[Layth]

Anyone here has suggestions for a good writing workflow?

My old work flow:

* Project 1:
- research project
- outline project
- write X pages of project
- write X section of project

And I do that as appropriate across all the writing projects on my slate.

What I liked: I can at a glance see all the writing projects I'm working on.

What I didn't like: The actual tasks are too spread out between projects.

New work flow:

* Writing (as project name):
- task(s) for everything I'm writing

What I like: The number of projects is now greatly reduced

What I don't like: now that everything is in one folder, it's too cluttered to sort out. I can't easily see all the writing projects without inspecting all the tasks individually.

Any ideas to increase my efficiency?

[DrJJWMac]

The old workflow suggests that writing X pages or X section are defined milestones along the way to complete a given Project. My immediate question is, do you have any cases where for example the two tasks ...

- write X pages for project A
- write X pages for project B

... are actually IDENTICAL? In other words, when you complete writing for project A, you also complete it for project B? Is this what you perhaps mean by "the tasks are too spread out between projects"?

The new workflow suggests that Writing either is a stand-alone Project that will end someday OR is an open-ended, single-action container of tasks that could go on forever. You already seem to sense this in your comments that "... it's too cluttered ... I can't see all the projects ..."

So, what do you mean by "the tasks are too spread out between projects"?

--
JJW

[Layth]

Thanks DrJJWMac for your reply.

So in my case:

- Project A
- Project B

are completely different assignments. So if I complete Project A, I still have to do project C, D, E...

I try to make my own milestones on a project-to-project basis. Usually, but not always, it's in the form of writing X pages or a specific section of a project.

So in the original post when I said "the tasks are too spread out between projects" on the old workflow. I meant that each project had at most 3 tasks associated with it at any given time. Sometimes, if a writing project is early enough in development it could only have one task contained with it.

Perspectives helped a bit to make viewing all my tasks less cumbersome.

By "the tasks are too spread out between projects", you actually hit the nail on the head. Using that new workflow does make it seem endless and overwhelming.

Ideally, I guess, what I'm ultimately trying to do is achieve a happy medium. Where I don't have a project for each writing assignment cause then I have so many projects, but at the same time like you said under one "writing" container that one writing project becomes too cluttered to become particularly useful.

I hope that makes more sense.

[DrJJWMac]

My experience in a similar line was that having multiple projects was eventually easier to manage than having one project with multiple tasks. The sense of accomplishment I had when checking off a project as completed was a big push for this. Also, muliple projects break down easier for my Kanban-style board and review to help push a project forward through. The Mega-Project with sub-Groups kept me a bit confused about the sense of each sub-Group ... I kept wanting to add or subtract other sub-Groups in the Mega-Project for whatever reason. That was the overwhelming for me.

As one thought ... do you know how to create a "Project X" template that contains all nominal tasks? When you need to start a new writing project, duplicate the template and rename its title. This way, you are not making sets of tasks in a new project in a step-by-step fashion, rather, they are all set up for you in one step. Would this help some of the tedium in creating a project?

Also, are these writing tasks part of a larger project, or are they self-contained projects? In either case, do they repeat themselves, much like routine reports? Again, this might help redefine the organization you create.

Finally, are you aware of how to use start dates to hide projects or tasks until a certain point in time? For example, if you cannot start Project C until after Project B is completely done, then set the start date on Project C for some time after you know that Project B will certainly be done. Would this help reduce some of the clutter in viewing your task lists?

In essence then ... OF really does not have a happy medium between the two extremes that you mention. Using start dates and contexts and perspectives in either case is the way that you have to work this.

Hope this helps you find some clarity.

--
JJW

[Oogiem]

Originally Posted by Layth

Ideally, I guess, what I'm ultimately trying to do is achieve a happy medium. Where I don't have a project for each writing assignment cause then I have so many projects, but at the same time like you said under one "writing" container that one writing project becomes too cluttered to become particularly useful.

I'd take a look at why you think a separate project for each writing task is too many projects. Can some of them be on hold for now? Do you really have to work on all of them at the same time?

Personally I have gone to hundreds of separate individual projects because I can't handle the sub-project dependencies and I spent far too much time tweaking how I looked at things rather than doing things. I use context to separate my tasks into logical groups.

Maybe you need to reset your expectations of what is a reasonable number of projects to be juggling at one time?

If it helps right now my OF system has 236 current, active, being worked on, projects with a further 600 or so on hold or pending.