Is there any merit in having a Definitely do (soonish, but not yet) list?

S

Ship69

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Quick question. I have too much on my To-Do list. Is there any merit in having a "Definitely do (soonish, but not yet)" list as well as a "Sometime-Maybe" list and of course the "To-do" (ASAP) list.

How many of you good people run those three lists rather than just the traditional two (i.e. To-do and Sometime Maybe)

What are the pros and cons in your experience?

J
 
One danger with that approach is that you never do the things on the list, or do them only under a deadline. Some software tools support a star or similar tag for marking a high level of interest in completing certain tasks today or in the near future. On the mac, the list includes Omnifocus, Things and Wunderlist as well as some others. With this approach, soonish items are not starred. Another approach can be used when items can be deferred, or tickled, at some later date. For example, I might have "Work on pantry?" appear on weekends as a potential item, which could be deferred or done. I think both of these are probably better for most people than a separate list where it's tempting to hide work there and not check it often enough.
 
Quick answer: try it!

Longer answer: I have periodically had "tiered" someday/maybe lists to get a better focus on what was truly current, but didn't want to put less urgent todo's on a "maybe" list. I called the list "someday soon". I'd review it on a weekly basis. It helped me feel less overwhelmed. When the workload lessened I would incorporated the list into the regular "next actions" lists.

/Christina
 
Ship69 said:
Quick question. I have too much on my To-Do list. Is there any merit in having a "Definitely do (soonish, but not yet)" list as well as a "Sometime-Maybe" list and of course the "To-do" (ASAP) list.
Click to expand...

If it's a soonish but not yet, it's really someday/maybe. If you can't actually see yourself doing it now then it doesn't belong on your context lists at all. I have hundreds of items that are for sure do but not active right now. For me I do keep everything that I might be able to work on during this season active, in part because farming is so seasonally tied and many projects have next actions that can only be done during a particular season. So only putting things on I think I'll work on this week doesn't work for me as weather and animals may change what is possible to do. No plan survives first contact with the sheep. But neither weather or animals will change the fact that some things are really only able to be worked on during certain seasons so their projects are all active for me when it is that season. That is why I do much more detailed reviews of my someday/maybe lists at the solstices and the equinoxes.

It really is as simple as either do or do not do. There is no soonish. To paraphrase Yoda ;-)

OTOH there is some value in separating out Someday/Maybe into bucket list during this lifetime items and more mundane items for some people. Personally I like to see the big dreams and the little ones all at once so I don't do that but some people do.
 
To get clear, is there any merit in a "Someday/Maybe Do" vs a "Definitely Do but not ASAP" ?

The key point about putting something on the "To-Do ASAP" list is that I am hoping to make some action in parallel for ALL tasks/projects on the list.
The trouble with the "Maybe do" list is that there is genuinely rather flaky stuff there that seems to be clogging up my "definitely do" stuff.
 
Try it, if it works for you great. Personally I know that would drive me batty. To me it's either something I can do now or it is something I'll consider some other time.
 
I tried a two-tier Someday/Maybe list and it seemed to work for a time. Eventually the "soon but not right now" part became the regular S/M list and the "maybe in the distant future" part became all the trash I should have deleted. One weekly review I realised it had been months since I had reviewed the "trash list". I gave it a quick scan just in case and then deleted the whole lot.

Action lists need to be optimised for quick in-the-moment decision making because you may be looking at them several times a day. Someday/Maybe lists do not. You'll be reviewing them about once a week so they just need to be a placeholder for things you would like to do in the future that don't fit into your life right now.
 
If I have decided to do a thing I want it on my Next list so that I can spot it easily if the right moment comes along. In other words, my "Definitely but in no hurry" actions go on my Next list.

I would not want to mix pure Maybes on the same list as "Definitely but no hurry", so I put only Maybe items on my Someday/Maybe list.

But I have three visual tiers (different review categories) in both Next and Someday. The "Defintitely but in no hurry" would be "Low Next" whereas "Extremely tempting but not quite sure yet whether it is safe enough" (in other words, not decided yet whether I will do or not, but I am very tempted) will be "High Someday".
 
