Tracking a Project's next action(s)

[mcogilvie]

My "Amend" task is amending the soil, usually with a standard per-square-foot amount of compost/manure and fertilizer and sometimes greensand, though it may vary depending on the crop or the condition of the soil.

Thank you for the explanation, I had never heard the term. I had to look up what “greensand” is. My father worked for a large company that made fertilizer along with many other chemical products. I suppose my education in growing things started and ended there.

I have considered a checklist, but things vary often enough that I suspect I'd make so many exceptions that I'd lose the advantage of the standardization of the checklist. On the other hand, I am actively working to standardize a lot of practices across the garden, so in a year or so a checklist might work just fine.

Most of the time, I don’t find the standardization of a checklist per se to be as valuable as its use as a progress tracker. Because Things now does Markdown formatting in notes, I have a lot of expressive power to format project support material however makes sense to me, including several list formats.

 

[Gardener]

Most of the time, I don’t find the standardization of a checklist per se to be as valuable as its use as a progress tracker.

Right now, my progress tracker is standing in the middle of the garden, turning around and noting which row-halves have a row marker with yellow plant tape tied to it. So this is indeed something that could use improvement. IN the garden, it couldn't be better. At home, when I'm planning what supplies to buy, it's not great.

However, right now the extent of my planned improvement is to have one, two, or all three of yellow tape (forked and amended), blue tape (irrigation debugged) and green tape (planted--obvious when I've planted plants, but not at all for bulbs or seeds--I almost forked the garlic right out of Row 9 Front this past weekend) on that row marker. Then as the season rolls on I'll need a fourth color, to signify bed prep for 2024, because yellow is bed prep for 2023.

I realize this is almost entirely off topic. I could try to drag it on topic as a discussion of alternative tracking/statusing methods.

 

[Oogiem]

Why do you need to make a judgement call on a next action's priority based on its associated project? What about the project gives you the information on what to decide to do next?

Happens a lot for me, I may 30 or 40 similar next actions covering maybe 12-15 separate projects. If the project I am working on is a more important than others that have similar next actions I can tell by knowing that I am in the more important project. Also the issue above about perhaps unclear next actions.

Current example for me. Update the sheep registration table. But due to some limitations on database imports I've had to split up that into batches. I ended up setting each batch as a project and the process to accomplish that update as actual next actions but they have for batch xx in the NA. Iit's tedious work and sometimes it's easier to jump among the tables and actions but stay in a batch and sometimes I'm on a roll and need to just crank the widget of a single type of update procedure. Having the project in the NA gives me the choice in the moment.

 

[Gardener]

Why do you need to make a judgement call on a next action's priority based on its associated project? What about the project gives you the information on what to decide to do next?

Like mcogilvie says, there's nothing intrinsic to the project that actually gives you this information.

This question keeps confusing me, so I'm finally getting around to asking: Why wouldn't the identity of the project be one of the most important factors in setting priority? What other factor, for you, is usually/frequently more important for setting priority?

I don't mean the order in which tasks are done, which might be affected by all sorts of things--you can't do the highest priority task if you don't have access to the needed resources. But when all else is put aside, and you can choose from several tasks, isn't the choice of task usually based on project priority?

Maybe the issue here is that most tasks for most people don't need an actual link to the project, because they already know what the project is? But even in that case, the priority is likely to be based on the associated project--it's just that they already know what it is, without looking it up.

 

[Quicksilver10]

I apologise if I am taking the conversation off at a tangent here. I have recently begun using simple lists of Projects and Next Actions (NAs). NAs are listed by context. There is usually no link or description in an action showing what its parent project is. I am using Apple Reminders to hold the lists. I have previously bounced between Omnifocus and Things 3 and (apart from a short experiment setting up Things as per the DavidCo setup guide) I have always created actions within projects. So having NAs not linked to projects is a radical departure for me. I am right now in the middle of doing my first Weekly Review under the new system. it has been a really good experience so far. I am using an official DavidCo template. BUT ... I have come to the checklist item "Review Project(and Larger Outcome) Lists", for which the accompanying guidance includes "Evaluate status of projects, goals, and outcomes, one by one, ensuring at least one current action item on each." Now, I cannot see how, without dredging through all my context lists for each project, I can see if I have an NA for each project. Is this a compelling reason to link the project to the action, or am I missing something?

