GTD If/Then Questions/Examples

[clango]

About the decision process

Don't put things back into your inbox. If you can't take care of it then, make a decision about the next action, write it down and move on. Or else, your inbox will be filled with items which you have picked up, quickly reviewed, but not made a decision on.

How often can you take a decision so quickly?
How can you try to avoid to procastinate...something like Print it...could be a procastination. Take time to decide

In other terms how do you approach, what's the logic you use for complex emails with several included NA like the chinese boxes?

...and what do you do, when you realize that if happen something after that the NA will be...? Do you consider them as a @SOMEDAY?

 

[Gardener]

How often can you take a decision so quickly?
How can you try to avoid to procastinate...something like Print it...could be a procastination. Take time to decide

In other terms how do you approach, what's the logic you use for complex emails with several included NA like the chinese boxes?

...and what do you do, when you realize that if happen something after that the NA will be...? Do you consider them as a @SOMEDAY?

Myself, I don't worry about avoiding procrastination. In fact, to some extent I embrace GTD's support of structured procrastination. With GTD, I can come up with a little, un-scarey Next Action, and I know that I'll get to that Next Action, I'll do it, and I'll have to design another Next Action. And eventually I'll probably actually do something. So the project is started down its track, even if it's going very, very slowly. I combat procrastination by forcing myself to continue to write and execute Actions, not by trying to make sure that those Actions are productive.

So if my Next Action is Print It, and that's procrastination, so be it. I'll get to the Action, I'll print the thing, and then I'll need to write another Action. That will probably be Read It. Possible procrastination again. I'll get it read, and then there's a moderate chance that there's _some_ truly productive Next Action, however tiny, that I could then write. If I'm deeply lost? I'll write a Next Action telling me to write a Next Action.

On a set of notes that are full of nested Actions, I'll convert as many as I can into Actions, crossing them off from notes on paper or deleting them from a copy of electronic notes, as I go. The ones with nested Actions may end up being separate projects on their own, with placeholders left in the original project.

If I can't figure out how to transform some of the notes into Actions, I may write an Action to figure out the rest, and file the unprocessed notes somewhere that I can find them again. (I'll usually record the location in the Action itself.)

I'm not sure that I follow your last question. If you're asking, what do you do if you can see past the Next Action - in my case, I just write as many Actions as are in my head, until they no longer want to come out. Then I re-order them into a logical order of execution if necessary - or, if some of them are so big that they will require several Actions of their own, I may make them into projects.

Gardener

 

[clango]

...and what do you do, when you realize that if happen something after that the NA will be...? Do you consider them as a @SOMEDAY?

@Gardener Thank you so much. I really appreciate your open answers. I see your answers and my questions as the possibility to go more in deep.

I think you are right.

If a NA doesn't come out naturally...maybe there is a reason....so it's reasonable to take a step forward even if very short.

About the last questions, I think it could come out when I delegate something.

Example....When Alain will present the business plan of the new product A, I need to do this and that.

So in my outlook tasks I could write:
@WAITING FOR
Alain 31/03/09 Business plan A

@ .......where??
When Business plan A is presented by Alain do this
When Business plan A is presented by Alain do that

 

[Gardener]

About the last questions, I think it could come out when I delegate something.

Example....When Alain will present the business plan of the new product A, I need to do this and that.

So in my outlook tasks I could write:
@WAITING FOR
Alain 31/03/09 Business plan A

@ .......where??
When Business plan A is presented by Alain do this
When Business plan A is presented by Alain do that

Hmmm. I might have to know more about the situation, to figure out what I'd do about this.

I guess that one question is, what's the goal of Alain's presentation? Is it to get the business plan approved by upper management?

in that case, I could imagine an earlier project:

Project: Implement New Business Plan
Action: (A whole bunch of completed actions that got the business plan written.)
Action: Open and complete Get Business Plan Approved project.
Action: (A whole bunch of future actions that you anticipate doing once the plan is approved. With something as big as a business plan, these will probably be actions that trigger new projects.)

Project: Get Business Plan Approved
Action: Complete peer review of business plan. (A past action.)
Action: Polish business plan for submittal to Alain. (A past action.)
Action: (Start date 3/31) Follow up on status of Alain's presentation.
Action: (Repeating, weekly) Follow up on upper management response to Alain's presentation.
Action: (At this point you may be almost done, or you may create and work a bunch of tasks resulting from upper management changes to the plan. In fact, you may even create new projects with placeholders, just like the placeholder above.)
Action: When business plan is approved by upper management, close this and return to Implement New Business Plan project. (This is the last action for the project, but it was probably defined as soon as this project was created. It's just a placeholder, in case you forgot where you were when you branched out to this project.)

Gardener

 

[abhay]

I fully agree. Making decisions, identifying, NPM activities, brainstorming, reviewing, etc. all move our system forward. Thought-based actions often take more than 2 minutes, "deciding on the next action" included.

To add to what sdann said: It is a good idea to defer "deciding on the next action", but I would refrain from writing that action down as "decide the next action". In such situations, it usually means that one of the phases of the natural planning model is not yet clear. Now that can be quickly identified. The next actions are obvious if project notes are organized. Is it ready? If not, organize project ideas is the action. But to organize, one needs ideas. So has brainstorming/webstorming been done? Ideas won't come out in a flow unless the outcome picture is not clear. And the picture will not be clear if the purpose of this stuff is not clear.

It is usually easy to identify where one is stuck up, in case the next action is not clear. Then the next action is work that phase of natural planning model. So depending upon where one is, the next actions would look like one of these:
Clarify the purpose of this
Visualize the the outcome of this
Brainstorm / websearch / [find information otherwise] re this
Organize the ideas re this

More details in GTD, chapter 3 and 10.

 

[clango]

Hmmm. I might have to know more about the situation, to figure out what I'd do about this.

I'm thinking to an easier situation. For example applyng the two minutes rule, you send me an email and I answer to you.

In my answer, for example, I propose you to have a meeting together (for the first time in our life!) for something.

Suddenly it come out some ideas....if he 'll accept this meeting I need to organize it in Boston, I need to use music to relax the environment.....

 

[Gardener]

In my answer, for example, I propose you to have a meeting together (for the first time in our life!) for something.

Suddenly it come out some ideas....if he 'll accept this meeting I need to organize it in Boston, I need to use music to relax the environment.....

I'd probably go ahead and create a project for the meeting. The first action would be a repeating "Follow up with (whoever) about meeting." The Boston location, music, etc., would be subsequent actions in that project. If he refuses the meeting, then I just cancel the project and delete those actions.

Gardener

 

[clango]

May be the reason for an inbox not always empty!

Myself, I don't worry about avoiding procrastination. In fact, to some extent I embrace GTD's support of structured procrastination. With GTD, I can come up with a little, un-scarey Next Action, and I know that I'll get to that Next Action, I'll do it, and I'll have to design another Next Action. And eventually I'll probably actually do something. So the project is started down its track, even if it's going very, very slowly. I combat procrastination by forcing myself to continue to write and execute Actions, not by trying to make sure that those Actions are productive.

I'm thinking to what we shared in these days....and what you wrote. In my situation what you wrote is an important reason why I don't have my inbox always at zero.

Sometimes I remain a little blocked to think which is the more convenient NA, but now I realize, thanks to this thread, that is a mistake. It could be enough put it in the appropriate list, print it as we said, do something even if a little step!

Thanks.