New task will be forgotten because I'm implementing it the wrong way
 

Please help me. I'm stuck with lost tasks because I'm implementing OF and GTD the wrong way.

Situation: A new task popups in my head. This task belongs to "Project X".
What happens is that I bring up the Quick Entry dialogue, and put the task in Project X, because there is where it belongs.

My problem is that this will now be a lost task. Because I never look into Project X, the task will be forgotten until I accidentally look in Project X.


How are you supposed to not forget these things, if you don't put them in the Inbox? Is this why we need to do Reviews? Or should you wait to assign a project until you look at the task in the Inbox?

Any advise appreciated.

You assign it a context, and then it pops up when you are in doing mode and scanning your contexts. If it has a due date, it pops up in forecast mode. If you flag it, it pops up on flagged. Etc.

Doing regular reviews also helps immensely with this sort of thing. It's a chance to look over your projects and say "oops, need to do this" or "Hey, I did that but forgot to check it off" or "You know what? I don't care about this project any longer - let's put it on hold for now and check back in six months."

One thing I do is to use a custom perspective which just shows me all my available tasks, from all contexts and all folders and projects except someday/maybe (or equivalent). Although I have contexts and perspectives for work, private etc it helps me to once in a while open up a long list of all the things waiting to be done. Glancing over them I often am reminded of the fact that I wanted to look into something and that's all it takes. It also helps to sort this list by something that makes sense for you, projects for example. That way you will be reminded that you wanted to do something for project x.

I have found, for my use, that unless I have the time to process the action it is better to just put it into the inbox until I have the time to process it. Otherwise it does tend to disappear. I have found a couple of times that I have entered the same action twice. That shocks my psyche.

[QUOTE=carlsson;103180]Situation: A new task popups in my head. This task belongs to "Project X".
What happens is that I bring up the Quick Entry dialogue, and put the task in Project X, because there is where it belongs.

How are you supposed to not forget these things, if you don't put them in the Inbox? [/QUOTE]

There is a setting, Preferences -> Data -> Clean Up Inbox items which have:, which can be changed to "Both a Project and a Context." The default setting is "Either a Project or a Context." Change it to "Both," and for the example you give, the new task will stay in the Inbox because it has no Context.

I think that forgetting about actions once they are filed away in a project is a feature, not a bug. You have to be careful with it (e.g. as people point out, try to do your reviews), but I think that the benefit is that you can focus your attention on moving your top project to completion (or as far along as you want to take it) without being pulled away by little tasks elsewhere.

Part of the GTD process is getting into a routine of doing daily & weekly reviews. [URL="http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=10626&page=2"]There is a thread about that on these forums[/URL]!

HTH

[QUOTE=Grail;103336]Part of the GTD process is getting into a routine of doing daily & weekly reviews. [URL="http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=10626&page=2"]There is a thread about that on these forums[/URL]!

HTH[/QUOTE]

Great, I have missed that one.

Thanks!