 

[René Lie]

I apologise if I am taking the conversation off at a tangent here. I have recently begun using simple lists of Projects and Next Actions (NAs). NAs are listed by context. There is usually no link or description in an action showing what its parent project is. I am using Apple Reminders to hold the lists. I have previously bounced between Omnifocus and Things 3 and (apart from a short experiment setting up Things as per the DavidCo setup guide) I have always created actions within projects. So having NAs not linked to projects is a radical departure for me. I am right now in the middle of doing my first Weekly Review under the new system. it has been a really good experience so far. I am using an official DavidCo template. BUT ... I have come to the checklist item "Review Project(and Larger Outcome) Lists", for which the accompanying guidance includes "Evaluate status of projects, goals, and outcomes, one by one, ensuring at least one current action item on each." Now, I cannot see how, without dredging through all my context lists for each project, I can see if I have an NA for each project. Is this a compelling reason to link the project to the action, or am I missing something?

To me, there is certainly a" before" and "after" I managed to link NAs to projects in Asana for exactly this reason! I had to step outside the Davidco setup guide for Asana in order to achieve it, but for me, it was well worth the effort! Also, this made me feel that I was finally working in the higher horizons and not just the ground level.

 

[RomanS]

Now, I cannot see how, without dredging through all my context lists for each project, I can see if I have an NA for each project. Is this a compelling reason to link the project to the action, or am I missing something?

I always look through the Waiting fors and Next Actions before the projects. This way I remember well enough if I have a Next Action for each project. I mean, I read somewhere that David Allen also recommends this order for this reason.

 

[Gardener]

I always look through the Waiting fors and Next Actions before the projects. This way I remember well enough if I have a Next Action for each project. I mean, I read somewhere that David Allen also recommends this order for this reason.

But isn't part of the goal that we write things down so we don't have to hold them in our heads? Yes, there's a certain amount of "hold them in our heads" for the weekly review, but I still don't see a reason not to make it easy to see project from action and action from project.

 

[René Lie]

But isn't part of the goal that we write things down so we don't have to hold them in our heads? Yes, there's a certain amount of "hold them in our heads" for the weekly review, but I still don't see a reason not to make it easy to see project from action and action from project.

I agree, but maybe this is a distinction between using your brain as "RAM" as opposed to "hard drive"? I still prefer linking next actions to projects, though...

 

[bishblaize]

I always look through the Waiting fors and Next Actions before the projects. This way I remember well enough if I have a Next Action for each project. I mean, I read somewhere that David Allen also recommends this order for this reason.

I think he recommends it because not everyone has a system capable of linking the two in the first place, so there has to be provision for that in his advice. That doesn't mean there's no advantage to doing it.

 

[bishblaize]

reading this all post made me thinking about 2 things.
1) There seems to be 2 ways of practicing GTD
- one is to make list of next action => You have to be very precise about the way you write this NA and have a part a project list.
This way suits for people very oriented action who dont look at their project list very often
- One is have a project list + relative next action. This suits for people who needs to be very project oriented and needs to see the very next action.

Both works for GTD. It is just a question of feeling.

The only difference is about reviewing. When you make your weekly review it can be complicated to link the very next action to the projects

Personally Omnifocus gives me the 2 ways of seeing things
I can see my results to obtain (Project view)
I can see my next action and control if on my list I really get the very next action about a project

Sometime I am more oriented project, sometime I am more oriented action.

But what is sure is that when I make my WR it is easy to choose what project I must work on the very next week. I can focus on a project and quickly see with my reference material if it is still worth working on or not.

Omnifocus is not perfect but it does the job, very well.

There's definitely some truth in this. I've found over the years as I've got jobs with more strategy and less operations in them that reviewing things at the Project level has become more relevant even on a day to day basis. Partly because I have a slightly longer time frame in mind than other staff in my company, but also because so many of my projects mean coordinating others and their Projects.

I think the key difference is at the weekly review. Part of the weekly review is about asking yourself whether the projects you're doing are the right projects in the first place, given your job and your long-term aims. You could have the right Next Action for the wrong Project. So even if you have a very operational role where thinking Next Action level all day is the best level for you, I think the weekly review should primarily be about Project thinking. The primary reason to think about Next Actions at the weekly is to make sure they support your Projects.

 

[mcogilvie]

This question keeps confusing me, so I'm finally getting around to asking: Why wouldn't the identity of the project be one of the most important factors in setting priority? What other factor, for you, is usually/frequently more important for setting priority?

