Oogiem;58737 said:
Not really. Goals to me are stated as things like "Our farm produces 80% of the feed for our animals." But the project is "Convert front pear orchard into permanent pasture with cool season grasses and legumes for fall and winter grazing and provide trees for shelter." If I am part way down that projects set of stuff to do one of the next actions will be: "Evaluate possible trees after at least 2 average winters for long term survivability." So in 2 years I have to evaluate which trees work for shelter because the action after that is "Plant the best trees in a pasture for shelter." And I got there by planting a variety of trees in a section to test long term survivability which was after researching what might work and so on. So it's a current active project just on a very slow timeframe.
I think you're actually doing pretty well with this. The day you decided to go forward with creating a pasture, you opened a loop (i.e. identified a project) and identified next actions. You've even done some detailed planning. Make sure you save that thinking in a project support folder. It will help you identify next actions later.
In his seminar, David Allen suggests that if your next action is "call Fred", do it and just see what shows up before deciding what to do next. In your case, you've done a next action that requires two years to see what shows up. THAT'S FINE. That project is still active and should remain right where it is, and the next action is a calendared event. Put a reminder on your calendar two years from now when you want to check those trees. Give yourself enough time to procure them and plant them--perhaps a month or two before optimal tree planting time.
During your weekly review of your Projects list, you know you have a next action on your calendar, so you can consider that project "reviewed" and move on to the next one.
I suggest you handle your breeding and other long-term projects in the same way.