Where do completed projects go?

mcogilvie

Registered
It’s not someday/maybe because it’s done. You might want to keep some project material as reference if you think they might be useful. Or maybe it’s the receipts you need to file. Or perhaps there is a statutory requirement. But honestly, if my project is ”holiday party” there’s a good chance I’ll keep only memories and maybe some photos. Let me put it another way: the project is the desired outcome, not a file folder. You should always do whatever is appropriate with the contents of a file folder.
 

Julie Jones

Registered
First someday/maybe is for things you might do something about someday. If a project is complete then it probably isn't something you might be considering as a future possibility.

I wonder if part of the question is due to the definition of "project".

If a project is any outcome that takes multiple physical steps/actions to complete then you will probably have hundreds of very small projects. For example: replace burned out lights in living room might be a project and have actions, 1) find out why size bulbs are needed. 2. Decide how many bulbs to buy. 3. Decide where to buy them. 4 Buy the bulbs and finally 5) install the bulbs.
I wouldn't expect this type of project to be useful after completion and for me they just end up in the log of completed items in Nirvana.

I might record information about type of bulbs needed in my OneNote references for household items and such.

Alternatively, I might have some complex project that contains a lot of useful information that I do need to keep for reference. In this case the project will already be in OneNote with just actions added as necessary to Nirvana. When the project is complete I might move it to a completed projects notebook that I can reference for future projects. As a software developer I handle personal development projects this way.

BTW, I use OneNote for most of my reference and project materials. I use it for any research I do on a topic. I pretty much use it for any type of writing or note-taking that I do. Having "one" location that is easily searchable is the best part of using OneNote.
 

RomanS

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I use OneNote for most of my reference and project materials. I use it for any research I do on a topic. I pretty much use it for any type of writing or note-taking that I do. Having "one" location that is easily searchable is the best part of using OneNote.
And what do you do with additional documents (PDF, Scans...)? Do you collect them also in OneNote? I fear this would blow up the data size of the notebook in a critical way. Am I wrong?
 

Julie Jones

Registered
And what do you do with additional documents (PDF, Scans...)? Do you collect them also in OneNote? I fear this would blow up the data size of the notebook in a critical way. Am I wrong?
I haven't ever worried about the size of my notebook. But, I haven't yet started to put absolutely everything in my notebook. I do still have some reference files that I keep digitally in a reference directory on my computer. That is where I save downloaded bank statements and such, and where TurboTax puts my tax files.

BTW, I only store a few ON notebooks in the cloud, partly for privacy and partly because I don't need to access most of them from anywhere but my computer. Work Notebooks are on the computer at work and most of my personal notebooks are on my computer at home. I do my GTD reviews at my computer and I put project action and and info I might need away from my computer into Nirvana. I do have a few shared notebooks in the cloud so that I can write computer and phone tips for family and friends, and collaborate on things a necessary.

I also move Notebooks to OneDrive when they need to be shared and back to local when they don't. I also have my local copy of any cloud notebooks in the same place as all my local notebooks (\Users\Julie\Documents\OneNote Notebooks, that way when I move them to or from the cloud they still show up locally in the same place.

Since you asked, I'll give you some actual numbers: (I used windirstat to quickly check on space)
  • 8.5GB .../Reference - I really need to clean this out. I have subfolders for
    • /manuals so I could get rid of a file of paper product manuals.
    • /ebooks
    • /lists - this is only and definitely should migrate to onenote
    • /job related
    • /... and a bunch of other things, most of which is old and I should move it to onenote. Much of it is unsorted and just thrown in there as I migrated computers over the years.
  • 3.15 GB .../Secure Reference - I have financial and medical information all the way back to 2001. Each year I move more and more items to digital only.
  • .../dev - I am a software engineer and have a huge number of personal development projects
  • .../music
  • .../videos
  • >200GB .../software - where I keep downloaded software that I used or evaluate
  • 20GB .../email - i have my current email and archives from 20 year? ick :oops:
  • 4.5GB .../OneNote Notebooks - I've been using OneNote for over 10 years but only for about the last 3 years trying to push as much as possible to it. Space isn't the issue as you can create as many notebooks as you want and search across all of them. Most things you import, send to, or paste in OneNote are searchable, such as a PDF inserted. Photos with text in them allow OCR extraction of the text if needed.
This is probably more than you wanted to know, but it does put things in perspective.
In addition to a much better search than you get using the file system, ON allows you to add tags to anything and create custom tags, and then search for the tags too.
Well you managed to get me to add multiple items to Nirvana. More cleanup, because organizing is never done.
 

RomanS

Registered
BTW, I only store a few ON notebooks in the cloud, partly for privacy and partly because I don't need to access most of them from anywhere but my computer.
I think that's a good solution. This eliminates synchronization via the cloud and thus probably also a large part of the risk of synchronization errors. Another approach is probably to divide the reference and support material into several smaller notebooks instead of one large notebook and to backup regualarly all the notebooks.
This is probably more than you wanted to know, but it does put things in perspective.
More than I asked, but no more than I would like to know. ;) Thank you for the interesting insights into your filing system and part of your workflow, Julie777. I am currently working on creating my own stringent filing concept. I also use OneNote and OneDrive in a similar way to you for reference and support material. I protect critical data in OneDrive with BoxCryptor. For everything else I use Microsoft Outlook and To Do.
 

