Need advice on large, irregular shaped items.

L

larold123

0
I have a very high number of more-than-2-minute actions that are associated with large and/or irregular shaped items. Examples would be:

- An old alarm clock - Random electronics cables
- Photo frames - Boxes of software
- Books - A coin sorter
- A printer - A stuffed animal
- A wireless router - A box of business cards

I slap post-its with the next action on the items whenever possible. But some things like cables and stuffed animals, it's not easy. So I make an entry in my digital online GTD system.

Here are my questions:
- Taken all together, these items take up a huge amount of volume and space. Is it worth designating a large area of a room so that all pending objects are in the same area?
- They probably need to be near the inbox, but as the book says, physically and visually distinct. Different part of the room as the inbox area?
- Are these now considered project support materials? Pending items? What do you call them?
- When they won't hold a post-it, how do I keep them cleanly tied to a specific item in my digital online system? Is this problem solved just by having all of these processed-but-not-handled items in the same spot?
- What's the best way to store these so that they are easily accessible and visual, but not cluttering up the room. Placed in open boxes? Lumped in a group on the floor?

I welcome any and all thoughts on how you have handled this particular situation. Thanks!
 
That's fine to have a place where you have items you want to work on. What I do, for the smaller items, is put the item in a box that I call my 'sort box'. It's actually an inbox to my corner of the room storage system. Which is really just a bunch of labeled boxes that I keep in the corner. I only sort this box when it gets kind of full. (Sorting means pulling a bunch of boxes out the corner and placing the item in a box with similar things and writing down what I added to my binder) Anything that I think I might want to work on in the near future stays in the 'sort box'. I don't want to have to dig through a pile of boxes to find something. Some of the things aren't associated with a task or project like the extension cord I just bought. Obviously, have the item associated with a project or task in your digital system if you know what needs to happen with an object. You had a question about how to keep the objects cleanly tied to your digital system. I find it's hard for things to not get messy. That's why I went to a corner storage system that has everything I have indexed in a binder. I even have the general location of each box indexed in the binder. I can just pick up the binder and look through it to see if I still have the item and if it's worth the trouble of getting it out.

You had a question about what you call those items. In the end it all depends on what your intentions are. If the items have very simple actions and you can do them now you could just consider them pending tasks. (GTD calls them 'next actions') It's all your choice if you want to make a digital entry or not. If the action associated with the object is really simple, it's probably a waste of time to create a digital entry. Just have an area for those. If you don't want to deal with the object now you can reference the object on a someday/maybe list. Or if you're waiting for something else to happen you can create waiting for lists. If you are going to use the item with a project, you can reference the object in your project's support materials.
 
When I become aware of an open loop associated with an object that won't fit in my inbox I just write it down on a pad I keep in my pocket. When I get the chance I toss it in my inbox and process it. There's no need to move the objects anywhere unless they are presenting an immediate hazard where they are. If your project is "fix old alarm clock" you're not likely to lose track of what and where that is -- unless you run a clock store or museum. :)
 
Boy this is something I can totally relate to!

I have tons of those as well, ram scrotal tape, stick reader for EID tags, stuff going to one of the other buildings on the farm etc. I've found that a large basket by the door is the place to corral the stuff going out to other buildings. I have similar single places in each barn and outbuilding to collect the stuff from there that come elsewhere. So whenever I head out the door I see stuff that has to be moved elsewhere. It's also where I put the support stuff for projects that require I be in a different context/location.

I put notes in my Omnifocus GTD list manager of where the bulky item is that needs to be dealt with as the next action for example:

Under the project pull electric fences and store for winter I have a next action of pull 4 fences from east orchard pasture and check for breaks or repairs needed. In this case the physical objects are still out in the field.

The scrotal tape is associated with yearly ram evaluations and needs to be taken outside when I do it. The project is Evaluate Ram Lambs for post weaning measurements and the action is weigh and take scrotal circumferences on 2014 ram lambs. The project support note says scrotal tape in outgoing basket in main house. I tend to lose my tape so I need to note where it is. The darned thing can hid in any drawer and be impossible to locate when I need it.

I have the winter chicken waterer in the outgoing basket right now. The project is put water heaters in for all animals. The action is Swap the water heater in the red chicken barn for the new one with an integrated heater. The new waterer is in my outgoing basket and given that it got to 27 degrees today I think that project just moved up the list as I am sure the chicken water froze last night.

The Stick reader is par tof gettign ready for my presentation in Austin in 2 weeks. The project is Present recordkeeping and LambTracker at the Livestock Conservancy Annual Meeeting and the action is Verify SheepCounter with the Shearwell reader on live sheep. Once I do that, today I hope, the action after that will be package all LambTracker hardware and ship to Austin.

Hope that helps.
 
That doesn't surprise me... As soon as I saw the subject of this post, I thought Oogiem would have something useful to tell us about it ;-)
 
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