Raw stuff vs project/action
Tony
via web
Hi,
Just got started using the Beta.
As far as I understand GTD thinking, an Inbox is a place where stuff can land before the two crucial questions are answered - "what is the desired outcome" and "what is the next action".
Running my own paper-based (well, PostIt-based) GTD scheme, I have found this to be a major key - if you allow anything onto your action lists that has NOT been clearly identified as a defined activity, you begin to go "numb" to that item, and if that turns into a habit, then you become numb to your whole list. So, I mark each of my actions with a code representing one of a defined set of actions - Call, Visit, Email, Update etc. Anything without one of these is NOT an action, but "raw stuff", yet to be processed.
It would be good to have some support for this in the Nirvana "tasks". I am thinking of a set of configurable tick boxes, representing your most common tags, which would then also be available as one-click search views in the left hand navi. So, for instance you might use "Email", "Call", "Review" and "Errand" as your "standard" tags, so each of them would have a tick box on the task dialogue box, as well as a link on the left, to filter tasks by that tag.
Another refinement would be an optional rule that ONLY allows tasks to move to Today or Next when they have one of these tags applied.
Regards,
Tony
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2 Posted by Tony on 04 Jan, 2010 03:01 AM
Whoops.
Just saw the tag list on top of the Next task list. This already implements the filtering aspect I was talking about.
The tick boxes would still be nice with a keyboard shortcut to apply them, as would the optional enforcement of the "no raw stuff in action lists" rule.
Regards,
Tony
3 Posted by Zach on 04 Jan, 2010 05:15 PM
I like the idea of tick boxes for contexts, separate from tags. Any task should only have one context, but there might be a bunch of other tags I want to add.
Support Staff 4 Posted by Christiane Magee on 06 Jan, 2010 04:08 PM
Thanks guys for your suggestion/votes for the tick boxes as part of the UI. I'll pass it onto the dev team for consideration.
Cheers!
Christiane
5 Posted by Proximo on 12 Jan, 2010 04:44 PM
I would have to disagree with task only having one context.
GTD states that a context is a Resource or Area of Focus. With this in mind, I have a context called @Personal and @Work. This allows me to identify the task that I need to be working on based on my current area of focus. If I am at Work, I don't need to see task related to my Personal list.
Now that I am at work and filtered my task with @Work. What if i decided that I want to see all the task that require a phone call. I want to use my @Call context to find these, but I am not interested in the task that are personal. This is why multiple context are key.
With multiple context, I can filter my list to show work related task and further filter the list for a specific resource that I currently want to work with.
As for the original post by Tony. I don't have an issue with knowing what has been processed and what has not. If it's in your inbox, it's not processed and if it's anywhere else, it's processed.
Anything in my Next list, Project list, Someday list or Waiting for list is a processed task. Only the in-box contains the things you captured but have not yet decided what to do with.
During your weekly review, you should go through your in-box and make sure to process everything without skipping an item. You get IN to zero during your weekly review, so the in-box should never contain items that have been there longer than a week. If you don't do this, you fall into the trap of using in-box as a storage location rather than a collection bin.
Just some thoughts.
6 Posted by Tony on 12 Jan, 2010 11:15 PM
Proximo wrote:
Anything in my Next list, Project list, Someday list or Waiting for list is a processed task. Only the in-box contains the things you captured but have not yet decided what to do with.
Quite right, this is the rule. My difficulty with it was that I found it too easy to create actions on my lists that really had not been boiled down to "physical, visible activity". For an Inbox item of "Tax return", I might create and action of "Send education deductions to accountant", which was still to vague and undefined to be considered a "widget to crank". So, to help myself over that habit, I would force myself to boil this down further. Now, "Tax return" might produce "WEB check allowable education deductions", "REVIEW receipts for deductions" and "EMAIL list of deductions to Andrew".
Forcing myself to use one of a small set of words that I know indicate physical, visible activity allows me to be confident that I have been disciplined enough to make up a widget for later cranking. :)
During your weekly review, you should go through your in-box and make sure to process everything without skipping an item. You get IN to zero during your weekly review, so the in-box should never contain items that have been there longer than a week. If you don't do this, you fall into the trap of using in-box as a storage location rather than a collection bin.
I treat getting the Inbox to zero as a separate activity from the review. I do it more often, but it is also a prerequisite for the review to have done it. Other than that, though, I agree that the age of things in your Inbox is a good indication on how well you are coping with it.
7 Posted by Proximo on 13 Jan, 2010 12:41 AM
Tony,
Good points on many fronts. One important point about GTD is to make it work for you. There is plenty of flexibility in how you can use the system to your advantage.
One problem I had early on was not breaking down task into it's simplest actionable steps. I was trying to prevent making projects because I though they should be reserved for larger task and this is not true with GTD. The important thing is to clearly identify the next action with no confusion of what it is or how to accomplish it.
Now I have many small projects with clearly defined actionable steps. I still have plenty of single task but once I understood the importance of a clear next action, I ended up with more small projects than before.
Now things move forward as intended and I get a lot of things done daily.
David McLaughlin closed this discussion on 04 Feb, 2011 01:40 AM.