macgrl;97195 said:
Really I suppose I should get rid of b) to e) and put them in project support? and just have a) as the hard next action that I need to do. Then on completing that look at project support and and move b) to the next actions list?
I also use OmniFocus, and this is a common problem for me - the ease of putting one more action, and then one more action, into OmniFocus leads me to overplan. Once I've overplanned, I frequently end up with a tangle of actions that aren't really Next Actions, because they depend on other actions. When I entered them, they looked like a nice straight line, but the project has changed since and now they're not. So in the discussion below I'm not even going to call these things "actions", I'm going to call them "items". They're somewhere between real project support materials, and next actions. They're essentially clutter.
While the long term goal is probably to stop entering these items, instead trusting myself to figure out the obvious next action and to put the real project planning where it really belongs, right now that won't work because those items will clutter up my brain. I won't trust my brain to remember them or figure them out, I won't trust my system to hold them, and without trust I won't progress in using the system.
However, the fact that the items are often _totally useless_ means that I don't want to add all the infrastructure of storing them outside OmniFocus. That will add a big step to my weekly review, one I'll probably skip, and then I won't trust my system then either.
So for now, I want these items in OmniFocus where they're handy for reviews, but out of my way when I'm doing daily work. I have two ways to handle this.
The first method is to enter those items into the project, giving them a Context of "Info". The "Info" context is set to On Hold. This way, those items won't float to the surface as actions and they won't clutter up any of my normal views, they're just notes that are handy when I actually go to look at the project by itself. If the next action for the project is obvious when I've finished the last one, I enter it. If I'm at a loss, the Info items are there to scan for ideas. If an Info item belongs in a real, solid project plan somewhere, the weekly review is when I have a chance to see that.
If I pile up more than a few Info items with this strategy, I'll move on to the next strategy, which is to create a _separate_ "Agenda" project, either for that project or for an area of focus that's logically above it. (Why do I call it an Agenda project and not an Info project? Nobody knows; that's my brain.) So I might have a current active project of "Fix bug reported by Jane in Widget Database 3.0" that has workable actions, and I might have another project named "Widget Database Agenda" where I put all my stray thoughts about the Widget Database. All of the Agenda projects live in a separate folder, and are usually only scanned during the Weekly Review.
Looking at your sample actions, I'm thinking that some of them may be too big, and may in fact be projects. Also, you asked:
"How do people organise projects that are part of a bigger project?"
I make them parallel projects; I dislike nesting. If a parent project depends on a child project, I just add a Next action referring to the child project. So, starting with your examples, I could imagine a series of projects like
Project: Complete Paper X
WAITING FOR: Plan this quarter's reading for Paper X.
WAITING FOR: Plan this quarter's work for Paper X.
Project: Plan this quarter's reading for Paper X
A Past Action that you've already completed: Create spreadsheet to list possible sources
Next Action: Spend one hour searching Y catalog for possible sources, add to spreadsheet.
Info: What was that book Joe mentioned?
Info: Is there a new edition of Book Z?
Info: Does my ID get me into the library at Institution A? Do I have borrowing privileges?
Info: Should i ask Professor Smith about sources, or have I bothered him too much already?
Project: Plan this quarter's work for Paper X
Past Action: Combine all notes/feedback from work submitted into one physical folder and one electronic folder.
Past Action: Create a document for notes about notes/feedback.
Next Action, Repeating: Spend one hour going through notes/feedback folders and entering notes in file, until done.
Info: Supervisor report sheet from early March also needs looking at.
Info: Pink issues in JK/JY/GRL meeting notes also need looking at.
Info: Format for plan? Maybe create a brainstorming project.
In OmniFocus, you could even add a last action for the projects that the other project is waiting for, referring to the initial project. Something like "Return to parent project Complete Paper X".
In addition to my dislike for nesting, this also frees me from necessarily having what would be "subprojects" entirely subordinate to the parent. For example, instead of "Plan this quarter's reading for Paper X" that project could simply be "Plan this quarter's academic reading". Several projects might be dependent on finishing that project, but the planning project itself might quite logically be a single project.
Gardener