Calendar or Next Actions list?

[CosmoGTD]

IMHO

In my @office context, the number of NAs would range from 60-150,
(This means that if I did nothing but attend to my 'hard landscape' items, less-than-two-minutes items, and NAs with deadlines, I'd have a net reduction 2 NAs with deadlines each day, and I'd have done none of my NAs with no deadlines)
What would you do?

QUIT!!!
Get an assistant!!!

No seriously, you have a heck of a workload there, so perhaps others will chime in who have a similar level of work.
But here is my humble opinion.

And if you have up to 150 NA in ONE-CONTEXT, thats a lot, isn't it? I wonder how many HOURS of work those Next Actions represent?
You can't break the Laws of Physics, you can only do so much in a day, right?

When i first started GTD, i was so behind, i put all of my BEHIND stuff into my ANTIAVOIDANCE category, and that I estimated at over 200+ hrs of WORK. So i basically pulled a bunch of all-nighters to catch up, and put in some 18hr Saturdays. But this was work i wanted to do for myself, not strictly Office work.

Maybe break the @Office into more sub-contexts? I think that is what i would do. If it were ME, i would look at a single list of 100-150 Next Actions, and i would say, "CosmoGTD, this is nutty!".
I personally never let ANY list get bigger than ONE SCREEN on my computer, as i lose sight of it. So i MIGHT make an arbitrary "rule" to say i will only allow maybe 30 or so in each context. So then i might break the @OFFICE into 4 logical sub-contexts perhaps. This way, i only have a list of 30 things in each area, as for me, over 100 things in one list would be too much.
I have over 300 NA in total in my context lists, but the most i have in each one is about 39 items, and that is pushing it for me. I feel best when i have around a dozen in a context list.

DA does say for those with LOTS of calls, to break them into sub-contexts for calls. I use @Calls Professional, and @ Calls Personal.

Also, what i do, is i do SORT my Next Actions to a degree. When something is extra important, i have a "field" i can use, to bump it up to the top of the list, so i know that its important.

If you review the 4-Criteria Model, your Context is @Office, Next is TIME available, then ENERGY available, then PRIORITY, right?
What if the @Office context was broken down a little, to make the lists more managable?
And then when you did get your windows of TIME, you checked your ENERGY level, and then picked the TOP PRIORTY by asking "whats the most important thing for me to do?" (p195).
In the book, DA then gets into a discussion of how one defines their Work, Responsibilites, Goals, and Values.

I do NOT have your volume of Inputs, so perhaps someone who does will have better advice.

But what i do, is when i have something i know is IMPORTANT, (i always sort by the Outlook Priority field), and i give it an A1, which puts it to the TOP of my context list. (i hear the GTD Police sirens!!!)
This way, as soon as i open that context list, i will have CALL LAWYER, WRITE LOVE POEM TO OPRAH, or DROP OFF NEW RESUMES TO AGENT, etc, right at the top of the list, so i don't even have to think.
I personally tend to OVERRIDE the ENERGY critieria usually, as if it needs to get done, then i just have to do it. So in this sense, the top thing on the list has been pre-defined and sorted, so when i get TIME, i can just do it without thinking. (if i don't avoid doing it, that is).

I have an extensive @Read/Review list, and i use a very ROUGH "priority" in it, putting the most important few at the top of the list, and the rest below in alphabetical order. So its a type of Darwinian struggle for relevence on that list. I will NEVER be able to read it all, even if i read 6+ hrs a day for years, but when i do read, i know to pick from the top 3 or so things to READ, and frankly, the things near the bottom of the list, like read Faust II by Goethe, might NEVER get read, but maybe tommorow that will become relevant, and i will bump it to the top of the list, and then read it.

Doesn't DA mention to put *** on REAL important calls, to bump them to the top of the list? (same thing i am doing).

So again, i sense i have not answered your question, but have just given my opinion. I would be very interested in how you solve this, and what others have to say.

Maybe look at page 199, where he talks about "The Moment to Moment Balancing Act". He clearly says that from moment to moment we need to decide using our "intuitive judgements".

So you have raised an excellent issue, please let me know how you decide to manage it. I am still very much in learning mode with GTD as well.
Coz

 

[Anonymous]

Todos

Managing the huge list of NA's is for me the toughest part of GTD. Its easier to have them all (I stay right around 200 NA's) out of my head, but its still a monster to manage.

The challenge is to know what next action to do next. But I think one needs to regularly evaluate what one really intends to do in the near future and what is really a "someday/maybe" task.h

 

[Anonymous]

A different suggestion?

Hi there --

While I know that next action lists are not meant to be 'prioritized,' what if you did this... For anything with a specific due by date, put that date next to the item in the Next Actions list and possibly also in the Project list. Then at the beginning of each week, highlight anything on that list that is due over those next five days. While this doesn't create a hard and fast priority list, it does give you a visual indication -- not on your calendar -- of what are particularly pressing actions for the week ahead?

