Want to view next actions by Project AND by Context

[jpm]

Yes there are options. None of them are suitable.

I must use Outlook as it is a corporate IT standard.

If I track tasks in a spreadsheet to sync with my palm, I have to overhead of moving the tasks form e-mail into a spreadsheet vs. keeping the e-mail in outlook either with plain vanilla GTD implementation or using the add-in.

With Contacts as Projects and Agendus there is too much overhead to maintain the linkages. The same is true with MLO and Life Balance.

If I do the weekly review the mental overhead is much less than trying to manually maintain the linkages in the system. If the software were smart enough to maintain them and sync it would be a nice feature. But as long as I do the weekly review its not strictly necessary...

 

[moises]

You don't go from newbie to GTD Black Belt in a day. People who pay to have David Allen Co. coaches might get a very intensive weekend of GTD but they don't become Black Belts in a weekend.

I started GTD with a few different contexts and a next action list for each context. I had no project list. And my productivity soared. I didn't need a project list, because I knew the desired outcome for my NAs.

And there was too much overhead involved in putting a project on a list separate from my NAs everytime there were at least two NAs.

Then I got the Outlook Add-In and started creating projects. They didn't synch with my PDA and they didn't synch with my home desktop. But I now had a project list. It was never very up-to-date, though, because I didn't like finding the right project in the drop-down list. And I didn't like the fact that relations among projects, and relations between projects and subprojects were not apparent. Later the Outlook Add-In permitted subprojects. But it was still cumbersome to me.

I now have a tool similar to LifeBalance or My Life Organized. It has a lot of power and functionality that I don't need or use. But it allows me to view all my NAs in one separate list, or, if I want, nested under the appropriate Projects in outline form. Likewise, I can see all my Projects in one list.

Finding projects is quite easy and fast by using CTRL-F.

I have this tool on my desktops at home and at work. The outline won't appear on my PDA but a PDA version is planned for November 2006.

My experience is that this is holy grail of GTD. I don't have the slightest qualm now about creating a project, whereas I used to be quite reluctant to do so. I don't have the slightest qualm now about creating a project plan for a relatively simple project. In the past, I would only create project plans for highly involved, complex, long-term projects.

So much of a GTD implementation is personal. There is your personal history, character, and style. Then there is the nature of your work. My work used to be infinitely simpler and I simply had no need for the kind of tools I use today.

With that said, I know that my GTD implementation has been aided immensely by using outliner software that enables me to filter by project or context or person assigned. I know that my productivity has been aided immensely by being able to see my tasks in one view that integrates them with their parent subprojects, projects, and areas of focus.

My point is that I was never good at keeping up-to-date project lists until I used an electronic outliner. I have found that an electronic outliner significantly reduces my overhead to the point where I now am happy to create a project for a task.

This is meant as a personal anecdote. I recognize that outliners are not for everyone. I certainly am glad that I did not try to implement GTD initially with an Outliner. It would have been too many new ideas to learn too soon. But now the only way you'll take my Outliner from me is by prying it from my cold, dead, fingers. :grin:

 

[Cpu_Modern]

I must use Outlook as it is a corporate IT standard.

If I track tasks in a spreadsheet to sync with my palm, I have to overhead of moving the tasks form e-mail into a spreadsheet vs. keeping the e-mail in outlook either with plain vanilla GTD implementation or using the add-in.

Coul'd you explain this further? From here it sounds like you need todo gtd in an email-app?!? Maybe the problem lis more in the field of your computing knwledge, not so much in the software? (offcourse being forced to use outlook is like being forced to drive a car with electronic engine... ....urg)

 

[madalu]

I don't quite understand why this question comes up so often in this forum. As far as I know, providing multiple views of simple data has been a solved problem in computing for several decades. If your particular software can't do it, it might be time to find different software.

This is true. But I think when people ask this question (as I often have myself), it's not because they are software illiterate. Rather, they are looking for an elegant, personalized way to switch back and forth between contexts and projects on the go.

Now obviously, there are all sorts of ways to sort data on a computer (Excel, Outlook, outliners, command line, etc.). But I'm not sure that's the only thing at issue here. My biggest concern when I started GTD was creating some sort of automatic trigger to keep projects moving (i.e., to think of the next step for a project once I completed an action). Sometimes, the weekly review cannot handle the quick turnaround time required on pressing projects. Sometimes, completing one action on a project triggers a rush of ideas and/or energy for that particular project. In those instances, I don't want to keep working from context lists. Rather I want to dive into the project itself, either to plan or to act. To do this, I need to switch quickly from context mode to project mode in an elegant and efficient manner, whether I'm at home, in my office, or on the bus.

