Someday maybe getting very long

C

cjkogan111

0
Hi,

I was wondering what to do about the ever growing someday maybe lists. Every week it takes longer and longer to review, and it seems like it is rare that a someday maybe item goes on the next actions list. Should I try to review the someday maybe list faster, not review it every week, or try harder to prune the list when I do review it?

Suggestions are appreciated!
 
You might want to move some of the less likely stuff to some place outside your list manager (your main Someday list). Or delete them completely. And/or you can organize them hierarchically in a way that lets you skip entire categories of them.

Another thing you might want to try is color code your Someday items, for example.

Red = check even between weekly reviews if I have time. These are usually super-tempting things that I have some fears or qualms about.
Blue = check during every weekly review
Turquoise = check only in my "seldom" reviews

I use all of those tricks.
 
I review mine only once a month or so. I've also gotten better about striking things as I lose interest in them. I also skim through them fairly quickly when I do review the list because the evaluation should be pretty quick; it's either something you can/will act on now or it's not.
 
There's a big difference between "someday" and "maybe", but I think we throw them together for expediency.

Maybe I'll go to the Amazon.
Someday I'll go to New Zealand.

There's a this-is-going-to-happen-ness about "someday" that "maybe" doesn't have.

Consider starting by splitting them into two lists and reviewing "someday" more frequently...
because unlike "maybe", "someday" is just "now" in the future.

Dena
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
(formerly artsinaction :))
 
Quote from my post dated 03-07-2007, 09:34 AM:

TesTeq said:
Use more than one Someday/Maybe category.

Use more than one Someday/Maybe category:
  • S/M-W (to be reviewed during each Weekly Review)
  • S/M-M (to be reviewed during the Monthly Review)
  • S/M-Q (to be reviewed during the Quarterly Review)
  • S/M-Y (to be reviewed during the Yearly Review)
Click to expand...
 
I also have separate Someday/Maybe lists for:

S/M - Read
S/M - Listen
S/M - Watch

... and review these only when I have time and am in the mood to consume something new.
 
Great, thanks, I guess the message is clear - have groups of items that don't always get covered in weekly review. I like it and will give it a go.
 
When my Someday/Maybe list got too long several years ago, I divided them into separate SD/MB lists based on area of focus. That worked well when we were busy and I did not want to have these potentially good ideas fall through the cracks. Once the lists got shorter, I merged them into 2 lists SD/MB-Work and SD/MB-Personal. I look at my SD/MB-Work list weekly and my SD/MB-Personal quarterly. It just work out that my work SD/MD are more time sensitive than my personal SD/MB.
 
I have assorted ways to deal with this:

- Someday/Maybeish items are very rarely actually in my GTD lists--by which I mean my project/next action lists. If they're in those lists, they're not someday/maybe so much as "Quite soon but not this week."

- Categorizable someday/maybes go in their own lists, which I categorize as project support material. Plants I'd like to plant, sewing projects I'd like to try, bugs and feature requests that customers have reported, etc., etc. go into categorized lists. Those lists may be referred to in my GTD project/action lists--for example, I might have actions:

-- Load GTD with two bugs from the WidgetBase bug list.
-- Review priority of WidgetBase feature request list, and choose enough items to have four in Ready state.
-- Review garden idea list for actions for next month.

I'll only load up my actual GTD lists with actions for the next week/month or so.

- This movement of most Someday/Maybe to separate lists also serves to sort things by required review frequency. I don't need to review the sewing project until I actually run out of sewing and want a new idea. The gardening should be reviewed every month or so. Programming backlog gets scanned when the previous items are about to be worked off. And so on.

The mention of "backlog" and "Ready" reminds me of the concept of personal Kanban and limiting work in progress. I think that personal Kanban and GTD are reasonably mutually compatible. I keep vaguely meaning to write a post. Is anyone using either personal Kansan or Kansan for programming?
 
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