What goes on your Waiting For list?

[cfoley]

This morning I caught myself about to add "Process outcome of meeting" to my Waiting For list. Sure, my project cannot continue until this meeting has happened but the only place it needs to be is my calendar. Processing my meeting notes will bring the project back to life with a new next action.

This is only one instance of questionable items ending up (or nearly ending up) on my waiting for list. At the moment, my Waiting For looks a bit like this (names changed to protect the innocent)

People/organisations who owe me something. I will need to chase them up if they don't respond in a timely manner.

Doc to suggest dates for dinner
Grumpy to suggest dates for lunch/drinks/walk
Happy to respond to text (sent 2015-03-11)
Wicked Queen to refund tax
Snow White Appreciation Society to send 2015 membership pack (3 to 5 weeks from 3/3/2015)

People who want me to process things for them. It's a hobby for me and a hobby for them. They may never send stuff. I'm happy to process it but I won't chase it up.

Sleepy to send me website info
Bashful to let me know pickaxe prices.
Sneezy to add me to Skype
Sneezy to send bank details
Dopey to send me article.

Someone has asked me to get them some equipment. The next time I see them I'll hand it over but until then, I don't have a good place to put this placeholder so it's ended up on my waiting for list.

Sell sport equipment at club

The first group is fine. The third group is OK-ish. If there is somewhere better for the placeholder that would be great.

I don't really know what to do with the second group. On the one hand, I have agreed to do these things. On the other hand, they're ultimately not my responsibility and I cannot proceed unless they send me the information I need. In some cases, I have done some preliminary actions already so the project already existed in my GTD system.

A few things I have considered:

Sending more than about one reminder isn't appropriate. Like I said, it's a hobby for everyone involved.

Keeping these actions indefinitely clutters things up.

Deleting them after a short time (or a long time) seems arbitrary to me. It's what I end up doing but choosing this suggests that they shouldn't be put on the list in the first place.

Any thoughts or advice?

 

[SiobhanBR]

I have some of these too, but not many. I tend to keep them on my @Waiting-For for a while if I think they may actually arrive soon-ish. After a while (and yes, it is a gut feeling so it will differ by item) I move it to Someday-Maybe. If you have a lot of them you could create a separate context I suppose and you wouldn't need to review it as regularly as your others.

If you really have no thoughts captured about it and when they send what you are waiting for it will be abundantly clear what to do with it and that you did agree to help them, I would consider deleting it. After some indefinite period, I would likely delete it from my Someday-Maybe as well.

 

[Oogiem]

People/organisations who owe me something. I will need to chase them up if they don't respond in a timely manner.

Clearly belong on the Waiting For list IMO

People who want me to process things for them. It's a hobby for me and a hobby for them. They may never send stuff. I'm happy to process it but I won't chase it up.

These belong in either projects on hold in someday/maybe or in a someday/maybe list of one off actions. Don't keep them in anything active. If the items or info arrive in your inbox you can process it and make the project active or do the task as necessary.

Someone has asked me to get them some equipment. The next time I see them I'll hand it over but until then, I don't have a good place to put this placeholder so it's ended up on my waiting for list.

I have a single action list that has items like this. For example right now one of them is "Give Megan the cuisinart part." It's in my bag that I carry when I go in to town and if I see her in town I'll hand the part over. Not really part of a project but instead in my errands list. It's actually an action I will need to do so not a waiting for but is waiting in the sense that I won't see her for a while. If I expect to have several items for the person I put the note on their agenda list. The vet has an agenda list and whenever she comes out I look for all the other questions or things I need to ask or give her so I do them all at once.

 

[notmuch]

...People who want me to process things for them. It's a hobby for me and a hobby for them. They may never send stuff. I'm happy to process it but I won't chase it up....

Based on this definition, I wouldn't put them on a list in the first place; when they deliver it gets entered... unless for other reasons, it's a particularly important dwarf.

 

[jdavidcarr]

Based on this definition, I wouldn't put them on a list in the first place; when they deliver it gets entered... unless for other reasons, it's a particularly important dwarf.

Yeah, I'm with notmuch on this one. If they've asked you to do something that you can't actually ever start unless they complete a trigger action, you don't actually have a task.

For me, I only use Waiting For when I'm truly in a hold pattern for my own actionable task while waiting for someone else to do something. I set a due date that I use to indicate when I must follow up with them, and tag the task with the person's name so that when I see them in meetings or something, I can pull up everything with that tag and bug them about the items I'm waiting for, but otherwise, I don't look at my Waiting For items until the due date arrives. The system I currently use (Doit) moves Waiting For items out of the Waiting For view and into the Today view when the due date is the current date or earlier.

