genelong;54499 said:
- I think of single stand-alone action items as the same as a "next action" in a project, and the other actions in a project as deferred until the "next action" is done. Is that how others see it?
Yes, but to clarify: There's no need to write down or otherwise record any actions beyond the Next one. You
can, but it's something else to keep track of. You only
need to write down the next thing.
- On prioritizing, I thought (I'd have to look it up) that the GTD magic of doing the context lists as opposed to a standard task list was that you don't decide in the moment which one to do - you decide when you make the list, then always do the next one on the list. I've found that useful in that if I keep choosing in the moment, the more disagreeable tasks tend to always be avoided, but if I go through in order, I have to face each one. Did I misunderstand?
That's not how I understand GTD. You
do decide in the moment which one to do. If I make a list on Sunday, how can I know which item will be most important on Friday?
Here's a typical dilemma on prioritizing. I just completed my inbox, and I have a simple task, "buy a comforter", to process. Yes, I could break it down in to a project, but for now, assume that it's simple enough for one step. Now I try to decide should it be someday, or an action item for the "shopping" context. What I wind up doing is looking at my shopping context, see the huge number of undone tasks that feel more important, and so I stick it in someday. But I also know it will never come out of someday, because I will never empty my shopping context list, so it remains on my mind OUTSIDE of the GTD system as something I have to worry about, or it will never get done. Obviously counterproductive. But with too many things in my context list, I am doing my weekly review every time I try to pick the next task to do. Does this make sense what my dilemma is?
Woah, woah, woah. You may never
empty a list, but you will remove things from it. You will be always finishing things and replenishing lists from Someday/Maybe.
Here's my workflow:
Things come out of your head, and into an inbox.
Things come out of your inbox, and into Someday/Maybe.
Things come out of Someday/Maybe, and into your Projects and Next Actions.
Things are completed.
(Obviously, the above isn't ironclad; sometimes a to-do will go straight to an active Project.)
Looks like you're suffering from a common problem: You're over-committed. You literally can't do everything.
Here's the thing: Let's say about half of your projects are going undone. Those half of your projects
are going to go undone. You can either try to get them all done--in which case some 50% will not get done--or renegotiate your commitments. To quote one queuing theorist, "Drop off all the stuff that you won't be able to get to. You won't be able to get to it anyway, now you're just being honest about it."
This may seem crazy, but what if you renegotiated half of your projects for a month? Give them to someone else, or extend the deadline, or just temporarily drop them.
Failing that, at least put everything in your system. If you're really working on it, put it on your Projects list. At the very least, it'll show you just how much stuff is really on your plate, and you can decide on what to do from there.