How do you make distinction between active and SM projects?

[Borisoff]

How do you make distinction between projects on the active projects list and someday-maybe list? In fact any, even really fantastic project, could be put on the active list. For example, if you want a yacht, there're a few major projects leading to that: buy yacht - get money from good investment project - find good investment project - earn money - do that and that. And the last could be put on the active actions list already now. Do we really need a SM list then?

Regards,

Eugene.

 

[mephisto]

I think you could call a project active if you are willing to work on every step needed towards finishing the project. That means that if there are some steps or subprojects necessary to finish the project, but you aren't willing to do/complete these, the whole project becomes someday/maybe.

 

[Brent]

Am I likely to make progress on this project in the next seven days?

If so, it's active.
If not, it's someday/maybe.

 

[ActionGirl]

For example, if you want a yacht, there're a few major projects leading to that: buy yacht - get money from good investment project - find good investment project - earn money - do that and that.

This sounds to me like a distinction between outcomes sought at different altitudes, or projects v. sub-projects rather than active v. someday/maybe.

After all, you could just have one project: live a good life, and of course it would be active and encompass everything. But it sounds to me like most people will always have projects related to "earn money" on their lists, and it's not helpful for getting those things done to worry about whether that money is for the rent or the future yacht. Or maybe the yacht example is throwing me. What exactly is the problem?

 

[Borisoff]

Am I likely to make progress on this project in the next seven days?

If so, it's active.
If not, it's someday/maybe.

How do you choose if you want to do it next seven days or not if that's just a small Next Action that needs to be done to move it a lil further? Short step - it's on the way. Why to postpone?

E.

 

[plapointe]

How do you choose if you want to do it next seven days or not if that's just a small Next Action that needs to be done to move it a lil further? Short step - it's on the way. Why to postpone?

E.

Time available in the next 7 days! Even a small step takes time that may or may not be available. Can you complete all NA's on your list this week? If not, it's too large and some items should be moved to Someday/Maybe.

Give it a try. The results are amazing.
Pamela

 

[GTDer88]

Time available in the next 7 days! Even a small step takes time that may or may not be available. Can you complete all NA's on your list this week? If not, it's too large and some items should be moved to Someday/Maybe.

Give it a try. The results are amazing.
Pamela

I think what Eugene is trying to say is that the immediate NA takes only a little time and could be done easily. But the succeeding NAs would take a longer time and wouldn't possibly be finished the next 7 days. Would you put that project on the active list, do the first NA and then move it again to S/M? Or would you rather put the project immediately on S/M and choose not to do the first easy NA?

 

[kewms]

I think what Eugene is trying to say is that the immediate NA takes only a little time and could be done easily. But the succeeding NAs would take a longer time and wouldn't possibly be finished the next 7 days. Would you put that project on the active list, do the first NA and then move it again to S/M? Or would you rather put the project immediately on S/M and choose not to do the first easy NA?

It depends. What else do I need to do in the following week? How important is the S/M project compared to everything else I need to do? How easy is the "easy" NA? As I'm sure we all know, it's very easy for a "quick" phone call or Internet search to end up consuming an entire afternoon.

In my own system, I've found that S/M projects are a wonderful source of distraction/procrastination opportunities. So I try to ignore them as much as possible between Weekly Reviews. YMMV.

Katherine

 

[Borisoff]

Time available in the next 7 days! Even a small step takes time that may or may not be available. Can you complete all NA's on your list this week? If not, it's too large and some items should be moved to Someday/Maybe.

Give it a try. The results are amazing.
Pamela

Exactly what GTDer88 said. Having in mind that NA is approximatelly 15 minutes and you have 200 projects (home&office) on the list (including SM projects) it ends up with 50 hours of work. And the week is 112 of active hours. So anyone can put all projects including SM on the list and at least touch them during the week so move forward. So why put some of them to SM? Maybe through away if you don't want to do them?

E.

 

[wordsofwonder]

My experience has been much like Katherine's -- most of the stuff on my SM list is stuff that I either can't do anything with just yet ("Move to Oregon someday") or that I won't have time to move on this week ("Buy bunk beds for kid's room" being a good example from my current list.) But, if I let myself, I could spend a half day researching and thinking/daydreaming about moving to Oregon someday, or spend a half day looking at bunk beds online. Both are things I could do today, but both are things I've chosen -- at least for this week -- to push off the radar.

