Live webinar: Are Long Lists a Problem for You?

[Ariadne Marques]

I think the idea is instead that you limit the number of active actions in the lists that you look at several times a day. Kanban has the concept of a backlog, which I see as moderately analogous to GTD's Someday/Maybe, though I think of it as "Later/Not Today" rather than "Someday/Maybe."

Yes, the "Later" list work as the Kanban's Backlog to me, that's a good analogy. It's just a way of parking them until I want them to be in my radar. In my head they are not "Someday-Maybes" because I've already committed myself to do them.

 

[Matt_M]

I noticed this topic recently, while I didn't attend the session or watch the recording: it struck a chord. In refining my own system in the past few months, I realized the root issue: folks who implement GTD (or have been using it for a while) tend to "get in touch with their inner project manager" only to have it all backfire.

In my system, there were 3 key causes to having very long lists: capturing WAY too much, not preprocessing, and over planning.

• Don't Over Capture
  
  Since we never captured a lot before, folks using GTD tend to over correct and swing the pendulum in the other direction: we over-capture thoughts, documents, messages. We'll give a court reporter a run for their money ... and it'll be a close battle each time. Instead, be ruthlessly selective. Simply ask: Will this ever matter? If not, then we probably don't need to capture it.​
• Preprocess Inputs
  
  There's no preprocessing being done when we capture things. We treat everything as equal and potentially important. It's not. The inbox is a choke point since it's the gateway into the system; it needs to guarded. Handle inputs immediately unless truly important. The inbox is then only for true scrutiny.​
  
  
  Be honest and don't try to kid yourself into thinking you might care about the majority of useless inputs that come your way. Part of how we prevent big lists is by not allowing lots of stuff to get onto them in the first place.​
• Avoid Over Planning
  
  The longer someone uses GTD or gets really enamored with it, they fall into the trap of obsessing over the most miniscule of detail and sequencing out everything. Over engineering, over thinking, and over planning become an art form. "Clean the kitchen" (or the garage, basement, whatever) — do we really need over 60 micro-steps, a full WBS, Gantt chart, backlog, kanban board, agile/scrum artifacts, and critical path deviation simulation analysis? Avoid needless complexity and taking things to the nth degree of detail.​
  
  
  We're not building a rocket ship, we don't need the overhead of doing so. There's a fine line between "What's the next physical, visible action to move project X forward?" and "How can I further break down each of these sub-tasks of my sub-projects of the sub-tasks of my project's first milestone?".​

However, let's say we've refined capturing, preprocessed inputs, and avoided planning humanity's colonization of Mars and yet we still have long lists.

We need more lists, as counter-intuitive as that may sound. We need smarter lists. We need to sort, filter, group, and classify our items better.

• Fully Leverage Someday/Maybe
  
  Funnel less urgent items to "Someday/Maybe". Something that David didn't mention in his books, IIRC, but if you ever look at his system over the years, guess what? He has many sub-categories of someday/maybe. You too can (and probably should) sub-divide "Someday / Maybe" into categories that make sense for you (e.g. "S/M - Travel," "S/M - Crazy," "S/M - Bucket List"). We rarely need to see these, especially day-to-day.​
• Classify More As Reference
  
  Some items are pseudo-reference material (i.e. checklists, routines, reading lists, movie/tv shows to watch, etc.). File them separately as reference, review occasionally. Don't clutter the more important lists/daily views of the system.​
• Divide & Conquer
  
  Create as many categories, labels, tags (whatever your system may have) to filter, group, and sub-divide your items as you need but as a few as you can get by with. Enough to effectively sort, not so many it's confusing. We want to avoid overly broad/general lists, but not have so many labels/tags that they have a whole taxonomy and sub-system unto themselves. If we can't instantly classify items using them and forget/have to ask "How's Label A different from Label T again?" then we probably have too many. About 25 items per list/category/tag is manageable.​
• Focus On Today
  
