Newbie: Infinite Lists?

[SandCastle]

I am new to GTD and trying to utilize it in my current job which is a sales position. In my job there are endless "client pursuits" possible. And over 100 projects to "track" each at different points of development and each to be shared with each client.

​ I'm struggling to keep every open loop documented when the limit really is my imagination. It feels like i'm spending more time "creating" work for myself to do then actually doing it.

Any advice for someone in this situation? Help with prioritization?

 

[Folke]

I suspect it would be best to have at least the most uncertain of those prospects in a separate list or system (say Excel or a CRM system), perhaps with columns for standardized milestones such as called date, call again date, sent info package date, first appointment date etc - whatever your process normally looks like in its early stages, before it starts to get too differentiated for each individual customer to fit into a model.

Then in your main next action lists and projects you can limit yourself to keeping those special actions that do not fit into the standard model.

Prioritization or other ordering within the external standardized list should be easy enough. Within your main next action list(s) you could probably follow your usual GTD practice.

 

[Gardener]

Different people have different tolerances for long lists. My tolerance is extremely low. So some of my strategies follow. These are all going to be personal examples, just because those are easier than work examples:

- If I'm not going to work on a project this month, it goes in Someday/Maybe and I don't want to see it or even a hint about it on a day to day basis.

- In fact, I may move that project all the way out and into an "idea document". So instead of having fifteen sewing projects in my current project, or two current and thirteen in Someday/Maybe, I'll likely have two current and thirteen, or thirty, or a hundred, in a "sewing ideas" document. Those ideas ore just scribbles--I don't bother with organizing them as projects, giving them Next Actions, anything like that.

- I don't bother to review the "sewing ideas" document on any regular basis, because there are no significant consequences to letting it get stale. If I want another sewing project, I go look at it.

- On the other hand, I DO look at my "gardening ideas" document once in a while, because gardening is time-sensitive--if I don't do that particular project this spring, I can't do it until next spring. But all the same, that review is represented by ONE repeating item in my everyday lists ("Review gardening ideas", repeating once a month.) instead of the dozens and dozens of lines that I would have if all the projects were in the regular lists.

- Some active things also get restructured so that they are one line in my everyday "scan for something to do" lists, a line that points to a list somewhere else. So instead of "Call customer 1", "Call customer 2", "Call customer 3", you could make a spreadsheet of customers that you want to keep in touch with, with the date of the last call. And you could have a daily repeating item, say, "Make five customer calls from spreadsheet."

I don't know if any of that is relevant. It is also possible that you've just overbooked yourself, and that the infinite lists are reflecting a genuine problem, not just a problem in organizing the representation of your work.

 

[Jodie E. Francis]

- Some active things also get restructured so that they are one line in my everyday "scan for something to do" lists, a line that points to a list somewhere else. So instead of "Call customer 1", "Call customer 2", "Call customer 3", you could make a spreadsheet of customers that you want to keep in touch with, with the date of the last call. And you could have a daily repeating item, say, "Make five customer calls from spreadsheet."

I intensely dislike long lists. So I do something similar with 'Maintenance' lists, a bit outside my GTD system. I have lists for Weekly, Bi-weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, and Annual tasks. They hold items that need to happen with some regularity to keep life running smoothly (water the plants, check if we need toilet paper, check bank statement, make oil change appointment, download financial statements for the year...) In my GTD system I have single recurring reminders in my Next Actions (Home) list that send me to the Maintenance tasks at the appropriate time, i.e. 'Complete quarterly maintenance list', but other than that, I can ignore them.

 

[Oogiem]

I'd take a look and see if you can create a checklist for the tasks that you have to do for each client. Then I'd use that with a copy for each project. I don't mind long lists, I'd rather have a large set of things I can work on no matter what context I find myself in so for me I wouldn't mind a project per client with all the steps listed. The key is figuring out the recipe/checklist/formula and then just making a new copy for each new client and start crunching down the actions lists.

So an example from ym work is I have to enter in back EBV data into my LambTracker databse. I created a template or checklist of all the steps I need todo and then I made multiple copies of that for each of the sets of back data and I can just run down the ists and get them all done.

 

[Cpu_Modern]

I am in a similar position an you, SandCastle. What I do is the "slicing and dicing" of the work completely different.

I let the clients and their status data together where they are in that database.

The types of projects I create for myself are not attached to a single client or a specific bunch of clients even. Most of the time at least. I have projects like "the next ten prospects are ready to sign a contract", "sent out 100 brochures to propects that signaled some form of interest", or "all clients marked as 'hungry' got a follow-up by end of the month" and so, you get the idea.

When working on such a project I can access the database and develop the ideas...