So, the questions I ask myself when moving something to/from my SM list are "is this something I want to move on this week?" and "is it urgent/important enough to commit to doing something with it this week?" If the answer to one (or both) of these questions is "no", then it goes on the SM list.

-- Tammy

 

[GTDer88]

But, if I let myself, I could spend a half day researching and thinking/daydreaming about moving to Oregon someday, or spend a half day looking at bunk beds online. Both are things I could do today, but both are things I've chosen -- at least for this week -- to push off the radar.

So, the questions I ask myself when moving something to/from my SM list are "is this something I want to move on this week?" and "is it urgent/important enough to commit to doing something with it this week?" If the answer to one (or both) of these questions is "no", then it goes on the SM list.

-- Tammy

That's good enough for me.

 

[Brent]

Good points.

There is no universal algorithm for this. You have to make judgment calls about what you're honestly likely to achieve over the next week.

It might help to log completed Actions and Projects each week, so you can calculate your actual speed. I was shocked to discover I only complete an average of four actions and less than one project a day.

 

[WebR0ver]

I was shocked to discover I only complete an average of four actions and less than one project a day.

Are you actions large and your projects small?
If I were to knock out a project every other day, I would be ecstatic. But for most of my projects, an average of eight actions wouldn't come close to completing them.

If your actions are taking 2 hours of work to complete, then four actions a day is fine, assuming we're only talking about work actions. If your actions are much smaller and interspersed with chaff, then there's an opportunity to Get more Things Done (GmTD).

 

[Jason Womack]

My questions - "should this stay, or should this go now?"

So, the questions I ask myself when moving something to/from my SM list are "is this something I want to move on this week?" and "is it urgent/important enough to commit to doing something with it this week?" If the answer to one (or both) of these questions is "no", then it goes on the SM list.

I have very similar questions, but first the background...

When I was first "coached" in methodology like this, I had an inventory of 180 projects. Yup, 180 "things" that I'd said I was going to do (and, I was a high school teacher!). Within a year, the someday/maybe list grew in to the hundreds.

To this day, I still have outstanding projects, areas of focus, and someday/maybes... and weekly I ask myself:

"IS there an action I could take this week to get any more experience in this area?"
"IS this something I'm still even interested in?"
"HAVE I reviewed this enough times in my weekly review to now let it go?"

I'm one of those guys who can open the newspaper and find 4 more people I'd like to write a letter to. So, having a way to manage the "have to," "could do," and "might do" lists is crucial to my health, and quality of life balance.

 

[Cpu_Modern]

Having in mind that NA is approximatelly 15 minutes and you have 200 projects (home&office) on the list (including SM projects) it ends up with 50 hours of work. And the week is 112 of active hours. So anyone can put all projects including SM on the list and at least touch them during the week so move forward. So why put some of them to SM?

Because you want to do more than just the 50 hours of immediate next actions. The other 62 hours of work are there to accomplish more actions on your active projects. It's not that you want to do just one action per project per week.

A good post I found helpfull dealing with this whole subject:
http://www.davidco.com/forum/showpost.php?p=35622&postcount=4

 

[unstuffed]

To this day, I still have outstanding projects, areas of focus, and someday/maybes... and weekly I ask myself:

"IS there an action I could take this week to get any more experience in this area?"
"IS this something I'm still even interested in?"
"HAVE I reviewed this enough times in my weekly review to now let it go?"

I interpose a Pending file between Current and S/M. Things that are 'soon as', or that I know I want/have to do, go in here, so that my Current list contains only the things I'm committed to completing as soon as possible. It 's another way for me to maintain discipline: I only commit to a certain number of Current projects, so I'm not overwhelming myself. My focus stays clear on what I'm moving on, and I can then complete some things and move onto the others.

My S/M file is then only reviewed monthly, at which time some of the S/Ms may be moved into Pending, or onto Current. It's a form of flow control (spot the geek with the maths/physics/engineering background): I only allow things into my Current system area when I'm sure I can commit to finishing them in a reasonably short time, and I only allow things into my Pending area when I'm committed to them, but don't have the space/time in my Current area right now. And the S/Ms get considered when I'm doing my review at higher levels, which is when I think beyond the 'can I or can't I' runway level.

My questions - "should this stay, or should this go now?"