Folke - please can yous say a little more about your three tiers in both your Next and Someday list?
e.g. what do you call them and how do you use them?
What sort of things go into each tier?
How often do you look at them and potentially move them?

Am I correct in assuming that you Next list is the GTD "To-Do list" ?

I am also rather confused about when & when not to put things into the future (when I am doing electronically, fwiw using MLO).
e.g. If I am delegating something to someone else should I just move the start date into the future (meaning that it will automatically disappear off my To-Do list)?
Or is it worth moving tasks into a special delegated folder ??

Btw, I do LOVE the idea of keeping a 'Trash' list (i.e. a "Stuff you will almost certainly delete but which might be worth a final flick through in maybe a monthly or even quarterly review... but let's get it well out of the way for now" list :) )
 
Ship69 said:
If I am delegating something to someone else should I just move the start date into the future (meaning that it will automatically disappear off my To-Do list)?
Or is it worth moving tasks into a special delegated folder ??
Click to expand...

I usually put it in my Waiting For list.

Btw, I do LOVE the idea of keeping a 'Trash' list (i.e. a "Stuff you will almost certainly delete but which might be worth a final flick through in maybe a monthly or even quarterly review... but let's get it well out of the way for now" list :) )
Click to expand...

When I called it a trash list, I really meant it was stuff I should have got rid off and never have kept. It's like storing things in the attic when you should really be taking them straight to the dump.
 
Ship69 said:
I am also rather confused about when & when not to put things into the future (when I am doing electronically, fwiw using MLO).
e.g. If I am delegating something to someone else should I just move the start date into the future (meaning that it will automatically disappear off my To-Do list)?
Or is it worth moving tasks into a special delegated folder ??
Click to expand...

Many apps have a built-in Waiting For list/category (along with other categories such as Next, Someday etc). Waiting is the place where I put stuff that people "owe" me.

Ship69 said:
Folke - please can yous say a little more about your three tiers in both your Next and Someday list?
e.g. what do you call them and how do you use them?
What sort of things go into each tier?
How often do you look at them and potentially move them?

Am I correct in assuming that you Next list is the GTD "To-Do list" ?
Click to expand...

Yes, the Next list is where I keep all the stuff that I have decided that I will do personally and which nothing prevents me from doing even right now (if only I had the time and inclination and was in the right context etc.) (On the other hand, if there is an "earliest possible" date I will put it down as a Tickler item, called Scheduled in most apps. And if there are other actions that must be completed before this one, then I will put it down as a subsequent project action.)

My review categories (High, Standard and Low) represent the following minimum review intervals:
  • Standard: For Next and Waiting, I go through these every day as part of my daily scan. For Someday, I review these weekly
  • Low: For Next and Waiting, I review weekly. For Someday, I review a couple of times a year.
  • High: For Next, Waiting and Someday, review every single time I even open that list.

My decision about which tier to put a task in is based purely on UNTIL WHEN AT THE LATEST I am prepared to defer my next "inspection" of this task. My "default" is Standard. About 40% of my actions are Standard.

But if a Next action is really no more critical than I can easily afford to just let it sit there until one fine day I will happen to be in the right context with the right energy etc, then I will mark it as Low. About 50% of my actions are marked Low. Sometimes my Low Next actions get done really soon, and sometimes they will be sitting for a long time, waiting for a natural opportunity. This is related to the statistics for how often I "visit" my various contexts etc.

For Someday actions, the Low tier items are quite unlikely that I will ever decide to get done, but I am keeping them for a while yet just in case. For Waiting, the Low tier represents stuff that people "owe" me that I do not need to consider every day.

I will never "force switch" my context for a Low Next action, but I may well "force switch" my context for a High Next action any time during the day that I see a good opportunity. For Standard Next I consider during my daily morning scan whether I should tentatively pre-plan a "visit" to a certain context later in the day.
 
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