What is your Someday?

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stringdad

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People's dividing lines between Projects and Someday/Maybes for items that are more Someday than Maybe are scattered throughout many threads. It might be handy to have a reference thread where we report/discuss our own dividing lines and how they are working for us.

My dividing line is that I designate as Projects multi-action tasks requiring action this calendar quarter, and if no action is possible, there must be a Calendar or Tickler entry. It is an artifact of a higher-level planning system. Rather non-canonical, I know.

Although this helps me maintain focus on my quarterly goals, I would only recommend it to someone who has that same focus problem.

I'm sure you all have more insightful comments than *that*!
 
Right. A Project is something that I'm actively working on. A Someday/Maybe is something that I'm not working on.

My Projects move to Someday/Maybe if I don't make progress on them for a while.

You can think of both of these lists as being about the same thing, just in different time frames. Projects are being worked on now; Someday/Maybe will be worked on in the future.
 
I've added a category that for me fills the void between my "Project" list and my "SDMB" list. I call it my "Thinking" list. I break it down like this:

- Projects - things that have next actions that can be identified and completed
- Thinking - things that I need to figure out what the next actions are for but not right now
- SDMB - things for which the time isn't right to figure out the next actions

This way, when I do my weekly review, I can make sure that I've given some thought to those "Thinking" projects and if I can identify the next actions I go ahead and move that to my project list. If not, I "think" for another week.
 
I recently started using extra categories:

Active: to be worked on this week (ex.: Change light bulb in entryway)

Someday soon: with in the next three months or so (ex.: Organize garage)

Someday later: with in the next year or so (ex.: Replace carpet in family room)

Someday maybe: longer than a year OR ideas that might never get implemented (ex.: Visit the Great Wall of China)

H
 
I'm glad these are working for you all! However, I would just like to put a bug in your ear to think about: If you add more categories of Someday/Maybe, won't it make your system a little more complex? And don't you want to avoid complexity if possible?
 
I know it is just semantics, but I call my someday/maybe “incubating”. For me, that catches everything I am not currently working on as well as things I may want to do sometime in the future. The Outlook categories are:

~Incubating
~Projects

(The “~” sorts them below the context @NA’s - @Home, @Errands, etc.)
 
I love my Someday/Maybe folder

If I look at a project and it's clear that either can't or just won't be giving this any attention any time soon, as much as I would like to, it goes in Someday/Maybe and then I can let go of it (which is the key). When I review the folder later and situations have changed in its favor, there may actually be actions I can take against the thing and pull it out of wish list status.
 
Brent said:
I'm glad these are working for you all! However, I would just like to put a bug in your ear to think about: If you add more categories of Someday/Maybe, won't it make your system a little more complex? And don't you want to avoid complexity if possible?
Click to expand...

There are other ways to break down the someday/maybe projects in ways that will not increase the complexity of the system. The following are separate lists that are really someday/maybe that have been grouped in a more meaningful way:
Books to read/buy
Movies to rent/buy/see
Possible vacation destinations
Next time in...
Gifts to buy
Gifts for ...(specific person)
Home Improvement Projects/Ideas

I'm sure there are others (DA had a "list of lists" Tip/Tool a while back), but those are ones I use. These are separate from SD/M because: 1) they don't need to be reviewed every week; but 2) they need to be parked somewhere, or I'll forget them. But things that I want or need to be reminded about on a regular basis go on the SD/M list.
 
A large proportion of my somedays are projects that I just don't have time for right now. I guess you could call them low priority projects. The list just seems to go up and up, last count I had 200+ someday/maybes.
 
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