Does each "context" get its own someday maybe list?

Gardener

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I don't know about everybody else, but not for me. Among other reasons, my Someday/Maybe lists usually aren't broken down to the point that a context would be relevant--they're usually projects, not actions.
 

Oogiem

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I would assume yes, but I just kinda want to check and confirm
Not for me.Someday/Maybe did eventually end up broken down into a BBUNCH of separate lists butthey are roughyl bu=y AOF's not contexts. S/M is projects not actions. Context is only relevant to me for actions.
 

gtdstudente

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Thank you for your good GTD question. On this end, each of my four "Area's of Focus" (Divine, Health, Fiscal, and Utility) have their own "Projects" and "Someday/Maybe" list(s)
 

bishblaize

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I personally wouldn't, since Someday-Maybe items tend to be at least projects, if not long term goals, rather than next actions. You wouldn't really put "search the internet for flights" on your Someday-Maybe list, but you might put "Visit France" on there.
 

mcogilvie

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This seems highly dependent on the tool you use and on personal preferences. However, what’s the use case? I don’t think very many people using paper or a simple digital tool would stick possible future actions for a project on such a list because they belong with project support. So any actions on a someday-maybe context list are single next actions. If this is really another list, as it would be with paper, it seems like unnecessary extra work. If you are using a digital tool where both context and someday-maybe status can be assigned to an item, then the functionality may come at low cost, but you might never use it. Here’s an example @home someday-maybe: “If bitten by werewolf, hide silver bullets during full moon.”
 

Julie Jones

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Someday/Maybe for me is just stuff, like the inbox. I might add information like a project or add a context if I feel like it, but regardless unless it is active to me it is just stuff.

Some examples:
  • consider taking a trip to Ireland
  • when does the water heater need replacing
  • Buy a new car. (this was a full on project with reference materials, completed actions and much decision making done, but I decided that now was not the time so I put the project in someday/maybe.
Because I am using software tools (Nirvana and OneNote) it is easy to move items from being active to inactive(someday/maybe) during my weekly review. I have a someday/maybe notebook in OneNote for ideas and stuff that is way out there and might never get done. In Nirvana I move items to someday and projects to inactive to make them temporarily not show up in next actions so that I am more focused on items of higher importance.
 

FocusGuy

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Someday/Maybe for me is just stuff, like the inbox. I might add information like a project or add a context if I feel like it, but regardless unless it is active to me it is just stuff.

Some examples:
  • consider taking a trip to Ireland
  • when does the water heater need replacing
  • Buy a new car. (this was a full on project with reference materials, completed actions and much decision making done, but I decided that now was not the time so I put the project in someday/maybe.
Because I am using software tools (Nirvana and OneNote) it is easy to move items from being active to inactive(someday/maybe) during my weekly review. I have a someday/maybe notebook in OneNote for ideas and stuff that is way out there and might never get done. In Nirvana I move items to someday and projects to inactive to make them temporarily not show up in next actions so that I am more focused on items of higher importance.
That's may be a good idea for me. I have a lot of smb stuff in OF It is great on one hand because I can review them easely. On another hand as I review them weekly I wonder if I may externalize these list in Evernote (my reference software with google drive)
 

Julie Jones

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That's may be a good idea for me. I have a lot of smb stuff in OF It is great on one hand because I can review them easely. On another hand as I review them weekly I wonder if I may externalize these list in Evernote (my reference software with google drive)
My thought is that anything simple, one sentence, can stay in my GTD tool. But OneNote or Evernote is the place for any complex information.

I don't copy any GTD lists to OneNote. They are easy to review in Nirvana. That said my someday/maybe list is split between OneNote and Nirvana because I often brainstorm about something and that is a page or section in OneNote in the Someday/Maybe notebook. I don't add them to Nirvana until I decide to do them. Nirvana does have items from the inbox that get moved to someday but they end up in OneNote if I decide to spend some of my creative time on them.

