if action lists growing too large: consider moving stuff to reference lists

[JonathanAquino]

I was finding that my @Home, @Work, @Computer etc. lists were growing too large. The lists give me options, and I didn't want to exclude any options e.g. listening to poetry, walking around the lake, playing the guitar ...

Well, enough was enough and I decided to drop these non-critical items from my action lists.

But I didn't want to lose these ideas. Solution: I simply created some non-action lists to hold them e.g. Ideas For A Rainy Day.

Now my action lists are slowly getting down to a reasonable number.

Hope this helps someone whose action lists are growing out of control.

 

[w_i_t_n_a]

Time frames for things on your Project & NA lists

Here are a couple of tips that were given to me by Meg Edwards during some tele coaching.

Projects lists should only contain those things that you need to deliever on in the next 9 months.
Deliverables beyond that belong on your 'Someday / Maybe' list and can be turned into Projects when they fall into the 9 month window.
If you make sure you include a review of your Someday / Maybes in your weekly review you wont miss the projects and you can get them off your mind.

Next Actions Lists should only contain NA's that you plan to complete in the next 2-3 weeks. Other actions that I think of during my weekly review are written and stored with Project Support Material and I can turn them into NA's when I need to.

These two simple things have helped keep my NA's and Project lists under control

 

[Tetsujin]

Thanks for posting that, w_i_t_n_a! This seems like a valuable set of guidelines that should help me keep my lists under control. I'll try applying them at my next Weekly Review.

-T.

 

[GoGTDer]

"Don't Sweat the Small Stuff"

Here are a couple of tips that were given to me by Meg Edwards during some tele coaching.

Projects lists should only contain those things that you need to deliever on in the next 9 months.
Deliverables beyond that belong on your 'Someday / Maybe' list and can be turned into Projects when they fall into the 9 month window.
If you make sure you include a review of your Someday / Maybes in your weekly review you wont miss the projects and you can get them off your mind.

Next Actions Lists should only contain NA's that you plan to complete in the next 2-3 weeks. Other actions that I think of during my weekly review are written and stored with Project Support Material and I can turn them into NA's when I need to.

These two simple things have helped keep my NA's and Project lists under control

Has anyone read "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff" by Richard Carlson? There's one brilliant idea about how to define the small stuff. Ask yourself if the subject matter at hand will matter a year from now. That's how I determine how far in advance my to-do list should be populated.

 

[CosmoGTD]

I think that the Rainy Day, and Someday lists could be the same thing. Some Rainy Day.

I like the coaching tips.
I am going to round it off a bit.

Projects - next year or so
Next Actions - next month or so.
Someday - someday

 

[hth]

Someday versus rainy day

I think that the Rainy Day, and Someday lists could be the same thing. Some Rainy Day.

Here I differ:
"Someday" is in my understanding: "This NA is becoming important someday."
"Rainy day" would be a list of stuff which is nice to do on a rainy day but not important, or a contex list on a rainy day. Its analog to the procrastination list which was discussed in a thread some weeks ago.

Yours
Alexander

 

[CosmoGTD]

I just meant it means 'not now'.
Someday/Maybe is a DA term.
A person could call it SomeRainyDay, and it could serve the same purpose, seems to me.
Stuff that I might want to do sometime in the future.

If I KNOW I want to do it, then I would not put that on a Someday list. That goes on a Project list.

With the Outlook Add-in, they also have Someday Projects. You can take a Project and all of its tasks, and flip it into Someday, and it hides and retains all the tasks for future reference.
That is a cool function.
You can plan a project, and its action steps, and then if you are getting too busy, then you Someday it.
Then you can activate the project and its Actions again at an time.

 

[hamlett]

Someday/Maybe

I use Life Balance to run GTD, and following this discussion, I separated Someday and Maybe into two separate places. Someday is set to begin appearing on my active NA lists nine months into the future. Until then, these items appear only in the master project list, where I can review them each week w/o clogging the active NA list.

Maybe is set to never appear on the active NA lists. I review this each week, as well, and, as time opens up, I can move an item into Someday, with a nine month lead time.

Following the "clear mind" philosophy, this allows me to enter distant possible projects when they occur to me, and then forget about them. Nine months later, if I haven't already either moved the Someday item into an active place or elimintated it, Life Balance will begin to gently nag me about the item.