  Finally, if it's still overwhelming, create a daily to-do list / priorities. Review the smart lists from the labels/tags you made earlier, scan each smart list and flag must-do items or priority/important items (this is largely intuitive judgment and so forth). Filter the resulting list down to the "Top 10". Choose your top 3 to focus on, using any criteria you like (i.e. importance, most enjoyment, most painful if not done, least challenging, quickest to handle, most challenging, whatever) and put the rest as bonus achievements for the day.​

Simplify and spotlight what matters now. Funnel items out of active lists/categories, Use as many sub-categories as we need but as few as we can get by with, and then use them to create a filtered daily to-do list to help us highlight and determine priorities. This is the key.

GTD aims for clarity, not project management. Refine inputs and tasks to their essence but no further. Keep it super simple.

Focus only on what truly matters. Use GTD practically, not pedantically.

 

[FocusGuy]

I noticed this topic recently, while I didn't attend the session or watch the recording: it struck a chord. In refining my own system in the past few months, I realized the root issue: folks who implement GTD (or have been using it for a while) tend to "get in touch with their inner project manager" only to have it all backfire.

In my system, there were 3 key causes to having very long lists: capturing WAY too much, not preprocessing, and over planning.

• Don't Over Capture
  
  Since we never captured a lot before, folks using GTD tend to over correct and swing the pendulum in the other direction: we over-capture thoughts, documents, messages. We'll give a court reporter a run for their money ... and it'll be a close battle each time. Instead, be ruthlessly selective. Simply ask: Will this ever matter? If not, then we probably don't need to capture it.​
• Preprocess Inputs
  
  There's no preprocessing being done when we capture things. We treat everything as equal and potentially important. It's not. The inbox is a choke point since it's the gateway into the system; it needs to guarded. Handle inputs immediately unless truly important. The inbox is then only for true scrutiny.​
  
  
  Be honest and don't try to kid yourself into thinking you might care about the majority of useless inputs that come your way. Part of how we prevent big lists is by not allowing lots of stuff to get onto them in the first place.​
• Avoid Over Planning
  
  The longer someone uses GTD or gets really enamored with it, they fall into the trap of obsessing over the most miniscule of detail and sequencing out everything. Over engineering, over thinking, and over planning become an art form. "Clean the kitchen" (or the garage, basement, whatever) — do we really need over 60 micro-steps, a full WBS, Gantt chart, backlog, kanban board, agile/scrum artifacts, and critical path deviation simulation analysis? Avoid needless complexity and taking things to the nth degree of detail.​
  
  
  We're not building a rocket ship, we don't need the overhead of doing so. There's a fine line between "What's the next physical, visible action to move project X forward?" and "How can I further break down each of these sub-tasks of my sub-projects of the sub-tasks of my project's first milestone?".​

However, let's say we've refined capturing, preprocessed inputs, and avoided planning humanity's colonization of Mars and yet we still have long lists.

We need more lists, as counter-intuitive as that may sound. We need smarter lists. We need to sort, filter, group, and classify our items better.

• Fully Leverage Someday/Maybe
  
  Funnel less urgent items to "Someday/Maybe". Something that David didn't mention in his books, IIRC, but if you ever look at his system over the years, guess what? He has many sub-categories of someday/maybe. You too can (and probably should) sub-divide "Someday / Maybe" into categories that make sense for you (e.g. "S/M - Travel," "S/M - Crazy," "S/M - Bucket List"). We rarely need to see these, especially day-to-day.​
• Classify More As Reference
  
  Some items are pseudo-reference material (i.e. checklists, routines, reading lists, movie/tv shows to watch, etc.). File them separately as reference, review occasionally. Don't clutter the more important lists/daily views of the system.​
• Divide & Conquer
  
