Start up questions

[violentlyserene]

I'm trying to get back into using the system after a long thoroughly unproductive break and I've got some questions.

1. What do you do with things like possible future purchases? I want to keep a list of movies I might want to buy and I have lists of stuff I want to buy for my apartment at some point. None of these things need action immediately and I'm not really sure where to put them.

2. How do you name projects? Do you keep them in big general categories? If so, how do you keep the different projects in those categories straight?

Thanks for the help!

 

[kabell]

To me the "someday/maybe"-list is not really a single list, but a lot of different lists. E.g. "Things I want to do before I die", "People I want to get back in touch with in the near future", "Things I might do within the next month" - and also: "Things I might buy, but haven't decided on yet".

Each week during your weekly review (which is KEY to a succesfull GTD implementation) you can review the list, add new items, remove the ones which you now don't see as a possibility etc, or move the things you want to buy to your NA-list. You can use any kind of list manager for this - I personally use Evernote, which is free and syncs with web and your mobile phone.

I name projects as the succesfull outcome I want to achieve. Examples: "Have a new job", "Host a kick-ass birthday party", "Master playing the piano", "Have all rooms in the house cleaned", "Taking X out on a romantic date".

I use an electronic system (OmniFocus for Mac), and I group my projects (10.000 feet) in folders of Areas of Focus/Responsibility (20.000 feets). Examples:

Study
Social relations
Health
Finances
Productivity
Peace of mind
Leisure

Hope this helps

 

[Brent]

Everything listed in #1 would go in the Someday/Maybe list.

As for #2, my Projects look like:

• Dig in brick border out front
• Watch anime in pile
• Clean out kitchen (based on existing checklist)
• Write draft of Anime History pamphlet

I don't categorize them, because I keep few active Projects ongoing at once. I prefer to put a lot of things on Someday/Maybe and only activate those Projects that I can make a lot of progress on in the next week. But that's just my personal preference.

I would say that, if your Projects list is so long that you feel a need to break it down into categories, there are probably some Projects in there that you won't really get a chance to touch for a while. So that's a flag to re-visit your workload.

 

[dschaffner]

1. What do you do with things like possible future purchases? I want to keep a list of movies I might want to buy and I have lists of stuff I want to buy for my apartment at some point.

2. How do you name projects? Do you keep them in big general categories? If so, how do you keep the different projects in those categories straight?

Dear violentlyserene,

While I agree with Brent in principle that the items in #1 are someday/maybe, I prefer to keep these outside my GTD system and instead keep them in electronic notes. I used to keep these in outlook notes/palm treo memos, but in transitioning to the mac I'm note sure how I'll do it, but some sort of electronic text file by category is the likely solution (books to buy, movies to watch, etc.)

As far as #2, like Brent I try to give the project action oriented names. Unlike Brent, I like a highly hierarchical lists. I used to use lifebalance, and now I use omnifocus, both of which will let me create hierarchies to what ever extent I desire.

- Don

 

[rsailer]

Outside Lists

Dear violentlyserene,

While I agree with Brent in principle that the items in #1 are someday/maybe, I prefer to keep these outside my GTD system and instead keep them in electronic notes. I used to keep these in outlook notes/palm treo memos, but in transitioning to the mac I'm note sure how I'll do it, but some sort of electronic text file by category is the likely solution (books to buy, movies to watch, etc.)

...

- Don

I use Mac/Ominfocus/iPhone and have started using a service called Evernote to deal with notes. I would've preferred using "Memos", but the Mac and iPhone don't sync those. Evernote does this and a lot more.

For example, if I see a book or video I'm interested in, but don't want to buy/rent yet, I take a picture with evernote and tag it as a book to think about.

I also use it to keep static lists outside of omnifocus (I just use that for next actions, projects, someday/maybe's and waiting for).

I also use it to print pdfs to store receipts, travel plans, articles that are interesting and instructions. You can divy all this up into folders.

Evernote works well because you can access it via the web, mac/pc software, and iphone and it is free for the basic service and cheap for the advanced service.

I still would like to use memos for simple lists. Hopefully there will be a way to sync memos between the iphone and the mac soon...

Randy