Where to put unclear ideas or projects

[Mountaineer]

Preface: I used to have a GTD like system in place which worked pretty well for me. Some time ago I fell off the wagon and since then I wasn't able to get back on track. I feel like one problem is that I have (or put) too much on my plate. So I want to try to keep my system leaner.

Current setup:

Todoist for Next Actions. I want to try to only put next actions for active projects in it. I know that many people recommend to also create next actions for someday/maybe, but I think currently that'd create too much overwhelm for me.

OneNote for my projects. I have the same structure duplicated for personal and work:
- Active Projects: each projects gets its own page where I can add notes, track status etc.
- Soon: Projects which will become active soon but I don't intend to tackle in the next two weeks. Moved in a separate space to keep the active project list short.
- Someday: Projects I want to do, but not in the foreseeable (three months) future.
- Maybe: Projects I'm not sure I'm really going to start someday
- Areas: list of my 20000ft areas, each area has its own page

My problem with this approach is that I have a lot of ideas that are just that and not more. In my opinion not yet projects. For example, I have "install garden irrigation system", "get a solar power roof", "build a veranda" etc. I didn't think about those things in detail, nor do I have any intention to do them soon. But I want to have them written down.

So where should I put those?
Option 1: on my "Maybe" list, creating a OneNote page for each one (without content), thus making the list really long
Option 2: write them as keywords into the appropriate 20000ft page (e.g. on my "Home and garden" area of focus). That way they'd be grouped by topic.

Any suggestions what's the better approach? Or maybe an "Option 3"?

Thanks and best!

 

[mcogilvie]

Someday/Maybe’s are in some sense neither actions nor projects, just ideas for future consideration. For. me, the important things about them are getting them out of my head and into something I can easily review. You want to clearly distinguish them from active items. If long lists bother you, then you want organization and/or filtering to make shorter lists. I would probably put Someday/Maybe’s in Todoist. It has lots of tools to organize and filter, and there’s no integration or synergy with OneNote that makes using them together natural. I would take a good look at the Davidco Todoist Setup Guide, the GTD-oriented material Todoist puts out, and search the web for ”GTD Todoist.”

 

[Gardener]

My system has a "lists" section, with, among other lists, a bunch of "ideas" lists: Garden Ideas, Sewing Ideas, Writing Ideas, Cooking Ideas, Food Ideas, etc., etc., etc.

 

[ianfh10]

Preface: I used to have a GTD like system in place which worked pretty well for me. Some time ago I fell off the wagon and since then I wasn't able to get back on track. I feel like one problem is that I have (or put) too much on my plate. So I want to try to keep my system leaner.

Current setup:

Todoist for Next Actions. I want to try to only put next actions for active projects in it. I know that many people recommend to also create next actions for someday/maybe, but I think currently that'd create too much overwhelm for me.

OneNote for my projects. I have the same structure duplicated for personal and work:
- Active Projects: each projects gets its own page where I can add notes, track status etc.
- Soon: Projects which will become active soon but I don't intend to tackle in the next two weeks. Moved in a separate space to keep the active project list short.
- Someday: Projects I want to do, but not in the foreseeable (three months) future.
- Maybe: Projects I'm not sure I'm really going to start someday
- Areas: list of my 20000ft areas, each area has its own page

My problem with this approach is that I have a lot of ideas that are just that and not more. In my opinion not yet projects. For example, I have "install garden irrigation system", "get a solar power roof", "build a veranda" etc. I didn't think about those things in detail, nor do I have any intention to do them soon. But I want to have them written down.

So where should I put those?
Option 1: on my "Maybe" list, creating a OneNote page for each one (without content), thus making the list really long
Option 2: write them as keywords into the appropriate 20000ft page (e.g. on my "Home and garden" area of focus). That way they'd be grouped by topic.

Any suggestions what's the better approach? Or maybe an "Option 3"?

Thanks and best!

You say you don't want someday/maybe in your list manager, but are you keeping too much in your OneNote/project material?

Your projects/action support should really be separate from your someday/maybe, and your project support should not be reminders to do the things.

I have a similar set up to you with MS To Do and OneNote. I have a Projects list in To Do along with next actions lists, and someday maybe,, waiting for, agendas, tickler, read/watch/review, to try, and ideas.

I currently have 4 projects active and 12 next actions across all my context lists. On all the other lists that aren't strictly next actions (think restaurants to try, YouTube videos I've clipped from the web to watch later, books I've been recommended, ideas for gifts for people, places I'd like to travel to, skills to learn, hobbies to try etc etc) I have 127. Even though they're in the same system, I don't think about them because they're parked essentially out of sight, and I get to them in the "get creative" part of my weekly review.

In my OneNote I only have material that supports my projects and actions, such as plans, and information I need to complete those actions and projects. I have 4 sections in my OneNote - one per project. When I'm using it to do some actions or work, I don't want to even see something I wrote down on the fly three weeks ago because it seemed cool at the time. That's not to say you shouldn't have written that thing down - on the contrary, GTD is all about getting it off your mind, but you need an appropriate place to park those things.