I feel like I am making it sound overly complicated. It isn't. I do weekly reviews completely in Nirvana. Stuff in OneNote is reference/long term possibilities. It might also make more sense to me as I started GTD using OneNote as my tool for GTD. It was just a digital notebook version of doing it the way @DavidAllen describes it using paper and file folders.

Although I consider the original description of GTD using paper a valid way to do it, and I believe that you can do most of it with paper today and be very effective, I believe that the management of relationships (project-actions, actions-contexts, actions-time, actions-effort, and what is on the Next Actions list at any moment in time) are handled so much more efficiently with software taking care of all the "views" of the material you need to effectively Engage.
 

Gardener

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That's may be a good idea for me. I have a lot of smb stuff in OF It is great on one hand because I can review them easely. On another hand as I review them weekly I wonder if I may externalize these list in Evernote (my reference software with google drive)
I handle this in OmniFocus by having a "list" context that is set to Inactive, using it for every Someday/Maybe item, and putting my Someday/Maybe stuff in a separate folder structure. (In fact, I only really use nested folders for Someday/Maybe.) That way it's handy for easy review, but I can easily hide it all by hiding that context.

Edited to add: And you can set the review frequency of a project to less than weekly. My Someday/Maybe projects are mostly set to review every three months.
 

FocusGuy

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I handle this in OmniFocus by having a "list" context that is set to Inactive, using it for every Someday/Maybe item, and putting my Someday/Maybe stuff in a separate folder structure. (In fact, I only really use nested folders for Someday/Maybe.) That way it's handy for easy review, but I can easily hide it all by hiding that context.

Edited to add: And you can set the review frequency of a project to less than weekly. My Someday/Maybe projects are mostly set to review every three months.
Hello @Gardener I am trying to settle correctly the someday in OF/

My way of using it is a real someday + in the future : I explain my convention :

Inside actionable projects :
- If a task in an active project is in the future it as a someday tag + a start date
- If I dont know if I will do it (eg will I call this client for this building or not ? ) it has a someday task

Outside actionable project
2 lists professional and personnal
These a real someday tasks. I may do that in the future
My convention is every real smb item here has an area eg business, finance, personnal.

I Have the same organisational seting in my project view so I can focus on each area.

I wonder if it is the right way to do it
Do you use this someday may be task for task inside yours projects ?
How ? and for what ?
 
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Gardener

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Do you use this someday may be task for task inside yours projects ?
How ? and for what ?
I do set start dates on some tasks inside active projects, but I don't think of those as Someday/Maybe in the same way. To me, Someday/Maybe is only the stuff in the Someday/Maybe folder, and it all has an inactive context. The start dates....well, sometimes they. have a logical reason, like I can't start something until I get something in the mail or I talk to someone or the weather changes, so they're really Waiting For. And sometimes they're a sort of waiting area to see if a project is going to stay active or be Someday/Maybe--if I've activated too much stuff, I'll put start dates on some to put them off, but if I've done that to the same project a few times, it's time to disassemble it and put it into Someday/Maybe.

If a project has a whole separate line of activity that is "someday", I'll generally remove that from the project and put it in a Someday/Maybe list. So, using the garden as an example as usual, I COULD have a project, "Revamp garden for low-maintenance design" with a bunch of subprojects. But instead, I have one or two small projects for that goal as active projects, and a Someday/Maybe list with all of the other ideas for projects for that goal.
 

Oogiem

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I have a lot of smb stuff in OF It is great on one hand because I can review them easely. On another hand as I review them weekly I wonder if I may externalize these list in Evernote
I found that once I got pst 4-500 someday.maybe things they cluttered up my Omnifocus system and made reviews painful. So for me it was vital I move them out of OF and I made hard edges between current active projects and when I reviewedmy large population of somdeay/maybe projects. I'm actually down a lot, I did a major restructuring and culling of S/M and am down to less than 1000 projects.
 
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