Question on project organization, particularly academia

[gtd-aaron]

Question on organizing projects...

I'm in academia, and a big part of my job is publishing papers in scholarly journals. These are usually multi-year efforts to publish a paper. They involve many moving parts, such as finding and reading relevant literature, obtaining and analyzing data, and writing the paper. Each of these parts have different objectives, but should all come together when the paper is finally published. I'm wondering what is best way to organize projects like this.

I could create a all-encompassing project like "Publish Paper on XYZ" with many different actions focused on literature, data, writing. Or I could set up different projects like: "Perform Experiments for Paper XYZ", "Find and Read Relevant Literature for Paper XYZ", "Write Paper XYZ".

What does the GTD collective recommend for situations like this?

p.s. I could imagine a similar situation for product development, such as software development. Like "Release Version 2.3 of Software Program XYZ", where lots of efforts have to come together (writing code, debugging, user testing, etc.).

 

[Gardener]

I don't know about the collective, but I would have a project plan outside my regular GTD project/action lists, and then I'd create GTD projects, probably even smaller than yours. (That is, instead of "Perform Experiments for Paper XYZ" it would probably be "Perform Experiment 1 for Paper XYZ." or even "Seek authorization for Experiment 1 for Paper XYZ.")

 

[mcogilvie]

I’ve found that one project per research ms is fine, and that I should not not set plans in stone very far ahead. My goal is to move ahead, sometimes incrementally and sometimes in a big leap. I’m a theoretical physicist, but my wife is a neurobiologist, and I don’t think our processes are that different (except people in her lab have lab notebooks). I have an idea, think about it, look at the literature, and think about it some more. Some calculations, maybe some simulation. At some point there will be some synthesis, maybe a mindmap, or even a draft of an abstract. By this point, my collaborators and I usually have some notes, a proto-manuscript if you like. This will get refined into a ms, but it’s not a linear process. I have found that the GTD project-next action framework works fine, especially using the natural planning model. Sections get written and edited. References get added, figures get refined. For some projects, we do have months of computer simulation, and boatloads of data of data and analysis. That’s all project support. Sometimes a project bifurcates, usually when we are somewhere in the middle. Research and GTD are natural together.

 

[gtd-aaron]

Thank you - this is useful!