Projects and Next Actions

In the event that you don't have the opportunity to deal with it now and it is anything but a need at that point it's a sometime in the not so distant future/possibly thing. Get it off your rundowns into whatever instrument you use for holding things that are not effectively being taken a shot at It may be waiting, or on paper or in something different separate from your mail task chief yet whatever you pick get it out of your dynamic records.

Despite the fact that my rundown the executives instrument, Omnifocus, takes into account Projects on Hold that are covered up aside from when I decide to see them I found that for me I didn't care for surveying them in that apparatus. So I move the entirety of my latent activities out into DEVONThink. Evernote would likewise work here.

I use DT on the grounds that my S/M things are written in txt documents that compare to significant zones of center and records and I can adjust them effectively among every one of my gadgets and in the event that I switch working frameworks or machines I can likewise remove the information out without any problem. I am likewise cloud unfriendly so don't utilize cloud administrations like Evernote for such a stuff.
 
Omnifocus, takes into account Projects on Hold that are covered up aside from when I decide to see them I found that for me I didn't care for surveying them in that apparatus. So I move the entirety of my latent activities out into DEVONThink
That;'s exactly what I've done too. And for many of the same reasons, cloud adverse and want complete portability to all my devices and easy ways to modify them if I change my app ecosystem.
 
As you'll have read on this thread, the key thing you need to decide about your project is whether it's:

  • Active
    • in which case, it should always have at least one next action or waiting for against it, to ensure that it's moving forward. You'll pick this up in the weekly review if you haven't during the course of the week.
  • Inactive - which could be either:
    • On Hold
      • You've made a commitment to get the project done, but you just can't get to it right now, so it's on hold and then during a weekly review you'll decide whether to re-activate the project or re-negotiate it (e.g. do you need to delegate the project to someone else or cancel it altogether if you can't re-activate it). No next actions need to go against anything on hold.
    • Someday Maybe
      • You've not got any commitment to do or finish the project, so it's entirely up to you whether you feel like you want to start / keep going on the project. You'll be able to decide this in the weekly review. No next actions need to go against anything which is in someday maybe.
"On Hold" is a third option that David Allen only recently conceded, so really, the fewest lists to keep are just two:

  • Projects which are active (commonly referred to as just the "projects list")
  • Projects which are inactive (usually referred to as "someday maybe").
Even keeping just those two lists will make a huge difference.

The rest is all to do with how you split those lists out.

For example, you could divide them into "personal" or "professional" areas of focus, or indeed, categories like "health", "finance", "family" etc.

The way you choose to split them out is entirely up to you. My favourite tool is Things 3, because it allows you to group projects by those areas, but also switch them between "active" and "someday" while preserving their place in those areas.

My recommendation would be, try to get by with as few lists as possible, and then expand them into those further categories when you feel like you need to.

When you listen the anatomy of a project webinar, I heard that a project can be active :
- active list
- wf list
- calendar
- tickler

Or inactive :
- someday
- on hold

Is that right ?
 
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