And yes, there are all sorts of technical solutions for doing this. But it's helpful to try a few out to find out what works best for you. I think that's why people so often ask the perennial "sync" question. People just want to hear what other people have found helpful. And isn't that the whole point of this forum? Maybe others have already achieved "mind like water," but the rest of us can still use a little help and encouragement getting there.

 

[kewms]

Now obviously, there are all sorts of ways to sort data on a computer (Excel, Outlook, outliners, command line, etc.). But I'm not sure that's the only thing at issue here. My biggest concern when I started GTD was creating some sort of automatic trigger to keep projects moving (i.e., to think of the next step for a project once I completed an action). Sometimes, the weekly review cannot handle the quick turnaround time required on pressing projects. Sometimes, completing one action on a project triggers a rush of ideas and/or energy for that particular project. In those instances, I don't want to keep working from context lists. Rather I want to dive into the project itself, either to plan or to act. To do this, I need to switch quickly from context mode to project mode in an elegant and efficient manner, whether I'm at home, in my office, or on the bus.

Sure, but that's a somewhat different question. For me at least, my ability to "dive into" a project has more to do with keeping my project support materials readily available than with how I structure my NA lists. For anything more than a few phone calls or a little brainstorming, I'm likely to need much more complete information than just the NAs--reference materials, outlines, chunks of work in progress, whatever.

Some of this also has to do with the nature of contexts and context lists. In my experience, context lists are the most valuable when you have the least resources available. If all you have is a phone, it makes sense to have an @Phone list of calls you can make. If you're in your office, you have a much more complete set of tools available and it may make more sense to work in a project mode. Put another way, if it doesn't make sense to take all your project support materials on the bus with you, then you don't necessarily need to have all your project-related NAs with you, either. And if you *do* have all your project support materials with you, then you probably don't need to refer back to your NA list to figure out what's next.

Katherine

 

[jpm]

Coul'd you explain this further? From here it sounds like you need todo gtd in an email-app?!? Maybe the problem lis more in the field of your computing knwledge, not so much in the software? (offcourse being forced to use outlook is like being forced to drive a car with electronic engine... ....urg)

Okay, I'll try. Not sure exactly what wasn't clear?

Yes I need to do GTD in my email app and that must be outlook as it is the only e-mail application I'm allowed to use. I recieve anywhere from 100 to 200 actionable e-mails every weekday. This is probably 95%+ of the total actionable material that comes into IN for me. Many of these get delegated to direct reports. With this volume of e-mail it makes sense for me to use outlook as the basis for the trusted system. Moving that volume of material into any other system manually just isn't worth the overhead. Does that make sense?

I don't disagree that outlook is an extremely poorly architected solution. There are many brain dead features in the program that prevent it from being ultimately useful. Too many to list here...

From my perspective the GTD add-in does a pretty good job of fixing as many of these challenges as it reasonably can. When you are stuck with a poor data model and an ad-hoc architecture there is sometimes little that you can do...

Electronic Engine? Try squirrels in a cage built from duct tape and bailing wire...

 

[Max]

This is probably 95%+ of the total actionable material that comes into IN for me.

I hope you mean for just your work life.

 

[jpm]

I hope you mean for just your work life. :wink:

Well actually my wife has learned the best way to get something to me is via e-mail, so the other 95% comes that way too.

 

[Cpu_Modern]

@ jpm

First, thankyou for the clarification.

Then, I want you suggest the following approach:

We don't have Windooze machines over here, so I cannot test it in outlook, but it works in Thunderbird.

1. every n/a is an empty email, the subject line is the description of the n/a (you can send emails to yourself, or just save them as drafts)

2. every project is an email folder, put your n/a-emails in the apropriate folders. there is your n/as listed by projects view.

3. contexts are labels/categories whatever these are called in outlook. give every n/a-email in the project folders it's appropriate label.

4. to view a contextbased list just create a smartfolder, or do a search on the label. There is your contextbased list.

5. ditch any task-handling capability from outlook. Just use the calendar for the hard-landscape and there you are. have a lightweight-email-based-system.

How does this sound for starters?

Hack your outlook. If some of the features mentioned above are missing from your version of outlook, or you need further helpt with this, post it here, I will figure it out then.

I created a bunch of screenshots as further illustration:
http://my.opera.com/Qirb/albums/

 

[jpm]

1. every n/a is an empty email, the subject line is the description of the n/a (you can send emails to yourself, or just save them as drafts)

2. every project is an email folder, put your n/a-emails in the apropriate folders. there is your n/as listed by projects view.

