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Hard Landscape, GTD & OmniFocus Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris View Post
The only thing I put in my calendar are events that have a specific time and duration (possibly estimated). That's because I use my calendar to manage time conflicts. Anything that needs to be done on a specific date but doesn't need to be done at a certain time goes into OmniFocus, with both the beginning and due dates being the same. If I try to put these latter events in my calendar, it makes it difficult for me to use the calendar to identify true time conflicts.
I'm doing exactly what Chris describes. A few keys to making this work for me:
  • Every evening I review my Tickler's Perspective: Context View, Active Contexts, Grouped by Start, Showing Remaining items. I'm focusing on the items scheduled to start tomorrow. If there is something hard-landscape there, like take out the garbage, then I write it on a slip of paper and put it where I won't miss it in the morning. Typically that's on top of my laptop or car keys so I have to pick it up to go to work.
  • I begin my "doing" for the day in my Urgent Perspective: Context View, Active Contexts, Grouped by Due, Showing Available items. The tasks due today, or overdue, get first attention. But note, if a task is overdue and still on my list, it must not have really been due. So I need to renegotiate that deadline, either with myself or with someone else.
  • Here's the kicker. I have to fight hard to resist the urge to assign artificial due dates to things just to push them up my list. To me this is the key insight of GTD's focus on separating hard landscape items from other actions. Once I start assigning artificial due dates, it's back on-board the guilt mobile for me. That's a ride I'm glad I jumped off!
__________________
Cheers,

Curt
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by curt.clifton View Post
[*]Here's the kicker. I have to fight hard to resist the urge to assign artificial due dates to things just to push them up my list. To me this is the key insight of GTD's focus on separating hard landscape items from other actions. Once I start assigning artificial due dates, it's back on-board the guilt mobile for me. That's a ride I'm glad I jumped off!
I hear you my brotha.

I've started assigning projects start dates to help prioritize.
I find I have so many projects going on, that I want to focus on a couple more than others.

I haven't mastered this aspect yet... I'm still figuring out how to get to the point where I am focusing on getting a couple projects done instead of one action from a lot of projects.
 
I hired a new assistant recently, and one of her organizational tips is to assign a due date for everything. For me it works in the opposite way it works for Curt; that due date is immutable and is my cue to do or destroy the task. If my assistant asks me about moving the due date twice, I know it's time to put that on my someday-maybe list, or negotiate it (usually right into the circular file).

This might not work without an assistant to continuously bust your balls about what you have to get done though.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by djbell View Post
I hired a new assistant recently, and one of her organizational tips is to assign a due date for everything. For me it works in the opposite way it works for Curt; that due date is immutable and is my cue to do or destroy the task. If my assistant asks me about moving the due date twice, I know it's time to put that on my someday-maybe list, or negotiate it (usually right into the circular file).

This might not work without an assistant to continuously bust your balls about what you have to get done though.
That's an interesting workflow. I'll let that one percolate.
 
My point exactly. "Hard Landscape" items are still action items, they just have a specific date and/or time attached. Sure, mixing them on a calendar with other actions is a bad idea. But a calendar is really just a different way of viewing a specific category of actions (hard landscape).

It seems needlessly complex to run two different programs, with the complexity and possibilites for problems (think sync) this creates, when all you are trying to do is view scheduled and non-scheduled tasks separately. This also ignores one of the biggest advantages computers have over paper -- they can show you the same information in many different ways without any need to create a new copy.

Of course, having done software development, I can see that a big new feature like this is something that should be deferred for version 2.0. :-)
 
This thread inspired me to add due dates to all my projects and tasks, and devise a new 'due, due, remaining, any, all' context perspective. Now I have enough 'calendar' inside OF, and not too much. Thanks!

(If only perspectives would remember the status of show/hide triangles...)
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by sdennett View Post
My point exactly. "Hard Landscape" items are still action items, they just have a specific date and/or time attached. Sure, mixing them on a calendar with other actions is a bad idea. But a calendar is really just a different way of viewing a specific category of actions (hard landscape).

It seems needlessly complex to run two different programs, with the complexity and possibilites for problems (think sync) this creates, when all you are trying to do is view scheduled and non-scheduled tasks separately. This also ignores one of the biggest advantages computers have over paper -- they can show you the same information in many different ways without any need to create a new copy.
This seems to be a point on which reasonable people can disagree. Unlike you, I conceptualize hard landscape items as ontologically distinct from the more flexible actions on my list, because they are the points where other peoples' schedules take precedence over my own decisions on what to do based on context, priority, available time, and energy level, and where even a decision to renegotiate the event time or place needs my immediate attention. As others have said, one of the big advantages of GTD is that it separates the hard landscape items from others. If that's not the way you think, you might find other programs more congenial.

Also, I prefer relatively simple, lean tools that concentrate on doing a few things well instead of many things badly--mh rather than pine.
 
 


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