  Create as many categories, labels, tags (whatever your system may have) to filter, group, and sub-divide your items as you need but as a few as you can get by with. Enough to effectively sort, not so many it's confusing. We want to avoid overly broad/general lists, but not have so many labels/tags that they have a whole taxonomy and sub-system unto themselves. If we can't instantly classify items using them and forget/have to ask "How's Label A different from Label T again?" then we probably have too many. About 25 items per list/category/tag is manageable.​
• Focus On Today
  
  Finally, if it's still overwhelming, create a daily to-do list / priorities. Review the smart lists from the labels/tags you made earlier, scan each smart list and flag must-do items or priority/important items (this is largely intuitive judgment and so forth). Filter the resulting list down to the "Top 10". Choose your top 3 to focus on, using any criteria you like (i.e. importance, most enjoyment, most painful if not done, least challenging, quickest to handle, most challenging, whatever) and put the rest as bonus achievements for the day.​

Simplify and spotlight what matters now. Funnel items out of active lists/categories, Use as many sub-categories as we need but as few as we can get by with, and then use them to create a filtered daily to-do list to help us highlight and determine priorities. This is the key.

GTD aims for clarity, not project management. Refine inputs and tasks to their essence but no further. Keep it super simple.

Focus only on what truly matters. Use GTD practically, not pedantically.

Hi @Matt_M I totally agree.
I love GTD but at a certain point it may become difficult to follow. I find all before doing perfect and very efficient but when come to act the criteria s are very difficult for me to follow. The best solution I found Is to choose each week some of the project I want to focus this week. Focus means here doing all I can to close the project as soon as possible. I admit it can be very difficult to choose between 16 or 20 core project. The other is daily. During my daily review I don't only look at my calendar, after I fo and choose my today's project no more than 3 if I can only one. Then I have a look at all my next action task and flag (I use omnifocus) each I intend to do today. I carefully compare if they are relative to my daily focus of projects. If they are it's better. Then I keep time for what's happen.
I notice than despite of theses strategies or tactics I put too much on my plate.
At the end of the week, when I look back to what happened (projects treated, done next actions, new core invents) they are only 3 or 4 things which really made the difference. My task manager if my core tool for making a good inventory of everything and choose only but what matters.
This is the target. But sometime the arrow doesn't straightly go to the center. Sometime there is to wind or a hurricane so I miss the target and loose my arrow !

 

[Bill Myers]

I've learned over time that it's not the length of my lists that's the issue for me. It's the level of commitment I have to what's in my lists. If things are missing in the interests of keeping them short, my mind takes over the job of managing my stuff. If my lists include things I don't have a commitment to, either because they're not truly important or I'm not committed to moving on them as soon as possible, my lists repel me.

I've not found anything that helps me with this other than having my higher-level horizons truly clarified. If they are, my intuition can serve as my gatekeeper.

 

[Bill Myers]

Hi, @Gardener. I'd like to preface this by emphasizing I'm not trying to argue that any approach is "right" or "wrong." I'm just sharing what works for me and why.

I would treat the fundraiser as multiple projects, possibly a dozen or more. Each of those projects would have just one or two actions.

You could. Although one of the subprojects was "contact restaurants to ask for chili donations." That might involve calling 20 restaurants. The way my mind works, it seems easier to just add 20 items to my @calls list.

Instead of fishing, I would create a calls list as part of the project support material, and each time I realized I needed a call, I would add it to the list. That would allow me to have Next Actions that look like, "Make some calls," instead of "Call Fred" and "Call Joe."

Similarly, I might have a computer actions list.

If that works for you, great. It would certainly limit the length of your NA lists. If I had an NA that was simply "make calls about the chili cookoff," or "do computer actions for the chili cookoff," the lack of specificity would make me anxious. I'd find myself trying to remember, "Calls to whom? About what? What are my computer actions?" Yes, I could store that info in project support. But it would be one more place to look. That would cause friction that would repel me from my NA lists.

As far as interpreting GTD in the way that suits me best, I want my NA lists to be as complete as possible. I don't want them to be indexes that point me to other places. I won't look in those other places. I'll just give up and try to juggle everything in my mind.

