Projects List and Next Actions examples?

[HelenM]

To try and answer the OP - I have recently moved my Actions, Project List, Areas Of Focus, Horizon 3 Goals, Waiting For and Someday / Maybe into one monster Excel spreadsheet of Doom, from my previous paper setup.
Basically I have a set of tabs for the above, and I give each Project and AOF a number. When I add an NA, I add the project and AOF number in separate columns if they apply. Then I can filter / slice and dice however I like.
I can't say yet whether it is adding any real value to be honest. Prior to this I didn't bother linking my NA directly to a Project and nothing exploded. Although if I wanted to, I could have either written a short "tag" or numbered the projects and added the number to the NA. I put it into my Excel as it's super easy to do and I want to test it out and see if I find it useful in the longer term. I'm into year 2 of GTD, and just now feeling like I know the basics enough, and have gained enough mental bandwidth, to start stretching my metaphorical legs.

 

[gtdstudente]

In my paper system, I simply keep a list of projects and number them. Then when a task is related to a project, I include the number (if I think about it; it's not a requirement and I don't use that reference point all that often). I never re-use numbers unless I'm completely re-writing my lists, but even then I try not to. I just re-wrote my lists a few weeks ago (I usually do this for clarity's sake when ~75% of my tasks/projects are completed and finding the incomplete ones gets difficult) and re-numbered, and I kind of regret it. I remembered the numbers for long-term projects pretty well and now I've got competing numbers in my head. I won't be doing that again.

Here you can see my project list on the left, each project numbered. And on the right, an excerpt from my Next Actions list (I don't use contexts out side of Next Actions, Need Others (Agenda), Waiting For, and Someday) showing how I include project numbers with next actions. Easy and simple! And also if I forget, no biggie. I don't need them. I know what tasks go with what project because I actively engage with my lists regularly.


Gosh, I cannot reiterate enough how true this is. I think a lot of people think that GTD means if you properly put your tasks on your lists and track all the things, your lists will tell you what to work on. I know I certainly did for the first years I tried the system. But it's simply not true. You have to engage—manually—with your lists every day and deeply on a weekly basis, in order for the system to work. And when you do that, you know your lists. You know your projects. You know what you're making progress on. If you try to be hands off and let the software tell you what to work on and what your priorities are, it will fail every time.

@devon.marie,

Very efficiently articulation: "your lists will tell you what to work on." says here that all of the expressed deliberation is done and shows-up without 'wondering numbness fatigue/friction' for low-viscosity execution

Thank you much

 

[gtdstudente]

I believe you are correct that the project list is intended to be completely separated from your context lists. I track my next Action lists in Microsoft To Do and started out trying to track Current Projects and Someday/Maybe as lists in To Do, but I found it to be extremely clunky because I need to be able to view my Projects list WHILE also looking at my Next Action lists. I ended up just creating a simple Excel Table where I track the Date Added, Project Description, Notes/Links relevant to the project, and a completion date. I then filter out any task with a completed date, so they will drop off, but if I want to go back to see when I completed something I could. I copied this template into several tabs in my Workbook, and I have One for Current Project, Someday/Maybe, Tickler (in my mind that is for things that are farther in the future than I want to put on my current projects or context lists, and another list for Recurring Tasks that should be calendared, but I want a more concrete reminder of what I should be doing on a recurring basis since it is too easy to delete a calendar item or move it and lose information about what I was supposed to do and when. My list is by no means perfect, and I'm still figuring out ways to track action effectively, but I recommend starting with something as simple as possible to get started. The day may come when I'll look into jumping into one of the more powerful softwares, but my experience is that if you can't track something effectively in a simple system, it rarely works better to track it in a more complex system. You can get lost in all the settings and options and never accomplish what you intended to accomplish.

@nlemon3434,

Thank you for your template and post which also reminds one how demanding the mind can be to be satisfied

 

[gtdstudente]

When I quoted the lyric about "too much mind on the matter," it wasn't a commentary on GTD. I was referring to the tendency to think GTD lists have to be super-sophisticated in order to corral all of your stuff.

Outside of project support and reference, with GTD all you need are lists. That's it. How is a GTD system supposed to look? Like a bunch of lists. Just lists. Where should those lists live? Wherever you want them to. Paper is an option. There are also many digital solutions that are suitable for GTD.

Do you need to have some way to link next actions to projects? According to DA and every David Allen Company employee or certified GTD trainer I've ever heard from, the answer is "no." The weekly review is the glue that holds everything together. Can you link them? Sure. There are software products that can do that. Again, the GTD experts say that feature is useful but not a must-have.

If I may venture an opinion, I suggest trying GTD without the linking. Just create simple, flat lists, whether on paper or a digital app. Do the weekly review, and also review your lists in-between as often as you need to in order to ensure they're complete and current. In my experience, you can add complexity if you need to, but subtracting it is very difficult without just starting over from the ground up.

@bcmyers2112,

Most GTD appreciated

Thank you very much

 

[ianfh10]

Similar to others, on paper in a loose leaf notebook:

Projects
Project A
Project B
Project C

On separate pages, one sheet per context list:

Context 1
Action A
Action B
Action C

You mention you want a 'car showroom' of concrete options, but, while there are fundamentals to the practice, GTD doesn't work like this. There aren't any pre-made systems you can use. It depends on what works for you, as cliche as that sounds. This means you can also change things that do and don't work for you.

I went from using MS To Do for work (separate actions and projects, 1 account for personal and 1 for work), to Todoist because I felt like To DO wasn't robust enough. I then combined work and personal in one account, tagged, dated and prioritised actions, in a way that I could slice and dice to see actions by both context and by their project.

The change to Todoist didn't help me get more done. In fact I spent more time maintaining the bells and whistles of the system than actually doing actions.

I've recently implemented a loose leaf notebook as mentioned above, which is refreshing. I'll likely change up again the future if this doesn't suit me.

 

[Stefan Godo]

Projects are a list of what done looks like.
1. Replace cam shaft position sensor T&C
2. Replace outlet in the bedroom
3. Buy a new laptop.
4. Ship "x" new customer
Then I would have the very next action in a context list. You will run yourself ragged if you try to have a list of projects and then each perceived next action with it. The only one of those i might have project support file for is #4. I currently have 61 projects on my project list and 30 on Someday/Maybe.

yes, and in your case DONE looks like:
replaceD
BOUGHT
shipPED...
to make it more compelling