 

[Folke]

I see this almost exactly the way everybody else here has already expressed, so let me just point out a few minor twists.

As for your group 1, i.e. things that people owe me, I do not only put down things that prevent me from continuing with a project, but also things that people simply owe me that I care to get (or get back), for example a sum of money, a book etc., even if I do not need them for anything in particular. I use my app's priority feature to color mark the urgency/importance of my Waiting For actions. The Low ones I rarely even check between my weekly reviews. The Medium ones I check every day to see if they may require some follow-up action. The High ones I check several times a day. I always manually add a "since date" which tells me how long I have been waiting. I also sometimes add a deadline date, but only if this has been expressly promised by the other person.

As for your group 3, i.e. things to deliver to people, I see these as regular next actions with a particular context. I have only five contexts and I would put these "deliveries" down as either @Person or @Out, depending on whether it is the person or the place that is the more rare or difficult one to come across. I use my app's priority feature to color mark the urgency/importance (actually my review frequency) of my next actions. If these deliveries are the kind that will have to sit around my list until I just happen to be in the right context (meeting that person or going to that place) I would put them down as Low priority, which means they will normally not disturb me unless I am really looking.

As for your group 3, i.e. mutual half-promises that neither of you takes too seriously, I probably would not write them down at all, or if I did I would put them down as Someday/Maybe. But then of course, if I am interested and the other person did in fact also seem very interested and did even promise to get back to me and if I would not hesitate to follow up on that promise ... then this might be a category 1 item, i.e. regular Waiting For.

 

[cfoley]

Thanks everyone who has responded. It's nice that most of the advice has been similar.

People/organisations who owe me something.
Oogiem: Clearly belong on the Waiting For list IMO
Folke: color mark the urgency/importance of my Waiting For actions.

Yeah, i'm happy with these ones. I don't have enough to consider labelling them with importance. Of course, this could change in the future so thanks for the suggestion.

It's a hobby for me and a hobby for them.
Oogiem: These belong in either projects on hold in someday/maybe or in a someday/maybe list of one off actions.
Oogiem: Don't keep them in anything active.
Oogiem: If the items or info arrive in your inbox you can process it and make the project active or do the task as necessary.
notmuch: I wouldn't put them on a list in the first place; when they deliver it gets entered
jdavidcarr: unless they complete a trigger action, you don't actually have a task.
Folke: mutual half-promises that neither of you takes too seriously
Folke: if I am interested [etc] then this might be a category 1 item

I think Folke touched on something important. Most of them probably sit in a gray area between proper waiting fors and mutual half-promises. I think I'll take the majority advice and delete the ones I'm not that interested in. As Oogiem and notmuch say, if something lands in my inbox, I can deal with it then.

I hadn't considered using someday/maybe for these. I'm curious how this works. Is there not a danger of these kinds of things cluttering up your own potential future projects?

I don't have a good place to put this placeholder so it's ended up on my waiting for list.
Oogiem: I have a single action list that has items like this.
Oogiem: If I expect to have several items for the person I put the note on their agenda list.
Folke: I see these as regular next actions with a particular context.

To be honest, I've tried a lot for these kinds of things. Agenda lists work well for people I regularly see or for people where several items build up. But I never think to look at them for people I have other kinds of relationships with. Agenda lists or context lists with only one item have been a black hole for me in the past. I never consider entering those contexts deliberately and never remember I have a list when I happen to be in the context.

Maybe the Errands list would be appropriate for these. That's a bit of a funny context, really. I have to formulate a plan before I go out, or if I'm already out I have to scan through a lot of actions I can't do in that location. Since it's already more messy than the rest of my system and gets scanned frequently, maybe these items could find a home here.

 

[Folke]

I hadn't considered using someday/maybe for these. I'm curious how this works. Is there not a danger of these kinds of things cluttering up your own potential future projects?

There is always that risk when lists get longer and longer. The two remedies I am aware of is a) grouping/categorizing and b) keeping clear edges.

As for grouping etc, depending on what your app/system offers in terms of of areas, folders, projects, tags etc you may be able to classify these potential hobby projects as "Hobby" in order not to confuse them with other potential projects.

One very clear edge that I adhere to strictly for my Someday/Maybe is I see them as "Only Maybe" (not committed yet; nothing to do with time per se). I never ever use Someday/Maybe for stuff that I have decided to do but which for some reason I do not want to distract me at the moment. The latter I keep in different other places depending on what the hangup is: I may keep them as Next actions (color marked for low priority, which means they will have a "mandatory" review only weekly) or as tickled/scheduled if for external reasons they cannot be started until a given date, or as subsequent/sequential (project support) if they cannot be started until something else has been completed first.