Julie Jones

Registered
I think that's a good solution. This eliminates synchronization via the cloud and thus probably also a large part of the risk of synchronization errors. Another approach is probably to divide the reference and support material into several smaller notebooks instead of one large notebook and to backup regularly all the notebooks.
BTW, I have never had a problem with OneNote (ON) synchronization. I wish I could say the same about Outlook.

I guess I'll share a bit more. (I've become an extreme OneNote fan in the last five years as I've explored and started taking better advantage of its capabilities.) I have ON pinned to my Windows task bar in position 1. (Win-1 opens ON.)

How Many Notebooks?
I didn't mention it, but I have about 2 dozen notebooks currently. A couple are usually closed and I consider them archive information.
I have many areas of interest so some are categorized that way, one for each "hobby". I also have some specific reference notebooks in addition to my general reference notebook. I usually have about a dozen open (which constrains the search to those). I can easily open all of them if necessary, but it is almost always enough to search the core set that I keep open. (The only reason I have some closed is to keep the list of notebooks shorter for when I want to change to a different notebook)

This partial list of my notebooks and their sections might give some of you ideas:
  • (Notebook Name)
    • (section name)
  • GTD - I started this when I discovered GTD and before I ever though about a GTD specific tool.
    • inbox - my default inbox when quickly sending things to ON to file properly later
    • GTD - This has information about GTD, notes that I have written, etc.
    • lists - this section is for all the general lists: places I have been, concerts I have been to, interesting things that I have done, books to read, etc.
      • As I have change task managers over the years having this in ON, and in fact keeping all long term things (lists, reference, someday/maybe) in ON made change easier.
      • And, the issue I had until I started using Nirvana none of the task managers supported GTD lists.
    • Life Planning - 20,000 to 50,000 feet. I started it in ON about ten years ago
    • Someday/Maybe - again, started about 10 years ago. Even know, if a someday/maybe item in Nirvana starts gathering notes and additional information I move it to ON. These don't get review weekly like items in Nirvana, but less often. This could be come a separate notebook, but I haven't felt the need because I have someday/maybe spread across topics (maybe not a good idea?)
  • Projects - I originally had a projects section in the GTD notebook, but as it grew I moved it to a separate notebook. Now I create a page, or a section with support materials for project in Nirvana
These can be considered hobbies
  • Development - I am a software developer with many personal projects and copious notes about development
    • Inbox - this is the section theme for my topic/hobby notebooks. I group the related parts of the general GTD lists here, as this can be considered "play time" stuff. Nothing in these notebooks is actually required. All that is in Nirvana
    • Projects
    • Someday/Maybe
  • Computer and Phone Tips - shared with family and friends
  • Motorcycle - I ride and race off-road motorcycles - This has projects, someday/maybe and reference all in the same notebook
  • Machining - I trained as a machinist and it is a hobby of mine. This has projects, someday/maybe and reference all in the same notebook
These are all reference
  • Reference - this is general reference and the ones below are specialized reference notebooks
  • Finance - I only keep this local, but I could encrypt it with ON if I felt the need
    • software licenses
    • receipts
    • tax information
    • property information
  • Medical
  • Computer Info - notes I've made over the years about working with computers and software
Moving things around
I alluded to this about but moving sections to a different notebook, or pages to a different notebook or section is very easy in ON. If a page gets too big, make it a section. If a section gets to big, make it a notebook. If something would be better in another place then move it. (ctrl-alt-m)

A couple notes about search
ON can search on the current page (ctrl-f), but more importantly search an expanded area (ctrl-e). I have my search defaulted to the current section of the current notebook, but at any time I can change that to the current notebook or all notebooks. This can be done without changing the search, as an afterthought which is helpful.

Inbox
Before I started using Nirvana, I used to put my ideas into ON. This was my projects and someday/maybe. I used Toodledo for task management back then. I had an inbox in each notebook, or section, depending on the organization, so I could quickly capture things. I would sort them later. I still maintain some ON inboxes, such as for a project that I am working on. If I have the notebook open and I'm doing research I often just put useful information in the inbox so that I can capture it quickly. Later I can think about it and organize it better. One thing to note is that if you copy something from a web page and paste it into ON it will also paste the link to the web page by default. This is very useful.

A related issue, I often send to ON, from email, print to ON, use office lens, and I have it set to send things to a ON inbox by default for those times when I don't want to take the time and make a specific selection of where to put it.

Screen Capture
Windows 10 introduced nice screen capture (Win-shift-s), but ON had it a long time ago. I used to use Win-s to rubber-band part of the screen with ON on Windows 7. I often use screen capture, paste into ON, mark it up with the drawing tool, screen capture the marked up version in ON and then past it back into ON as a single image. I sometimes save that image to a file and share it or email it. It is very handy for writing tips for others.

--
Many thanks to @Roman (German speaking) for making me think about all this again and consider whether it all still makes sense. As I'm sure you all realize, GTD is a learning and growing process and how you approach it will change with time.
 

Oogiem

Registered
Would a completed project be considered “reference” or someday/maybe?
For me if I may need to refer to the data I created or the outcomes or something it becoames reference.

Examples, A project might be to evaluate rams to decide hwho to use for breeding. Ocne done and the ewes bred the info on who got used becomes a tickler item in my sheep management SW so that when the lambs are born I know hwo the sire is. And the info on the rams used eventually ends up in reference because for pedigree analysis I may need it in the future.

Now sheep management has it's own separate softa=ware systme to track the data but that gives you an idea.
 
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