Is linking between tasks, projects, areas, goals and so on necessary?

[paper-edv]

I am thinking heavily about wether it is necessary to link between tasks, projects, areas, goals and so on. At the moment I use the Outliner Dynalist. There it is a bit tricky to link between the items. Normally my brain knows what connection a task or a project or so have. I need a simple, fast GTD-system. Making connections slows down my workflow. On the other hand sometimes it would be great to see which tasks I had done in a specific project. Mmh??

What do you think, how do you handle links?

 

[TamaraM]

I don't think it's necessary. In some situations, for me, it hasn't even been desirable. Trying to maintain those links is the fastest way for me to think my system is broken.

That said, I do currently link them, only because my current tools make it easy. Outlook and OneNote have a simple mechanism for connecting actions, projects pages, and meeting notes. Microsoft seems to be working on removing that functionality entirely though, so I'm using it, but am not depending on it.

 

[Oogiem]

I am thinking heavily about wether it is necessary to link between tasks, projects, areas, goals and so on.

For me it's critical to link actions to projects. It's part of how I organize and think. But other folks don't suffer from that issue. As to linking goals to projects that I don't do specifically because many projects fit into more than one goal.

I am experimenting with adding information abut what areas of focus my projects support. The jury is out as to how much that helps me but it is interesting at least. I'l probably play with that for this next season (Apr-Jun) and then decide if I got enough use out of the data to warrant keeping that practice up going forward.

 

[mcogilvie]

I am thinking heavily about wether it is necessary to link between tasks, projects, areas, goals and so on. At the moment I use the Outliner Dynalist. There it is a bit tricky to link between the items. Normally my brain knows what connection a task or a project or so have. I need a simple, fast GTD-system. Making connections slows down my workflow. On the other hand sometimes it would be great to see which tasks I had done in a specific project. Mmh??

What do you think, how do you handle links?

My experience is that perceived friction is the most important factor in day-to-day engagement with my lists of next actions. However, a lot of people, myself included, get value from associating areas, projects and next actions. So there’s a personal balance to aim for. Simpler is always faster and easier, until you hit the projects where you have lots of possibilities and/or lots of moving parts. At a technical level, I think intrinsic structure and tags are more robust than linking, especially across programs. One approach I have used with some success is to tag projects and actions with areas of focus. If I look at a given area‘s projects and next actions. I get a pretty good overview without bogging down at the project level. But of course that’s me, not you.

 

[TruthWK]

I am currently using Dynalist as well! One of the reasons I like it is that it removes friction because of the infinite outline feature whereas something like Evernote i can't quickly reorganize project thinking. My experience has been that i've failed every time i tried to do any extra linking because it does add friction. Usually, its for big projects that I feel like I need to do it but i've found just being a bit more intentional to include the information needed to know what big project its part of is enough without really needing the linking. From the project side, I've found that 1 level of nesting under big projects is ideal for those. It keeps the many subprojects from cluttering my higher level view. So I might have a breadcrumb of Big Project A > Projects > Subproject A. I don't go past 1 level of nesting as then the subprojects get hard to find.

My thought is that I would wait a bit before adding the link if you decide to see if you really need it. I was bad about seeing one case where I needed it and assuming I needed it everywhere.

 

[OF user]

I never used Dynalist but I used Workflowy and the problem I had is that these outliners handle project support, reference, and associated notes so well even within your list that you can run wild with linkages to the point where I spent more time organizing and getting ideas about organizing my list than I did getting my work done. I was very content because I loved organizing my lists. I had the same problem with OF. Started playing too much with perspectives and scripts. All these apps are great. What was not so great was the way I used them.