Again, I'm not trying to tell you that you're wrong. I'm just trying to give people an idea of what the sky looks like in my world. I'm an artist with ADHD. It's already hard enough to get myself to sit down and review a list. Asking myself to do even more labor (make calls -- see chili cookoff project support) won't work for me.

I'm probably an outlier in this forum. But I hope to show others who are like me that GTD can work for us all.

I don't think the idea is that you limit the project or predetermine the actions--in fact, Kanban is closely tied to Agile, which very specifically does NOT predetermine the actions.

I was replying to something @Y_Lherieau posted earlier in the thread. That's how they said they approach their projects.

In my view, if they're in project support material, they are reflected in the system, you just don't have to scan through them every day.

Again, I was referring to something @Y_Lherieau said about limiting their planning "objectives to a maximum of three per 90-day cycle" and "setting a cap on the number of tactics (equivalent to GTD's next actions) to 14 in my 12WY tool." I have things in my longer-term horizons including my life's purpose, which is pretty open-ended (I hope), that call for actions and projects to be defined now and moved on as soon as possible.

I appreciate the suggestion about putting things in project support, and there are times for me when that would be helpful advice. What I was getting at, though, is that I feel my life unfolds in such a way as that I can't limit myself to thinking in terms of three-month horizons. Nor would I be comfortable setting predetermined caps on the number of "objectives" or "tactics" I can track. I feel that my life demands what it demands. I feel best when I respond appropriately. That may mean activating projects now that align to a vision that may take years to achieve.

Feel free to disagree. I just hope that at least clarifies where I'm coming from.

 

[Bill Myers]

We need smarter lists.

Sure. But what is a "smart" list? The only way I've ever been able to gauge that is using my intuition.

What is over-capturing? What is under-capturing? How many actions are too many to be realistically acted on "as soon as possible?" If I know what my higher-level horizons are, I can trust my gut. On the other hand, if something feels "off" about my lists, there probably is. If that's the case, I make adjustments until they feel "right." That may mean pruning my lists. It may mean adding to them. It may also mean rewriting some NAs or projects so they're clearer. Or doing better project planning. Or some combination of these things. Or something else entirely.

I try to do enough thinking upfront to let me safely use my intuition, and not so much thinking that I choke off my ability to tap into that intuition. I can't really define it better than that.

Again, I'm not trying to argue with people. I'm just sharing what works for me.

 

[boomer70]

As for the over-capturing vs under-capturing I find that if I under-capture I ended up feeling stressed which, upon review is because I am holding too much in my head. If I do a brain dump, what I will do is sit on it for a few days then review and see what items need to become actions, what moves to someday maybe and what just gets deleted.

 

[Gardener]

Feel free to disagree. I just hope that at least clarifies where I'm coming from.

As long as your method is working for you, your method is working for you.

My response was mostly addressing how to track complex projects while simultaneously keeping daily lists short, for people who, like me, want/need to keep daily lists short.

 

[Y_Lherieau]

An insightful piece of feedback on our approach to productivity through GTD has led me to explore a deeper, often overlooked dimension of our organizational efforts: the environmental impact.

Drawing from the second law of thermodynamics, which states that any process that creates order in a system inevitably leads to an increase in disorder or entropy elsewhere, I find a compelling analogy for our personal and professional organization efforts. In GTD, as we strive to create order by organizing our tasks and commitments into manageable lists, I must be mindful of the unintended consequences this may have outside my immediate system.

This principle suggests that our attempts to streamline and order our lives can, if not carefully considered, contribute to broader environmental and societal chaos. This can manifest in various forms, such as increased energy consumption (digital and physical), resource depletion, and even the exacerbation of the nine planetary boundaries, which include climate change, biodiversity loss, and ocean acidification, among others.

To incorporate this awareness into the GTD methodology, I propose an additional layer of consideration before executing any action within the GTD flow: evaluating the environmental consequences of our decisions. This means taking a moment to consider the resources our actions consume, the waste they produce, and their overall impact on the planetary limits.

