What's the max time for a "Next Action"

[mcogilvie]

Hello @Oogiem , I have a question re: the example you gave for reading War and Peace. If you were to create a next action that says "spend X minutes/hours reading War and Peace" would you check it off of your next actions list and then create a new next action titled the same way, or would you keep deferring the action until the whole project was complete? I know that you've incorporated OmniFocus into your GTD management system, so I was very interested in how you might answer this question. Thanks!

p.s. Let me know if I need to clarify my question better!

You know, I continue to do it both ways, and it really doesn’t matter much. I tend to add a new item if there’s a big-ish change in the wording. Some very basic things like processing email are set to repeat upon completion, so it works either way.

 

[mcogilvie]

I am the type of person who starts books and keep many in progress.
I created a next action list called Reading in Progress in my list manager. These usually contain a link to an Obsidian MOC entry about the book, so I have a collection place for knowledge gleaned from that book.
When I finish the book, I mark the finish date in the list, mark it complete and carry the finish date over to the Obsidian entry for that book.
This list is more a reminder of those books I have in progress and a handy way to create reference related material about them.

I also do this for audio books, ebooks, etc. where I want to collect information about them.

When I receive a reading recommendation, I make an entry with the book in my Someday Maybe list (I use the tag #℠Reading to be able to generate or connect to this list). I put the person referring and the date they made the recommendation.

I think my Reading in Progress list functions more as a project list for reading.

Hope this helps,
Clayton

Confidence is not "I know what I'm doing."
Confidence is "I know how to find that out" and "I know how to learn new things" and most importantly "I know when I don't know what I'm doing, so I stop and find someone who does"

Maybe it’s the times and maybe it’s me, but I do less tracking of stuff than I used to. Simpler behavior for a complicated world.