Agendas and Waiting Fors

[ext555]

:?: I was curious to see how everyone else handled the distinction between agandas and waiting fors.

If you're waiting on an item from an individual do you usually put that on their agenda list or do you place it on waiting for.

I've tried putting it on agendas but I'm noticing that I don't see it as often as I probably should because I might not have the time to open all the agenda lists etc.

I've noticed the outlook plug in dates the item and puts the person's name in front of the text --which seems to work well , but do you still put the item on the agenda list also?

What works best for you ?

thanks

Paul

 

[Peter Bulthuis]

Hello,

For items I have to wait for, I use @waiting for. So, I have a list with all the todo's I have to wait for.

Use @agendas only when you have a meeting with someone and you want to ask him or her about the todo's. You can make i.e. a category @agenda Boss; @agenda meeting or something.

Greetz,

Peter

 

[ext555]

ok, thanks!

I use a category called "Agendas" now, and I have each persons name as an individual task in the list (per the GTD with outlook doc)

I guess what I'm asking is , do most people include the same wf items that they might have for that person on their individual agenda also in additon to the wf list ?

Seems easier to look at a general list of items in the waiting for category than to wait to pop open individual agenda lists whenever you might be "face to face, or voice to voice "as David mentions .

I've been copying/pasting the items from the wf list that pertain to that person to their agenda list also. Sort of double entry but also a safe guard .

 

[kglade]

For what it's worth I use @Waiting For for any action that the person knows about, and @Agenda to capture ideas and actions that I want to discuss with him/her but that are not clear actions or have not been clearly delegated to him/her.

So, If I asked you to make a report to me summarizing last year's sales and you agreed, that's a @Waiting For. But, if I want to remember to ask you the next time I see you how you think we could improve the reporting process, that's an @Agenda.

 

[Peter Bulthuis]

What you also can do when you use Shadow for the projects and DateBk5 for the next actions:

Give the category @Waiting For in DateBk5 an specific icon. After that you can set a waiting for-todo in an @agenda-category and change the icon in DateBk5 to the icon that you use for @waiting For.
Now you make in DateBk5 an @waiting For-view that uses all categories, but is filtering only those todo's that have the @waiting for-icon.

So, now the todo appears in the @agenda-view, but als in the @waiting For-view. It's the same todo (not a duplicate) but it appears in different views.

Peter

 

[andmor]

Pending

Seems easier to look at a general list of items in the waiting for category than to wait to pop open individual agenda lists whenever you might be "face to face, or voice to voice "as David mentions .

I had the same confusion and solved it by having one Pending category in which I put both Waiting Fors and Agenda items. This saves me time in both Organizing and Reviewing.

Andrew

 

[Anonymous]

re: "pending"

so you put all your waiting fors items and the individual agenda lists in the same category ? Interesting --I'll have to try it

Thanks to all for the input !!

Paul

 

[Esquire]

I've always put this stuff in Waiting For, but sometimes I only get around to checking Waiting For on the Weekly Review. I actually never considered putting these in the Agenda lists (perhaps in addition to in Waiting For). But I think that makes conceptual sense. I usually open Agenda when I'm around the person to make sure I don't have anything else I needed to go over with them. It wouldn't be a bad idea to have those reminders so I could ask "how's XYZ coming along".

 

[andmor]

Re: re: "pending"

so you put all your waiting fors items and the individual agenda lists in the same category ? Interesting --I'll have to try it

Not quite. I learned from the experience of setting up agenda lists and finding a lot only had one item on them. Since conceptually Agendas are a consolidation application, I drop all waiting fors into Pending and I don't create agenda lists until I can identify a consolidated action, such as Call or email someone or set up a meeting.

I understand that it's nice to have an agenda list ready in case somebody calls, but they usually understand that I might not be prepared for their call and will patiently wait for me to check their "file" (my Pending list) for other matters to discuss. Sometimes, they are actually impressed that I have a "file" just for them

Andrew