What does "must" mean?

manynothings

Registered
Hello,

It is heavily emphasized that the calendar of the GTD system should only track actions if they "must" be done that period of time. However, what does "must" mean? Technically, I do not need to do anything, and therefore nothing is a must. However, for job security, etc., there are some self-perceived must's. Even further, there are plenty of things I "must" do to develop some of my desired habits. GTD does not state from what perspective "must" is considered with, so any of these three approaches technically is a must (with, of course, the last option being discouraged). Do you guys have a way of distinguishing between must's and not must's?

Thanks,

manynothings.
 

mcogilvie

Registered
There are “musts” and “shoulds”, and “shoulds” are not “musts”. A “must” is a commitment I have made, which I intend to keep or renegotiate in good faith. A “should” is often wishful thinking and half-hearted, sometimes completely unrealistic. But I think you are overthinking calendar use. A doctor’s appointment is not usually a matter for considerations of commitment. On the other hand, I think most people, myself included, have found that the calendar is a terrible place for habits- in my opinion habis are a completely different sort of thing, only partially addressed by GTD.
 

Gardener

Registered
A basket of thoughts:

I think that "must" is often "do it in this period of time or don't bother." It can also be, "It's happening at PRECISELY THIS TIME, so if you want it to happen soon, show up."

So if that concert is at 8pm on Friday, you don't have to go, but going to the concert venue on Saturday morning is pretty pointless. So IF I want to see the concert, I "must" go on Friday.

If I want to grow melons, I "must" plant the seeds in a certain span of weeks. I don't have to grow melons, but IF I want to, I "must" plant the seeds in that period. However, the period of time is indeed weeks, so I'm not going to put that in my calendar, because it's not narrow enough to be useful. I need some other way to communicate that "must" to myself.

If you've been trying for weeks and weeks to get a meeting with Important Person, and you got one, you pretty much "must" show up at the meeting time. Sure, yeah, if you cancel on them they might accept another meeting. But if meeting with them is important, it's wise to regard this as a "must."

On the other hand, if you have a meeting with a coworker who's always around and isn't annoyed at being cancelled on, its less of a "must". However, if the meeting is at 10am, it's wise to put that in your calendar, because that's the time that maximizes the odds of seeing them without a possibly inconvenient delay.

On the other other hand, if you have a bunch of questions for that coworker, you might decide that, meh, you can probably catch them at a mutually convenient time without tying either of you to a meeting, so you decide the specific time is not a "must" and you don't put "Ask Joe all this stuff" on your calendar. You put it in your lists instead.

If you want to improve your piano, or write your novel, you "must" spend time on those things. But it doesn't really matter precisely when you do those things. But if you have learned that those things happen when you put them on your calendar, and don't happen when you don't, then that arguably means that you "must" put them on your calendar.

But not everything can be a "must." If everything is, nothing gets done. So you have to prioritize what you put the "must" badge on.
 

dtj

Registered
It's really easy to "should all over the place". I am leaning to either must-ing or just throwing it on the aspirational pile for happenstance to deliver later.
 

mcogilvie

Registered
We’ve been looking at this all wrong.

Wikipedia: Must is freshly crushed fruit juice that contains the skins, seeds, and stems of the fruit. The solid portion of the must is called pomace and typically makes up 7–23% of the total weight of the must. Making must is the first step in winemaking.

So must is the beginning of a process which brings joy and gladdens the heart.
 

ivanjay205

Registered
If I want to grow melons, I "must" plant the seeds in a certain span of weeks. I don't have to grow melons, but IF I want to, I "must" plant the seeds in that period. However, the period of time is indeed weeks, so I'm not going to put that in my calendar, because it's not narrow enough to be useful. I need some other way to communicate that "must" to myself.
How do you handle this in your system? For example, let me go with the simplest of examples. I have two dogs and every month I must but the flea medication on their backs as that is a health issue for my dogs if I do not. I set my next action to be the 1st of the month. However, the world does not end if it happens on the 2nd or 3rd. But I cannot wait until the 20th.

I think from previous posts you use omnifocus (correct me if I am wrong). Do you set the repeating defer date to the 1st and a due date lets say the 3rd or 5th? Or flag it? or...?