By integrating this environmental lens into our decision-making process, we can aim not only for personal productivity but also for sustainability. For instance, before adding an item to our lists, we could ask ourselves:

• Is this task essential, or can it be simplified to reduce its environmental footprint?
• Can we use digital tools more efficiently to minimize energy consumption?
• Are there ways to accomplish our goals that are more in harmony with environmental sustainability?

Adopting this mindful approach does not only help in reducing the length of our GTD lists but also aligns our personal productivity with the broader goal of minimizing our impact on the planet.

This adds a crucial dimension to the productivity discussion, encouraging us to consider not just the immediate efficiency of our actions but their long-term effects on the world around us.

---

This addition emphasizes the importance of considering the environmental implications of our productivity methods, encouraging a more holistic approach to organizing our lives that is both efficient and sustainable.

 

[Matt_M]

...But what is a "smart" list? The only way I've ever been able to gauge that is using my intuition.

It's any collection of items that we find useful to see grouped together. They could be filtered lists, saved searches, grouped views, or just entirely separate lists for specific categories. Put another way, anything that helps provided a focused view of the possible choices available.

What is over-capturing? What is under-capturing? How many actions are too many to be realistically acted on "as soon as possible?"

Under capturing is simply not writing things down. Over capturing is writing down everything, no matter what. Actively asking "Will this ever matter?" can often be all that is needed to avoid over capturing and under capturing.

If I know what my higher-level horizons are, I can trust my gut. On the other hand, if something feels "off" about my lists, there probably is. If that's the case, I make adjustments until they feel "right."

Having dozens upon dozens of items on a list makes the list effectively useless since there's far too many choices. Having a much smaller amount makes looking at the list manageable, meaning that reflecting and prioritizing is possible rather than overwhelming. A good starting point would be having no more than a screenful or so (approx. 25) of items on a list.

Having very long, large lists is certainly "off" for virtually everyone. That is what I was specifically addressing. How people make choices based on their lists, provided they find them of a manageable size, is another topic entirely: to each their own.

 

[Shady Waxwing]

As for the over-capturing vs under-capturing I find that if I under-capture I ended up feeling stressed which, upon review is because I am holding too much in my head. If I do a brain dump, what I will do is sit on it for a few days then review and see what items need to become actions, what moves to someday maybe and what just gets deleted.

Under-capturing is for sure stressful. And IMHO, there's no such thing as over-capturing. If the lists are too long, the issue is not at capturing. It's further along in the workflow, probably at clarifying. Is it actionable? No or not now are good answers for keeping the yes lists manageable.

 

[Bill Myers]

@Matt_M, I appreciate the explanations. But my questions were really of the rhetorical variety. There has been a lot of discussion in this thread about keeping lists short using all kinds of rules and approaches. None of those scream "not GTD!" to me, but I like flexibility. I'm leaning into the horizons of focus model therefore as a way of keeping lists manageable.

DA has said the only way to feel comfortable with what you're doing is to know what you're not doing. For me, that extends to the higher-level horizons. You suggest avoiding "over-capture" by saying "no" to what's unimportant. The only way I know of to know what's unimportant to me is to know what is important. That's where the higher level horizons come into play in my life.

I'm sometimes tempted to say I'm an outlier to the extent that I prefer relying on intuition over rules when it comes to deciding what should be in my lists. But I don't know if I really am. DA has said GTD is about enabling you to trust your intuition when it comes to deciding what to do in the moment. I'd go so far as to say that extends to the higher-level horizons as well. The nice thing about that, at least from my perspective, is that if something comes into my life that justifies making my lists shorter or longer, I can roll with it.

 

[mcogilvie]

I'm sometimes tempted to say I'm an outlier to the extent that I prefer relying on intuition over rules when it comes to deciding what should be in my lists. But I don't know if I really am. DA has said GTD is about enabling you to trust your intuition when it comes to deciding what to do in the moment. I'd go so far as to say that extends to the higher-level horizons as well. The nice thing about that, at least from my perspective, is that if something comes into my life that justifies making my lists shorter or longer, I can roll with it.