Thanks for the stimulating question...
Emily

 

[andmor]

Due By

Emily:

That's what I do (but only since getting involved in the discussion of "due on" and "due by"). Now I date my "due by" items and don't bother with calendar reminders of deadlines.

Andrew

 

[Anonymous]

Re: Its all in the hard edges

The difference is that when I am working I use the Calendar and you use both the Calendar and the Action Lists. I prefer the physical hard edge of Calendar vs NA (dated vs undated) and the mental hard edge of Work vs Planning (Stage 5o vs Stage 4: Review).

The seduction of the fancy apps is that they draw me into continuous Review while I am supposed to be Doing. "For every thing there is a time...."...and a Context.

Andrew

Speaking of seductive apps........
This whole thread screams the virtues of Life balance.
This whole issue is about things that are not actually hard landscape yet have a due "by" date right?

Properly set up ones to dos AUTOMATICALLY move up in importance as your due date gets closer.
So you put 1st importance on your Calender items. Then go from top to bottom of your todo list. Most important, most urgent is always first on your list. Less important, less urgent tasks are lower on the list. You never end up running out of time for important things, or "due by" tasks since they are given priority. What you might miss are less important stuff. You see we miss due by dates because we've done tasks first that could have waited, or less importants things that can be skipped altogether.

The big problem with Lifebalance is that it really can be tough to fully grasp at first. So many variables. I know its the most "Anti-DA" of apps. A complexity beast. And its not for everybody. I have hard landscape and todos but few "due bys." I dont need it. But I think it can be integrated into a GTD system nevertheless.

But if you get the hang of it, understand what its doing, that is your solution.

 

[andmor]

Re LifeBalance

Well, I would agree with you except for one major factor that has not been mentioned in this thread. In my book, Time Available (or lack thereof) trumps Priority, Mood and Effort. If LifeBalance doesn't factor in estimated duration for a ToDo, I may have to skip over several items in the suggested ranked list because there isn't time to do these things today. I might as well be reviewing a simple list written much more quickly and selecting by myself by "Due By" and "Duration". ("Due By" presumes an item is important enough to include on the list and it automatically rises on the list if it is sorted by due date.) Of course, I believe in having a Daily Plan (even if it is only for estimating what combination of tasks is doable in the time available) and then getting on with the work instead of interrupting it every time I finish something because I have no idea what to do next until I look at the lists. I use the lists only opportunistically for when extra time is freed up or when there is an overrun and I don't have enough time to do what I had planned.

Andrew

 

[Kudzu2u]

My apologies in advance for cross-posting. I realized this was a more appropriate thread to resurrect.

In the past, my approach to long-term next actions (as described on this thread) has been to give them a dated ToDo, which shows up on a certain date in my 3rd party app, in the "Agenda" view. I have decided to try David's approach of putting a calendare entry on the date that is "absolute" and then placing a contextual Next Action as an ongoing reminder, without a date attached. I already find that my landscape is "harder" on my calendar. I used to assume the "tickler" ToDo's were urgent because they were on my "calenar" but in reality they weren't always. This made things a bit more fuzzy, fewer "hard edges."

I wondering about others experience in this regard.

Gordon

 

[andmor]

Due By

Gordon:

I like Calendar Reminders but I date them in advance of the due date to remind me to consider the NA and perhaps schedule it as an appointment. I find that the Palm native apps. doesn't give you much visibility of a weekly calendar. However, if your system lends itself to viewing the weekly calendar or "radar" for ToDo's, your system would seem to be very reasonable.

Andrew

 

[Anonymous]

Don't Record Next Actions

After using GTD well for about 6 months, I had a large drop in my list of NA's. Once I was caught up on commitments and felt I was surfing the wave of events rather being crushed by it, I stopped making commitments I couldn't meet.
Externally, I worked on defining my job better, so that I wasn't pulled into so many projects. Internally, I didn't commit to things I knew I had no time or inclination to do.
As David says, you can live a more relaxed, satisfying life by managing the commitments you make. It's those open loop, unmet commitments that created my stress and anxiety.
Do less, accomplish more.

 

[Siva]

Re: Don't Record Next Actions

After using GTD well for about 6 months, I had a large drop in my list of NA's. Once I was caught up on commitments and felt I was surfing the wave of events rather being crushed by it, I stopped making commitments I couldn't meet.
Externally, I worked on defining my job better, so that I wasn't pulled into so many projects. Internally, I didn't commit to things I knew I had no time or inclination to do.
As David says, you can live a more relaxed, satisfying life by managing the commitments you make. It's those open loop, unmet commitments that created my stress and anxiety.
Do less, accomplish more.

Well put. Too often, we look for a system that helps us clear hundreds of NAs and manage a very large number of committments. Once we start implementing the GTD process a time will come when we have to let go of agreements we cannot meet. Otherwise the process will collapse. That is a tough time and and it is a tough decision to make.

Siva