 

[Jodie E. Francis]

#1 - agreed - and I also use WF to track loans (i.e. of books) with the date loaned

#2 - I don't track - this happens a LOT at work, and I'd be swamped if I tried to track it all. When they deliver, then I start to track it because it is now in my control.
Your example where you've already done some work (so the Project exists) also happens fairly often for me - in this case I do keep it on my Project list and track my follow ups (if applicable) - next action is a WF - and eventually I'll move the project to 'On Hold' with a final status that I've been waiting since x for y to deliver z.

Another exception is if I want to take some responsibility (I know Mom needs to get to the bank and that she may forget to get back to me with a preferred date, so I will make a note to follow up with her.)

#3 - I use an Agenda list for these (my Someday/Maybe is messy enough LOL). Each Agenda list item is for one person. Yes, if I don't see them often sometimes I will forget to review it before meeting them. I have the same problem with the 'shopping lists' that make up my Errands -- but regular Weekly Reviews help

By the way, part of my WR is to review Agendas and Errands to see if I need to book a meeting or put an errand on my calendar. So for me, the Agendas and Errands lists aren't action triggers on their own.

 

[cfoley]

The two remedies I am aware of is a) grouping/categorizing and b) keeping clear edges.

I am a fan of clear edges. They are more difficult to define but once I've got my head around them they tend to clarify things for me.

Your example where you've already done some work (so the Project exists) also happens fairly often for me - in this case I do keep it on my Project list and track my follow ups (if applicable) - next action is a WF - and eventually I'll move the project to 'On Hold' with a final status that I've been waiting since x for y to deliver z.

I like this a lot. Putting the project on hold with the date I've been waiting from is a nice idea. It gets it out of my current lists and records the reason why I stopped in case the project owner asks why I've not produced anything.

I think the best solution for me is to keep a reference file with this information. Here is my reasoning:

Essentially I'm deciding not to do the project. In GTD terms, deciding not to do the project is the same as it being done. Done projects don't go on someday/maybe. The actions and associated projects all get crossed off and that's that.

I do like the idea behind recording the date, but there is not a list item to put it next to. The more I think about it, the more putting extra information next to actions feels like a hack. Strictly it seems more like project support material (even if the hack is easier and what I'd do in reality). For me, project support for done or abandoned projects gets deleted or moved into reference storage, hence a reference file with information about abandoned projects.

How's that for a clean edge?

 

[Oogiem]

I hadn't considered using someday/maybe for these. I'm curious how this works. Is there not a danger of these kinds of things cluttering up your own potential future projects?

Depends on your level of comfort with large someday/maybe lists. Personally I always have between 250-350 projects sitting in Someday/Maybe. For me it's notthat big a deal. I set the review time as necessary to keep then both available and out of my way.

 

[Dave Edwards]

Things People Owe Me:
If individuals do not report to me the items go on my “Waiting For” list which is kept on Nirvana HQ. One of the reasons why I like Nirvana, is that it can also function as a tickler file reminding me of the pending item and the promised deadline date. This allows me to quickly inquire of the status.

If the individual reports to me, their items are kept in my Agenda folders so that at our regularly scheduled status meetings, I can inquire/ follow-up/ prompt action.

Things I Owe Others:
Reminders to me are among my “Next Actions.” If I've promised a delivery date, I set up a reminder in Nirvana. If you haven't used it, Nirvana can also send you an email to remind you of alerts.

 

[cfoley]

Depends on your level of comfort with large someday/maybe lists. Personally I always have between 250-350 projects sitting in Someday/Maybe. For me it's notthat big a deal. I set the review time as necessary to keep then both available and out of my way.

I guess it's not the size of the lists that bother me, it's how well defined they are. I've been finding that lists using imprecise language and lists mixing different classes of things cause me problems at review time. I suppose splitting into two lists is always an option if this becomes a problem.

Things People Owe Me:
If individuals do not report to me the items go on my “Waiting For” list which is kept on Nirvana HQ. One of the reasons why I like Nirvana, is that it can also function as a tickler file reminding me of the pending item and the promised deadline date. This allows me to quickly inquire of the status.

If the individual reports to me, their items are kept in my Agenda folders so that at our regularly scheduled status meetings, I can inquire/ follow-up/ prompt action.

Things I Owe Others:
Reminders to me are among my “Next Actions.” If I've promised a delivery date, I set up a reminder in Nirvana. If you haven't used it, Nirvana can also send you an email to remind you of alerts.

Thanks for the comment but I only check my email once or twice a day. I'd read the notifications too late to be able to rely on them. Besides, I already have an awesome set of tools and poor tracking of my few hard deadlines is not a problem for me.