I don’t think you’re an outlier at all. It’s more than deciding what to do or how long your lists are. It’s the radical freedom to do what you think is best and live with the consequences.

 

[Shady Waxwing]

For me, that extends to the higher-level horizons. You suggest avoiding "over-capture" by saying "no" to what's unimportant. The only way I know of to know what's unimportant to me is to know what is important. That's where the higher level horizons come into play in my life.

Agree that higher horizons are at play here. If I capture something that I realize is unimportant during clarify, that could tell me that I need to catch myself up on areas of focus, goals, and so on. Maybe an area of focus has changed, and that means a goal has changed or is no longer active and I am prompted to adjust. But if I disregard the urge to capture, I might not notice that misalignment until a review that really looks at the higher horizons.

 

[Bill Myers]

Agree that higher horizons are at play here. If I capture something that I realize is unimportant during clarify, that could tell me that I need to catch myself up on areas of focus, goals, and so on. Maybe an area of focus has changed, and that means a goal has changed or is no longer active and I am prompted to adjust. But if I disregard the urge to capture, I might not notice that misalignment until a review that really looks at the higher horizons.

You know, I'm glad you posted this. As I thought about your comment, I realized there's no such thing as "over-capture." At least not for me. If I don't capture what has my attention, it'll remain on my mind. If things are ending up in my lists that aren't worth doing, it's not because I'm "over-capturing," it's because I'm not fully clarifying them.

 

[René Lie]

To this "over-capture" thing, I don't see the problem in my world, but of course YMMV. My focus is to get stuff off my mind, and writing things down is a cathalyst for me in this regard. I may intuitively know that I'm not going to do anything to do anything about it upfront, but writing it down and THEN tossing, the way I see it, is giving it "proper attention", thus giving the mind freedom to let it go.

It reminds me of the "shutdown" process as described in the book "Deep Work". Cal Newport goes through his shutdown routine and finishes it off by saying "Shutdown complete". It's not that he didn't already knew this, but saying it out loud kind of makes it official...

 

[Mrs-Polifax]

I enjoyed this fascinating discussion and appreciate all your contributions. I see the problem: that lists can be too long, which can lead to overwhelm and procrastination (if not meltdown, which was happening in my case recently). I'm not yet sure how to cope effectively with this problem, but you all have very interesting - and different - ideas about that. I notice that some people need more structure and some people need more flexibility. I like so much that "there is no right way to do GTD," and that my system can encompass whatever works for me.

 

[Mrs-Polifax]

However, let's say we've refined capturing, preprocessed inputs, and avoided planning humanity's colonization of Mars and yet we still have long lists.

I see where I''m going wrong now. It's all that infernal planning of humanity's colonization of Mars.

 

[Matt_M]

I see where I''m going wrong now. It's all that infernal planning of humanity's colonization of Mars.

Since we're talking astronomy: I always winced when David, in interviews, would mention "Humanity will still need an inbox when we land on Jupiter ...". Reason being is that we will never be able to do that since Jupiter is a failed star and composed of liquid hydrogen (i.e. there is no surface). Not to mention its moons emit such deadly radiation, engulfing Jupiter's orbit, which would kill a human in just a few days.

 

[gtdstudente]

Since we're talking astronomy: I always winced when David, in interviews, would mention "Humanity will still need an inbox when we land on Jupiter ...". Reason being is that we will never be able to do that since Jupiter is a failed star and composed of liquid hydrogen (i.e. there is no surface). Not to mention its moons emit such deadly radiation, engulfing Jupiter's orbit, which would kill a human in just a few days.

@Matt_M,

Interesting . . . with all due respect . . . whenever I hear anything about the cosmos . . . the first thing that comes to mind for mind is S P A C E