For example, on To Do on my someday/maybe group of lists, on the hobby list, is "photography". I just had to go check because I didn't know what was on there. On my OneNote at the minute is material for my first house purchase project, which contains all the dry bureaucratic stuff I need to reference. I don't want to be thinking that I should really get into photography when I'm in the weeds of completing house move stuff, because I'd just get guilty and irate I'm not spending my time doing something more fulfilling.

You're giving yourself quite strict but also arbitrary deadlines. You've got not in the next 2 weeks but soon, not in 3 months but maybe later, and then maybe but maybe not at all. Is it possible you're seeing all this stuff you're probably not doing in the timeframes you've imposed on yourself, or you feel like you should be doing something that's due but you haven't started, or should soon be getting to start something that's due to start given your timeframes, and are generating some anxiety that way? Why not just have one someday/maybe list for everything you review regularly?

When you say "GTD-like system", I'd be interested to know which bits you adopted, which bits you didn't, and why?

 

[Gardener]

Option 1: on my "Maybe" list, creating a OneNote page for each one (without content), thus making the list really long

I didn't quite register this. Instead of creating a OneNote page for each item in your Maybe list, why not have a single OneNote page for your entire Maybe list? Or, a small number of pages, one each for different categories of Maybe?

 

[Oogiem]

My problem with this approach is that I have a lot of ideas that are just that and not more. In my opinion not yet projects. For example, I have "install garden irrigation system", "get a solar power roof", "build a veranda" etc. I didn't think about those things in detail, nor do I have any intention to do them soon. But I want to have them written down.

I keep notes in a system that is separate from my task manager(I use Obsidian now, I used to use DEVONThink) for all these someday/maybe projects or ideas. The notes are by AOF roughly or by context if they are specific to a context. I review these notes quarterly.

So using your examples I would do the following:

install garden irrigation system would be added to Main House Outside
get a solar power roof might get added to Guest House
build a veranda might get added to Juniper Gulch Ranch Club 19 Building

And each of those notes is linked to from my main Someday/Maybe Ideas note which is linked into my GTD note which is linked to my Home note in Obsidian.

 

[schmeggahead]

I use Obsidian

Are you using Obsidian only iPhone & iPad or do you have a desktop version also?

I just found the Mac OS App (not on App Store, this is common for Mac, I get a duh).
Here's the link if others want to try: https://obsidian.md

 

[ianfh10]

And each of those notes is linked to from my main Someday/Maybe Ideas note which is linked into my GTD note which is linked to my Home note in Obsidian.

That's a lot of links!

 

[Oogiem]

re you using Obsidian only iPhone & iPad or do you have a desktop version also?

All of the above. I started in Obsidian after DEVONTHink irrevocably lot my trust by destroying hundreds of files I only access occasionally, long enough that my multi-month backups could not recover them.

I did (still kinda do not) like markdown but I have to admit once you get over the limitations it is easy and I do like that I am in control and can do checksum verifications on a file by file basis to ensure I do not ever loose critical data again.

What I am still debating is how or whether to use Obsidian Sync to keep all my devices at the same level. I am paranoid about avoiding cloud services and have been making do with a manual sync (by hand move my obsidian vault folder to and from my various computers and keeping careful track of which version has the latest data) which only works if you never edit anything in the vault on two machine without first verifying you are working from the latest copy.

OTOH the ease of linking is a powerful advantage I didn't know I was missing from DT. (Yes I knowDT can do links but the graph view and how easily I can change links in Obsidian is way more powerful IMO)

 

[schmeggahead]

What I am still debating is how or whether to use Obsidian Sync

I use drafts as my primary capture device and it supports interaction with obsidian

Using Obsidian with Drafts

Obsidian Website URL Scheme: obsidian:// URL Scheme Documentation Disclaimer: We are not Obsidian experts! This guide is meant to get people started with the basics of using Drafts with Obsidian. Feel free to expand on these ideas, or let us know if we’ve missed something important. Obsidian...

forums.getdrafts.com

I plan to work on a single Mac with drafts for updates and propagate to the other devices for now.
iCloud sync bugs have been nonexistent for me, so I will probably let iCloud do the work and read only on my other devices.

Had the Obsidian/Drafts article in my not now list, but it just was moved to @digital list.
Clayton.

 

[Julie Jones]

I use OneNote for the same thing. I have projects and someday/maybe in onenote.
I use a combination of a single page in my someday/maybe notebook for items that are just a sentence or two, (not really considered in detail) and individual pages for things that I have actually spent some time on or captured some kind of notes or reference materials.

I do the same for my OneNote projects notebook. I have to admit that I am not doing very well at keeping someday/maybe projects in the someday/maybe notebook. Sometimes I spend significant time cogitating on a project and have lots of notes, but when I decide that I am not going to make the project be active I don't get around to moving it to someday/maybe.

For many of my active projects they have their own section in my projects notebook.

My active projects are all in Nirvana, so as part of my review for a project in nirvana I look at the project in OneNote.
For my someday/maybe reviews I look at Nirvana and OneNote, partly because anything with much detail I don't want to put in Nirvana, but I capture all my new someday/maybe from my inbox to Nirvana someday/maybe.