay205]

Hello,

I was on a reddit forum having a discussion and the idea of utilizing a checklist vs a templated project came up. I tend to find the answers in this forum a bit more thoughtful and "official" than reddit so figured I would recap and get opinions here....

One aspect of my job role at work is an employee onboarding process. This starts with writing an offer letter, emailing it, and waiting for receiving it. Once we do receive emailing the personal data input form, waiting for that, and starting the process to enter into payroll and create the various IT accounts needed.

I have all of this neatly setup in a "template project" in omnifocus that I duplicate and move into active projects anytime we hire someone new. it doesnt fail me and serves me well, although it does create a new project with each hire.

On reddit I was told that really I should only have next actions up to the waiting for and keep everything else in a project support material folder and bring it in as needed OR create a single checklist and follow that, not individual next actions in a project.

I guess I am wondering what, if any, the real difference is and if there is a structural reason to do that? The only thing I can think of is my weekly review would be simpler as instead of 20 next actions there would be one, but does that matter? It allows me to see where I am in the process with each weekly review.

Thanks in advance

 

[bishblaize]

The only problem I have with pre-populated NAs is simply the number of times the actual NA ends up being different from what I expected.

Suppose I'm waiting for a form from someone and I've pre-populated my future NA as "Email Bob's form to Jane in finance". But then the form comes in and it's not been completed correctly. Now my pre-populated NA is wrong and I have to do something else.

It's not a huge deal, but I just find that this kind of thing happens more often than not, so I don't bother with pre-populated lists. I've tried it on and off, but I just end up with a lot of incorrect Next Actions in my system, which I can do without.

But if your job is such that these pre-populated lists work well, I don't really see a problem. Just whatever works.

(There's obviously a technical issue as well about making sure that future NAs are not visible in your live NA list if you can't do them yet, but quite a lot of software will handle this.)

I use simple checklists instead just to remind me about the next steps for those routine processing things you do in the workplace. These aren't broken down to the NA level, but are more like milestones or sub-projects. I just check them when Im doing my weekly review to remind me about next steps.

 

[ivanjay205]

The only problem I have with pre-populated NAs is simply the number of times the actual NA ends up being different from what I expected.

Suppose I'm waiting for a form from someone and I've pre-populated my future NA as "Email Bob's form to Jane in finance". But then the form comes in and it's not been completed correctly. Now my pre-populated NA is wrong and I have to do something else.

It's not a huge deal, but I just find that this kind of thing happens more often than not, so I don't bother with pre-populated lists. I've tried it on and off, but I just end up with a lot of incorrect Next Actions in my system, which I can do without.

But if your job is such that these pre-populated lists work well, I don't really see a problem. Just whatever works.

(There's obviously a technical issue as well about making sure that future NAs are not visible in your live NA list if you can't do them yet, but quite a lot of software will handle this.)

I use simple checklists instead just to remind me about the next steps for those routine processing things you do in the workplace. These aren't broken down to the NA level, but are more like milestones or sub-projects. I just check them when Im doing my weekly review to remind me about next steps.

Thanks, for me I do find that 90% of it works and it saves me a lot of time. When I first load the project into the system I review it clearly to ensure it matches up what I need. I also find that I can use waiting for to pause the NA's at appropriate places to ensure I do not see things before I should see them.

 

[DKPhoto]

Hello,

I was on a reddit forum having a discussion and the idea of utilizing a checklist vs a templated project came up. I tend to find the answers in this forum a bit more thoughtful and "official" than reddit so figured I would recap and get opinions here....

One aspect of my job role at work is an employee onboarding process. This starts with writing an offer letter, emailing it, and waiting for receiving it. Once we do receive emailing the personal data input form, waiting for that, and starting the process to enter into payroll and create the various IT accounts needed.

I have all of this neatly setup in a "template project" in omnifocus that I duplicate and move into active projects anytime we hire someone new. it doesnt fail me and serves me well, although it does create a new project with each hire.

On reddit I was told that really I should only have next actions up to the waiting for and keep everything else in a project support material folder and bring it in as needed OR create a single checklist and follow that, not individual next actions in a project.

I guess I am wondering what, if any, the real difference is and if there is a structural reason to do that? The only thing I can think of is my weekly review would be simpler as instead of 20 next actions there would be one, but does that matter? It allows me to see where I am in the process with each weekly review.

Thanks in advance

I’m a freelance photographer and do something similar with templates for every job I get in.

As there’s stuff that can’t be done until after the job i set the start date and time to the end of the job, so i don’t see them until they can be actioned, and that helps reduce visible clutter.

I use 2doapp and use tags as contexts, so only the next action has a tag. I’ve set up smart lists to show me only actions with tags (so the actual Next Action) which act as my Next Actions lists.

At the end of each day i go through my Done list and make sure each project in that list has a next action which is tagged, and my smart lists then update automatically.

I do the same during the Weekly Review, but by going through all my projects, instead of just those in the done list, as there may be new projects added that haven’t had a tag assigned.

I do use a waiting for tag as well, but it’s not easy to hide them from view the way i have the smart lists set up.

I often have to edit my templates when i first add them in as each job will be slightly different-i don’t always need to book an assistant for instance.

The Reddit answer seems wrong to me. In a pure sense you can only add Write Offer Letter as a NA, as you can’t email it until after it’s written, so all actions after that should be in project support, if you follow their logic.

But ultimately if it works for you, and is easy to stay on top of, then i see no reason to change anything. It certainly isn’t wrong.

 

[larea]

If it's working for you don't change it. I recently changed some groups of routine to dos that I do together into checklists instead of tasks and I found that I didn't see them as readily (could just be my system) and also I missed the joy of checking them off. So I decided to change them back. I do have a few items that work better as a checklist - repeating routine/simple projects where the name of the project is generally enough to remind me what I need to get moving on, and where I do the same tasks but not necessarily in the same order. When I say checklist here this is a checklist within a to do item in my system, not a checklist like my packing list that is separate and I use as needed.

Really I think the key issue is which method makes work flow smoothly for you. If you keep the list in separate project support, then you need to get the next action and manually add it to a list separately each time you stop working on the project. If you have pre-populated todos, then you might have to adjust them and you might have the wrong NA pop up from time to time. Which is more of a hassle for you? The more routine the project, the more it leans toward the pre-populated NAs being a good solution and vice versa.

 

[Gardener]

My main objection to having a long list of actions in an active project is that those actions usually change, repeatedly, so maintaining them is more work than leaving them out.

It doesn't sound like that's true in this case. I'd say that for this specific case, your full template project makes sense.

 

[ivanjay205]

My main objection to having a long list of actions in an active project is that those actions usually change, repeatedly, so maintaining them is more work than leaving them out.

It doesn't sound like that's true in this case. I'd say that for this specific case, your full template project makes sense.

Thanks for the input. This is too how I felt. Except I am trying to evaluate a switch to nirvana or facilethings and neither support templates yet . Always something!