"Someday" project task?
Keith Devens
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I've been using Nirvana (very successfully!) at work to track all my tasks, and I split my tasks up into projects.
For project A, I have a task like "whenever you get some free time, make this improvement to this code", and I want to add it to my "someday" list so I can keep a list of things to work on when I run out of tasks I need to work on right now. Only, because it's in a project, Nirvana won't let me add it to the someday list.
Is this really an "invalid" thing to want to do?
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2 Posted by Proximo on 27 Sep, 2010 10:06 PM
Keith,
In short. Yes.
GTD is about understanding what your task are and where they go.
A Project should only contain task that are required for the projects outcome. You should not have any task associated with a Project that are not needed to complete that project. So having a task in a Project that is "Someday/Maybe", is not logically correct in GTD. If the Project is active and requires multiple steps to complete, then all the task should be Actionable task.
What you should do is put the "Improve Code" task in the correct list (Bucket). In this case it would be the Someday list. If the "Improve Code" task is not actionable or required for a Project to be considered complete, it does not belong to that project.
During your Weekly Review or Daily Scans, you should scan all your list to identify what you have and what it means. If you ran out of task to do at the moment, you can simply scan your Someday list and potentially find something there that you may want to make Active and start working on.
I also want to make sure you understand that task don't simply go into Projects. A Project is nothing more than an outcome that requires multiple steps to accomplish. So if something takes two or more steps to accomplish, it becomes a project.
If a task is actionable and does not need any other steps to complete, it's considered an actionable task that goes in your Next List. By default, all single actionable task are Next Actions because they don't require additional steps to accomplish.
A Project on the other hand can have several Actionable task and only one is considered your Next Action. If the Project contains some task that can be done in parallel, it's OK to have more than one Next Action for an Active Project.
Stick to the rules of the GTD list and you will find that everything has it's place and everything should be easy to find when the time comes or when the next Weekly Review rolls around.
If you have any questions, please let me know. We are here to help.
3 Posted by martin.tyler on 28 Sep, 2010 10:03 PM
I think this illustrates a problem a lot of people have with GTD.. a GTD project does not always map onto a real life project. A real life project may actually be made up of multiple GTD projects. A GTD project has a well defined outcome, so something you know is someday/maybe does not belong in the project, its most likely its own project.
In reality I find a projects outcome does not always stay completely fixed, and tasks become optional for the outcome, or maybe you decide they arent needed now for the outcome - but rather than having those optional or someday tasks staying in your project it is part of the review process to create new projects and/or move things out to keep things efficient.
See the sub projects thread for more on this and, project folders is how you might represent a real life project
4 Posted by Proximo on 29 Sep, 2010 01:26 PM
@martin,
I agree that not everything fits into a nice little GTD box, but if you follow your GTD system, it can and will capture everything.
I don't care for over structuring things or making things harder than they should. I like having projects with clearly defined outcomes. Anything that does not fit that mold can go elsewhere. I still don't loose sight of anything, but now I have a clear focus on what actually needs to be done.
I can always create new task and projects from my someday list when they actually become actionable. I don't need the extra baggage hanging around, reminding me that a task would be cool to fit into a Project but not needed for completing it.
I find that If I finish a project, it makes it easier to look into my someday items because I don't have the pressure of the project hanging over me. The project is done and now I can create a new task or smaller project for that idea I wanted to implement but was not needed for the projects completion.
If sub-projects and Project folders are added as a feature to Nirvana. This would not change how things work as far as actionable task. If it's not needed for project completion, it goes somewhere else. If it's not actionable at the moment, it goes into Someday.
Mind like water.
5 Posted by Keith Devens on 29 Sep, 2010 04:58 PM
I've been using projects in a less-focused way. Is it wrong to have projects that are never closed? I have a "shopping" project that has stuff I want to buy (but not necessarily right now) that includes things like an iPad and a bicycle. A "books to read" project would be similar. You'd never finish it.
At work I've created projects for each software project I've worked on. Usually I know what project I need to be working on at any given time, so I've generally been working off the project's tasks instead of 'next' or 'today'. (Though for my personal life I have more individual tasks not related to projects so there I work more based on next/today)
Also, is it a bug that I can't drag that "improve code" task from the project (that I could otherwise mark as complete) into the Someday list?
6 Posted by Proximo on 30 Sep, 2010 03:10 PM
@Keith Devens
"Is it wrong to have Projects that are never closed?"
It's not wrong, but it's not GTD. :-)
If I have several things I want to buy, I make them individual task and tag them purchase or what ever makes sense to you.
Unless you need to buy the iPad to make the Bicycle work, it's not something you need to link together. Trust me, there will be a way to ride a Bicycle with an iPad, just give it time.
If your task has a clear outcome on it's own with no other steps involved, it should simply be a single task and not part of a Project.
This is where Checklist in Nirvana would be useful. Some users suggested a Checklist feature that you can put things like this in one category and check them off as you go. I like the idea. For now, it's a single task that I can easily filter by context.
7 Posted by Lasse on 01 Oct, 2010 09:21 PM
This is where smartlists would come in handy. Things like "buy iPad" could be a single action task but could still be grouped with other similar tasks (all those that are tagged with "shopping", for example).
As for checklists, if something isn't immediately relevant to any of my todos, I prefer to collect it somewhere else (Evernote, for example). If it is related to a project ("reference material") but doesn't belong to any task in particular, I store it in an inactive project called "Notes". I know some people don't like this because they prefer to have everything related with a project in one place. But I find that having only those tasks in a project that are necessary to complete it, keeps me focused and helps me get things done more efficiently.
8 Posted by Lasse on 01 Oct, 2010 09:22 PM
I would prefer to have a checklist feature, though, instead of using an inactive project for this purpose...
9 Posted by Proximo on 01 Oct, 2010 09:57 PM
Good ideas Lasse.
I use Evernote a lot
David McLaughlin closed this discussion on 11 Feb, 2011 07:38 AM.