Plus you then get to sing that groovy song by The Clash. ;-)

 

[DStaub11]

I finally broke down and made three projects lists, and I'm very happy. (Each is broken down by my Covey roles.) They are:

Current Projects: projects that I plan to work on this week.
Later Projects: projects I'm definitely planning to do, but not this week
Someday/Maybe Projects: daydream projects

This really helped, because I kept telling myself to move not-this-week projects to Someday/Maybe and not being willing to. But I feel fine about moving them to Later. The surprising effect was that I took a bunch of next actions off of the NA lists--they were associated with Later projects and I wasn't really planning to do them yet!

Do Mi

 

[Borisoff]

Anyway I'm still not convinced that SM category is needed Maybe this is just wording and this category should be called "Pending"?

If there's a project in your RAM that you decided to do now (Project List) or later (Someday/Maybe list) it could have a small next action to move this project to outcome. It looks like Someday/Maybe list contains our dreams that we postpone to someday in the future when we think we're ready to start it. You say: "I have no time to start it now" - is not an argument because each next action is small enough to move the project further.

I could understand the need for catogory like "Pending". That means your head gave you a project idea but you're not sure yet if you want to move on that or not. Anyway this category could be cleared up on the front end. Just think if you want to do it or not. Why think about that later?

Could someone give me an example of SM project he/she keeps on a SM list and provide the reasons why not to start it now?

 

[Cpu_Modern]

Anyway I'm still not convinced that SM category is needed Maybe this is just wording and this category should be called "Pending"?

A recurring theme in this discussion seems to be a division between someday (commitment but not doing now) and maybe (idea, dream) in one form or another.

I wonder why is this so?

I could understand the need for catogory like "Pending". That means your head gave you a project idea but you're not sure yet if you want to move on that or not. Anyway this category could be cleared up on the front end. Just think if you want to do it or not. Why think about that later?

Because you don't know for sure what will happen in the future. For example let's say you know you will change job and move to another country. You just don't know which job offer you will take: the one in Canada or the one in California. Then your goal of having definitely a swimming pool in the backyard is activated only after the decision is made to go to California. And even then just maybe. Maybe you get a free health club membership with your job benefits, so you won't need to own a pool or whatever. You just don't know yet. That's why maybe.

Now, another thought I had. In the original GTD workflow, what goes into SDMB? Projects? Not really. Inbox-Items that have the potential to become projects or trigger projects or actions.

Could someone give me an example of SM project he/she keeps on a SM list and provide the reasons why not to start it now?[/QUOTE]

The line I wrote into my SDMB:
"eshops: ecommerce-konzepte"

Which means to me writing a bunch of articles or a short ebook or something about how to develop a marketing concept for one's webshop.

Why not start it now?

Because it has to match with the direction of my business as a whole. Maybe, someday there will be an opportunity for me to do this. But maybe not. I would like to do it, but I cannot change the overall strategy of my biz just because I have that fancy idea for that article. It' s a matter of priorities: how many ressources do you have to allocate versus how many ideas you want to realize? Now, choose.

 

[kewms]

The easiest S/M example I can think of:

Any writer has more ideas than they can possibly pursue. Sit down and scribble in their journal for fifteen minutes, and most writers can easily come up with ideas for several years worth of work. Not hours, not months, *years.*

Yet in order to actually finish a nontrivial writing project, you have to spend large chunks of time focused on that project alone. Five or ten minutes here and there just isn't going to do it. YMMV, but I like to work in one hour minimum chunks, and two hours is better. There's also overhead associated with starting and stopping, switching projects, and so forth.

So, if I have ideas for 10 major writing projects, and I try to work on all 10 of them at once (in amongst everything else I'm trying to do), none of them will ever get done. To quantify this a bit, let's say that a major project is 50,000 words, and that including research and editing I have a net output of about 100 words per hour. That's 500 hours for one project, or 5,000 hours for all ten (sequentially). Given 20 writing hours per week (which is actually optimistic), I can finish one project in 25 weeks, or all 10 in just under five years.

But suppose I don't work on them sequentially, but try to move all of them forward at once. From experience, that will probably cut my net words per hour in half, doubling the total time required. I finish all 10 of them at once, but it takes ten years to do it. The last nine of which I spend in a homeless shelter because my clients got tired of waiting for me to finish things and quit paying me.

That's an especially dramatic example, but we all face the same tradeoff to some degree. Given finite resources, we can't do everything at once. the S/M list is for the things we choose not to do, but don't want to forget.

Katherine