I am trying to back off the flags as I found quickly my life was purely flagged tasks and I wasnt getting to other things.
 

mcogilvie

Registered
The dog medication on the back thing was always easy for us to execute, so I’ll assume that’s not the issue. The truth is that there are many ways to do this. Start date plus due date is good for Omnifocus or Things, but you could always decide to have the habit of doing it the 1st of every month, or within the first week of each month. GTD is about figuring out what you have to do and want to do, and doing it. Until you accept that you have to give the dogs their medication in a timely manner, you may resist it. You’re not trying to “sneak it into your schedule” or ”put it off until it’s on fire” or whatever. GTD works well if you are adult about your commitments and spend time thinking about them. You might decide you give the dogs their medication on weekends. That may be when you get groceries, clean your home, et cetera. Having decided that, you will cause pain and suffering to yourself and others if you don’t honor those commitments or renegotiate them honestly. This kind of self-awareness and honesty can be a pain in the butt (at least I have found it so).
 

Gardener

Registered
I think from previous posts you use omnifocus (correct me if I am wrong). Do you set the repeating defer date to the 1st and a due date lets say the 3rd or 5th? Or flag it? or...?

Short answer: Yes. Well, sort of. I put it in the calendar as a daily repeater, or an every-two-day or every-three-day repeater. But only if it's "must" enough. (See the long answer.)

Long rambling possibly non-responsive answer:

I would categorize the melons differently from the flea medication, because the melons are a “must, IF,” and the “if not” is perfectly acceptable. I must plant melons in those weeks IF I want to grow melons—but it’s perfectly acceptable to not grow melons.

For my garden, I’ve tried to form a habit of doing the “must, IF” early, rather than just in time. Last year, the bed for the bush beans was ready by…late fall? Midwinter? so that when the “must” weeks rolled around all I had to do was poke the seeds in the ground—the last ten minutes or so of a project that had required a few hours of work.

So I didn’t need scheduled tasks for the beans, or the also high priority pumpkins and strawberries, because I was working on prepping beds (and running irrigation line and setting up trellises, blah blah blah) all through fall and winter and spring, and I just kept working on the highest not-yet-done priority. When spring hit, I hadn’t finished everything I wanted, but none of the “too lates” was a surprise, because I had repeatedly bypassed them when deciding on the next priority. No calendar entries, no reminders, just one or two or maybe three projects at a time, then, when one was finished, “what’s the next priority?”

Now, doing work early like this is not natural to me. I didn’t get ahead by working harder—I got there by dropping a whole lot of other garden projects. My 2021 and 2022 garden plans were far less ambitious than usual, and it looks like 2023 will be too, because I decided that I wanted to do (1) less, (2) better, (3) early.

(At least, that’s how I remember my intention. Come to think of it, I’m forgetting that I also cut the priority of the whole garden, along with cutting many other activities, because I decreed that my first personal priority was getting the first draft of my novel done. But the realization that my writing goals required a much simpler garden has resulted in a much better garden. Huh.)

Where was I?

Oh, yes. Melons are optional. I can plan and track them with other work that gets done early or not at all, and thus they don’t need calendar presence.

But timely health care for a dog is not optional. So it would get a popup reminder, every bleeping day, until it gets done. I have too many of these reminders, but so far not so many that I go totally numb to them. I do need to find a way to get more of them done early, before the population of reminders does grow to that point.
 

cfoley

Registered
How do you handle this in your system? For example, let me go with the simplest of examples. I have two dogs and every month I must but the flea medication on their backs as that is a health issue for my dogs if I do not. I set my next action to be the 1st of the month. However, the world does not end if it happens on the 2nd or 3rd. But I cannot wait until the 20th.

I think from previous posts you use omnifocus (correct me if I am wrong). Do you set the repeating defer date to the 1st and a due date lets say the 3rd or 5th? Or flag it? or...?

I am trying to back off the flags as I found quickly my life was purely flagged tasks and I wasnt getting to other things.

I would ask "How would I do this in a paper system?"

I would put a reminder in my tickler file: "Deflea the dogs for the month, re-tickle for next month." When the reminder turned up, I would either do it right away or add an entry to my action list.

You hint that doing it within 5 days is OK. I would trust myself to scan my lists regularly and do it, and I would trust my weekly review to catch it if it does slip through. Circumstances might enforce a hard deadline on occasion (eg going out of town) so I would create a calendar entry in those cases.

To put this in an electronic system, I would need a consistent way of representing tickled items, an action list and sometimes a calendar.
 

Oogiem

Registered
I have two dogs and every month I must but the flea medication on their backs as that is a health issue for my dogs if I do not.
I am in a very similar situation. I have a bunch of Omnifocus projects which are basically repeating projects for recurring actions. For us the Give dogs their heartweorm medicine is a monthly task that has a start date and a due date and repeats monthly. Most of the time I just see it in my list of available actions (I am responsible for doling out the various pills for all 4 big dogs, husband does the actual administration of the meds) and next tiem I am near the anmal medicine cabinet I get out all the pieces for each of the dogs and set them by my husband's hat and gloves so he'll see them when he goes out to do chores.
 
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