Long term someday-maybe items

C

cfoley

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I'm in the process of culling my Someday/Maybe list and I'm finding that a lot of items are ones that I genuinely do not care about and never will, or that were once good ideas but have now become irrelevant.

There are a small number of items that I definitely want to do someday but it will be a long time before I can. One example is "Start karate club". My system tells me it's been there since 9th August 2011 and it will be at least another year before some of my current projects finish and free up more time.

It's a long term goal and participating in other karate clubs as a student means I won't forget. I'm unsure if leaving this item and a few similar ones (maybe a dozen) wastes time in every weekly review or if taking them out of the list will break an important principle behind GTD: everything in the system.

If it helps guide answers, I find reviewing the Someday/Maybe list the most difficult part of the weekly review and is the part I'm most likely to gloss over.
 
I agree that weekly is too often mor many of the items. And weekly can be too seldom for some of your "tempting maybes".

What I do is I classify my Someday/Maybe tasks according to which review frequency I think is appropriate for each item.

I currently do this classification in three levels, using tags for it (because my current software does not have priority; otherwise I would use that).

My three levels of review frequency (priority) are:

- as often as possible (even daily, if I have the time; I often do - not many items there to check.)
- weekly (the weekly review)
- quarterly (I've been thinking of perhaps changing this to semi-annually or annually, but have not gotten around to deciding yet. using a fourth level might be another option, but I am a bit reluctant to that.)

I find this easier and clearer than setting up review reminders individually for each item, but that is another possibility you might want to consider, especially if your software allows you to easily see the difference between review reminders and regular ticklers.

Perhaps the main advantage of using level classifications rather than timers is the fact that you can always go and check whenever you want; nice and tidy.
 
cfoley;110126 said:
I'm in the process of culling my Someday/Maybe list and I'm finding that a lot of items are ones that I genuinely do not care about and never will, or that were once good ideas but have now become irrelevant.

There are a small number of items that I definitely want to do someday but it will be a long time before I can.
Click to expand...

If you are really sure you don't care about an item then delete it. If, like me you just can't bear to delete everything like that, then take it out of your regular system, put it in a paper or list and put it in a tickler to re-check in another 5 years.

For the long term stuff, don't review it weekly, set the review time to something that makes sense to you. Either review less frequently or put it in a tickler to start again and be checked in a year or 2 or whatever works. I have a lot of things set to either start at the seasonal changes or review yearly at those times because often I have to choose what projects to work on during a particular season but I have many more than we can possibly finish. Some have a lot of project support that I keep gathering for them and so I can't just delete them OTOH I sure don't want them cluttering up my review during times of the year I could do nothing about them.

My SW, Omnifocus, allows both start dates and review times and I use both to handle most of those situations. I have a small DEVONThink note where I pulled the "won't ever do this or don't care" projects that I still have an emotional attachment too and I set a tickler in my Omnifocus system to review that note in 2017 (It's been there since 2012) which will give me the space I need to decide if I am ok with deleting them completely.
 
Oogie, I think you are right: simply lift out the too-unlikely stuff and put it somewhere else :-)

In my case, that would be stuff that I cannot bear to even have to skip past at quarterly intervals, which sounds about right. Great solution!
 
Oogiem;110128 said:
If you are really sure you don't care about an item then delete it. If, like me you just can't bear to delete everything like that, then take it out of your regular system, put it in a paper or list and put it in a tickler to re-check in another 5 years.
Click to expand...

The idea of adapting/expanding the 43 folders/Tickler file tool is brilliant. Thanks.
 
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