I understand what you are saying, but doesn't that go against GTD philosophy? What I mean by that is I thought a main point of getting things done was to get tasks/actions off your mind. If I have to remember the next actions(), what's the point of using the system. Sorry if the answer is obvious, but I am just not comprehending the process even though I have read the book twice, and halfway through a third run.
"Remember the next action(s)" suggests that at some point in the past you sat down to figure out some non-obvious next actions, and then you didn't make a note of them. But very often, the next action is obvious.
For example, let's say I'm putting in a new raspberry bed. The actions for any bed are to get the previous crop and any weeds out of the bed, fork, fertilize and amend, plant, and adjust the watering. I don't write all that down, because it's obvious to me. Instead, I'll just note the next action in the project for the bed.
So, if I'm in the middle of forking the bed and it rains before I'm done so that I have to stop, then the next time I review that project, the next action will be "Finish forking." I give that a context of "Garden Work." The purpose of the next action is as a bookmark reminding me of where I am, and also a way to gather all the Garden Work tasks together for the next time In working in the garden. I don't need to add all the obvious-to-me actions after that--that's just unnecessary added data entry, and work I may need to change later if the unexpected comes up.
For example, imagine that when I created the project, I put in a bunch of obvious actions, and I've progressed to the forking one:
Project: New raspberry bed
Finish forking
Fertilize and amend
Transplant raspberries from other beds
Insert drippers
But then let's say that I discover that there are a bunch of tree roots in the un-forked part of the bed. I have to edit:
Project: New raspberry bed
Bring clippers to garden
Cut tree roots
Finish forking
Fertilize and amend
Transplant raspberries from other beds
Insert drippers
Then it starts to rain, so that the bed will be a mud pit if I try to fork it. There's no prospect, any time soon, of the rain stopping for long enough for the bed to start to dry out, so I'll need to tarp it:
Project: New raspberry bed
Find a tarp.
Tarp the bed
WAITING FOR three days
Bring clippers to garden
Cut tree roots
Finish forking
Fertilize and amend
Transplant raspberries from other beds
Insert drippers
Or, alternatively, I could decide to just wait for the rain to stop:
Project: New raspberry bed
WAITING FOR bed to dry out
Bring clippers to garden
Cut tree roots
Finish forking
Fertilize and amend
Transplant raspberries from other beds
Insert drippers
But in any case, my system is carrying around a bunch of actions that it doesn't need to carry around, because they're utterly obvious to me. And every time something unexpected happens, I have to adjust those actions.
When we multiply this problem by a dozen or two or three projects, then I've added, not reduced, the load on my mind, because when I try to look at my lists I have to mentally shove away all the stuff that isn't yet relevant.