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Originally Posted by Paul
I think you are trying to make your projects and contexts too fine-grained. That might be helpful in a project management system that is used for tracking & reporting status across an organization, but for managing your own time and attention, it is creating busy-work.
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I don't agree with you on this Paul.
The purpose of GTD is to define the next action. An example from the book...
If you have to get new tires for the car, the next action is not,
get new tires for the car
the next action is not
call tire store
the next action is
get phone number for tire store
With waiting for, the next action is not: it's on a waiting for list.
The next action is one of two things:
1. Do some action to get it off waiting for (make a phone call, send an email)
2. Delay the waiting for until you are ready to decide what action to take.
When you have multiple vendors, with different projects, I don't want to use the brain power to go down a list and think...
when was the last time i contacted them
how do i contact them
do i need to contact them
I want to go down a list and just crank widgets... just crank through a list.
The point of the context lists is for them to really be next actions, so you go down a list and just make phone calls, or send emails, or paint the house. Not that you go down a list and think, hmm... do i need to do something about this?
The point of GTD is you do your thinking in the planning, and your action in the actions.
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Originally Posted by Paul
'Waiting for' is for listing open requests or delegations that you've made to other people. If you plan to send a follow-up email, you are still "waiting for"; if you send a follow-up email, you are still "waiting for." You don't have to move some status marker around to keep track of that.
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I agree that Waiting for is for listing open requests. The way I am visualizing the software is, I don't want to see waiting for items that I can't do anything about. I want to go through a waiting for list as if it were a tickler file, only showing me what needs to be brought to my attention when it needs to be brought to my attention.
If I get to a waiting for item that needs action, I should create an action in the appropriate list to get the waiting for item off the list. Make a phone call, or send an email, or have a meeting.
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Originally Posted by Paul
And in your software install example, you have considered separate tasks which need to happen sequentially to be separate projects, and then wished to have a mechanism for your system to recognize when the next 'project' becomes actionable. Instead, keep it simple:
Install Software project:
-purchase server software (Next Action)
-install server software
-install cool software
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The software example was just an example. I have projects that are more complex than that, and one part of a project to be completed, is relying on the completing on part of another project.