3. contexts are labels/categories whatever these are called in outlook. give every n/a-email in the project folders it's appropriate label.

4. to view a contextbased list just create a smartfolder, or do a search on the label. There is your contextbased list.

5. ditch any task-handling capability from outlook. Just use the calendar for the hard-landscape and there you are. have a lightweight-email-based-system.

How does this sound for starters?

Hack your outlook. If some of the features mentioned above are missing from your version of outlook, or you need further helpt with this, post it here, I will figure it out then.

I created a bunch of screenshots as further illustration:
http://my.opera.com/Qirb/albums/

Maybe we missed something in translation. The current system I use is working fine for me. I use Outlook with the GTD add-in and sync with a palm. On outlook with the add-in it is simple to get whatever view by context or project I need. On the palm, I can view only by context and there I have to make the connection back to the project mentally in my head. As long as I've done my weekly review weekly that is a snap so I'm good to go.

This thread started as a request on how to get the context and project views synced accross the Palm and Outlook platforms. There are lots of tools that allow you to look at task items by context and project on either Palm or Outlook. There isn't one that seamlessly syncs the two systems and that is the rub. (Possible exception is the Agendus software on Palm using Contacts as projects which would require some kind of manual sync to gtd-add-in).

I think your suggestion might very well work for some people. It would be a nightmare for me to implement given the shear number of projects that I manage.

Here are a couple of my initial thoughts:

1. I've only used the versamail app on palm so I'm not sure how well this would sync accross the two platforms. It might, I'd have to play with it some.

2. Outlooks flags could be used with this approach to set due dates, etc. It may well be worth exploring further.

3. I find folders to be problematic. In data processing we gave up hierarchical databases a long time ago in favor of relational ones. It's not that the folder metaphor is wrong, it's just that the metaphor when implemented as an architecture creates problems. Outlook has a specific limitation for example that make it impossible to search more than one folder at a time for user defined field. It's also limited in what you can put in a folder. For example e-mail items go in e-mail folders, appointment items go in appointment folders, etc. So how do I get an overall view of my project? I can't. I have to look in the e-mail folder by project, the task folder by project, the appointment folder by project etc. I'm not saying take users folders away; make them virtual folders by tagging each item so that you can look at the whole file cabinet and pick up cross indexing in a relational manner instead of forcing the hierarchical access to the data...

4. A perhaps more profound problem with folders is the challenge of archiving information. David might call me a pack rat, but I've been saved too many times by simply and quickly being able to go back to a two - year old e-mail and forwarding it on vs. having to completely redo the work. So most every e-mail goes into an archive pst. The challenge becomes that once a PST file reaches about 500 MB it's time to start a new archive. If I've spread my e-mail accross 100's of project folders then it's difficult to archive and I have to go back and determine which folders I need to keep or they stay cluttered in my current ~last three months archive.

5. Contexts are typically stored as Categories in outlook/palm. These are limited to 15 on the palm, and sorting and or grouping by categories is problematic on outlook.

The technical challenge is generally a problem between the limitations of outlook and the Palm platform. I've thought this through pretty thoroughly and while I believe a technical solution is definitely possible, I don't have the skills developing either VB add-ins for outlook nor palm OS applications to solve the problems. It would take coding new solutions on both sides in order to get it to work properly.

In the end, the best answer I've found is do the weekly review...

 

[12hourhalfday]

That might be more convenient depending on your setup

I'm using numeric codes because I have file folders "P01" - "P60" (currently), so if I have a project that's called "P26 Purchase new laptop" in Outlook tasks, then I know all the paperwork is in the P26 folder. Further, when that project is completed, I can re-use the folder for a new project without re-labeling it.. it's also a "low overhead" for adding to each NA that I set up.. just 3 chars.

Really though, for the 3-7 projects that are truly active at any point in time, I generally know which code goes with which project.

If I don't, I just do a search in Outlook for a part of the actual project name, like "laptop", and my project line will pop up.. then I do a search on the newly discovered project code and immediately see the project and all NAs. Total time consumed? Maybe 10 seconds.

I went live with this system at home! I am going to be going live with it at work this week. I think it will work great, I love how easy it makes it to filter.

 

[Borisoff]

I don't quite understand why this question comes up so often in this forum. As far as I know, providing multiple views of simple data has been a solved problem in computing for several decades. If your particular software can't do it, it might be time to find different software.

I need a connection between a Project and the Next Action for my intuitive choices and Weekly Review. During weekly review I have to make sure each Project has a Next Action. Even if I know what the next step sometimes I need to know where I stoped the last time, so need some bookmark.

Regards,

Eugene