I don't mean the order in which tasks are done, which might be affected by all sorts of things--you can't do the highest priority task if you don't have access to the needed resources. But when all else is put aside, and you can choose from several tasks, isn't the choice of task usually based on project priority?

Maybe the issue here is that most tasks for most people don't need an actual link to the project, because they already know what the project is? But even in that case, the priority is likely to be based on the associated project--it's just that they already know what it is, without looking it up.

You bring up a good point, but my experience is that knowledge of the project is a poor proxy for importance. I have about ten Areas of Focus. I could not rank order them in importance, although I could perhaps group them. If I look at a project name/title, I pretty much know what area it belongs to, although there is a bit of ambiguity for some projects. However, I don’t know the relative priority of a project just by looking at it. When I look at a next action for a given context, I usually have a reasonable idea of time and energy required. These are traditional GTD criteria for what to do next, with priority coming after them. But determining the priority of a next action by knowing its project and considering the project‘s priority is a lot to ask in making a quick decision. Of course, there are projects and next actions which do have clear priority because of importance and/or timeliness. Those do surface in the weekly review, but they give rise a relatively small fraction of next actions. I like having next actions attached to projects too, but I think there is a tendency to exaggerate its value and ignore its costs.

 

[Gardener]

You bring up a good point, but my experience is that knowledge of the project is a poor proxy for importance. I have about ten Areas of Focus. I could not rank order them in importance, although I could perhaps group them. If I look at a project name/title, I pretty much know what area it belongs to, although there is a bit of ambiguity for some projects. However, I don’t know the relative priority of a project just by looking at it. When I look at a next action for a given context, I usually have a reasonable idea of time and energy required. These are traditional GTD criteria for what to do next, with priority coming after them. But determining the priority of a next action by knowing its project and considering the project‘s priority is a lot to ask in making a quick decision. Of course, there are projects and next actions which do have clear priority because of importance and/or timeliness. Those do surface in the weekly review, but they give rise a relatively small fraction of next actions.

Ah--this may partly come down to the number of active projects.

The number of active projects that I'm comfortable with is REALLY REALLY LOW. I long ago accepted the, for me, relatively minor opportunity cost ("You just ordered from Gardens R Us. You COULD have ordered stuff for next year's projects too!") inherent in hiding most of what I will do in the future.

So if a project is present in my active lists, I'm very familiar with the project and its relative priority.

One could, in fact, argue that my number of projects is so low that priority shouldn't be a factor, because the very presence of the project in the active lists means it's a fairly high priority--most of my prioritization comes in whether a thought has even been promoted to a project, and then whether that project has remained active or been demoted back to Someday/Maybe.

But I do pull projects into the active lists just because I want to do them--a thought gets promoted and stays active, but it's really not that high a priority. Out of the dozens of totally unnecessary flowers I'd like to grow, I choose THAT one and make it a project. But if it ends up in opposition to snap beans, it loses.

So the identity of the project is a major indicator of priority, in that scenario.

I like having next actions attached to projects too, but I think there is a tendency to exaggerate its value and ignore its costs.

And the tool may be a major factor here, too. I would have to actively work (a cost) to UN link actions and projects.

 

[TesTeq]

But isn't part of the goal that we write things down so we don't have to hold them in our heads? Yes, there's a certain amount of "hold them in our heads" for the weekly review, but I still don't see a reason not to make it easy to see project from action and action from project.

@Gardener I agree with you. I don't understand why we shouldn't use the Project-->Next Action hierarchy (links) that is a standard feature of many apps. You don't need Nozbe, OmniFocus, Things, or Todoist to keep a bunch of unlinked lists (Projects, @Work, @Computer, @Errands, @Home, @WaitingFor, @Boss etc.). The Apple Notes app is perfect for this purpose – no links guaranteed!

 

[schmeggahead]

But isn't part of the goal that we write things down so we don't have to hold them in our heads?

I remember in a webinar, someone described the weekly review as unloading your head and reloading it with what you wanted to pay attention to during the next week.

So it's ok to remember or not. I use Apple Reminders and tag NA with a project label. I only do it when I don't remember that there is a task for that project. That way, next time, I'll be able to go right to it, and if it is completed, enter a new one.

Clayton

Pay attention to what you want. Everyone else with remind you about what they want. - GTD Nordic (Lars or Morten, I forget which)