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I posted this over at the David Allen forums, thought I'd also post it here since OmniFocus is the tool I'm using as I attempt to do a reasonably accurate GTD implementation. Here’s that post:

How do you know when you need to take action on something?

After several readings of GTD and RFA, it seems to me that in an ideal/pure GTD implementation, few if any tasks would actually have dates attached to them, and that the call to action is either reviewing a project and seeing next actions, or examining a context. Neither of these really work for me.

a quick note: I use OmniFocus as my task management system and I'm pretty happy with it, for the most part.

A good portion of my tasks are date driven. Call someone on a certain date, replace the air filter on a certain date, prepare payroll or a monthly royalty report on a certain date, etc...So I give those completion due dates and have a defined view (perspective) that shows me what is due now/overdue/coming soon (next few days).

Then I use the flag indicator to mark urgencies. So if I only have time to get a few things done that day, the ones with flags are the ones that MUST be accomplished. I have a separate view to show me flagged items by due date.

Another big chunk of tasks for me is responding to clients. When clients email or call me with a request for info or a question, I have a separate project called ‘Clients’, I add the task to that project and don’t bother with a due date and have a separate view to just see those tasks in a focused way.

And then there’s everything else, and that’s the category of stuff I feel like I don’t have a good handle on. The more items I put due dates on, the less I feel like there’s stuff floating in my system that I'm not on top of. But that means I'm now putting dates on things that don’t organically need them, so they’re getting arbitrary ones. And that means when that respective date rolls around, I like at what’s due now and see a mix of things that truly are due now combined with things I could really do whenever I felt like it, that’s kind of confusing. Intuitively, I feel like there’s a better way to handle this.

I’d love to hear if anyone else has had a similar issue in their workflow, and if they’ve successfully addressed it in a way that works for them, what that was.

Thanks.
 
What I do to avoid this problem is to clear out the things that have actual upcoming due dates. So you have to call someone by a certain date and change the air filter by whenever, whatever it is, if it is available and in the next week, do it today. Maybe look over things that are due in the next three weeks that will take a long time; do that today as if it were due next week. At the end of this, now you are free the rest of the week to work on things in order of importance.

I never fool around with flags, which I think are more trouble than they are worth, but I put all of my projects in order of importance. If you then sort your groups in project order, then you can start at the top and work your way down and you will be handling all of those undated actions that are important to you.
 
thanks Lucas, but my stuff that has real due dates has them for reasons. If it says it needs to happen on 12/3, then THAT is when it needs to happen. Looking forward and ‘cleaning them up’ is not an option. If I make a commitment “hey, I will call you sometime next Thursday to discuss this proposal” then that’s when it needs to happen.

The ‘solution’ of “just try to get them off your list as soon as you can” does not strike me as a sound and repeatable process, and even if it were, it won’t work for my workflow.
 
also, arranging my projects in “order of importance” is not workable either because most of my projects don’t really have that kind of organic order to them. I’m really going to sort projects like improving health, caring for family, growing my business and paying bills in order of importance? Nope.

Some projects, like “fertilize the back yard” may lend itself to that concept, but the majority do not, they all have relatively equal importance and one may emerge at a given time as a bit more important based on where my focus has been of late. I don’t know about others but I'm rarely able to give equal attention to all facets of my life on a consistent basis, so I'll go through periods where for a few days I spend a lot of time with family and don’t get a lot done on enhancing our business’ website, and then I'll spend a lot of time grinding on the site and maybe have to cancel an evening tennis game to get that done. So priorities evolve and shift over time. Maybe others have project lists with static and clear priorities relative to each other. Mine sure don’t.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by rmathes View Post
thanks Lucas, but my stuff that has real due dates has them for reasons. If it says it needs to happen on 12/3, then THAT is when it needs to happen. Looking forward and ‘cleaning them up’ is not an option. If I make a commitment “hey, I will call you sometime next Thursday to discuss this proposal” then that’s when it needs to happen.
I trust you are also putting on start dates on these actions that can only be done the day they are due? If so, all these sorts of actions are largely irrelevant to your problem, because you'll do them the day they are due (after all, you've said you can't do them at any other time). No real thought required for their scheduling except to the extent that you might need to decide on the ordering of the day's work. It almost sounds like you could just call most of these tasks "hard landscape" and put them on the calendar instead of in OmniFocus.

Quote:
The ‘solution’ of “just try to get them off your list as soon as you can” does not strike me as a sound and repeatable process, and even if it were, it won’t work for my workflow.
Yet it is an underlying principle of GTD...you look at your lists, assess what is most important, and do the next action. Repeat endlessly. Is that not working your lists, trying to get actions done as soon as you can?

You mentioned in one of your other posts that reviewing wasn't working for you to keep projects moving along. I find that reviewing is better done as a daily process to keep things moving along. Here's the key: you don't try to review everything every day! Instead, you spread the work around, so that you do a smaller chunk each day, and pay some attention to the next actions of the projects you review that day, even if they aren't necessarily due.

OmniFocus allows you to specify (in the inspector) the next review date and the review period for every individual project. If you use prime numbers of days (2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, etc.) you minimize the "piling up" effect, and if you split up groups of projects with the same review period and start them reviewing on successive days so that about 1/T of them get reviewed each day, where T is the review period, you can smooth out the workload pretty nicely. Make a perspective grouping by Next Review date and only review stuff due for review today (or earlier, if you skipped one).

Also, if you have projects where the review isn't spurring any progress, perhaps you haven't really made a commitment to doing them, and they should be put on hold, dropped, or deleted. Or maybe you need to break down the next actions into more digestible chunks.
 
Here are two things I would try. If you don't want to try them, well, ok, but then I'm not sure why you would have posted on the forums to begin with.

First, if you have things that are supposed to happen on a specific date and time and not until then, e.g. calling particular clients, my first suggestion would be to put them in iCal / other calendar. I think the general consensus around here is that OF isn't really designed for these fixed appointment kind of things. iCalViewer is a great piece of software for keeping track of those upcoming appointments if you find iCal a hassle.

Alternatively, if you hate that idea and you really want everything in OF, then I would at least use the start dates in OF to keep an appointment out of your available list until the day it is supposed to happen. If there are other things that can be done before they are strictly speaking due, I think it can be a great aid to get them out of the way so that you will be less dragged away from the things that you feel like doing for the things that are hanging over your head. That's my advice, I think that it is at least rational, but if you don't want to try it, I certainly can't make you.

When it comes to prioritizing your projects, I agree that it is crazy talk to say that your business or your health is always going to be more important than your family. But, I would say that certain projects related to your business, your health, or your family are going to be priorities to you for a span of time. If you move that project/those projects to the top during your weekly reviews, then when you are in context mode and going through a particular context, you can say, "ok for this particular context, the first item on the list is the one I want to really make sure gets done, since I had already decided during my review that it was a priority; also the next one is really important, etc." Of course, at the time, you may decide that some of them should be skipped over for whatever reason. Not a big deal, since we already decided that they weren't immediately coming due. Maybe in your next review you'll move them down the list; or maybe you'll say they're still important and be at the top of a list to be handled.

I'll say the above paragraph a different way. For me, I felt like I got a much more confident feeling that everything on my to do list was under control when I took the approach that everything with an available status should be done. That is to say, if something has an available status, for the most part, I shouldn't be skipping over it; I'm in the proper context to get it done, I should just bite the bullet and do it. That is also to say, there are more available actions than there are hours in a particular day. You won't get through the list. So to figure out which actions should be done and which shouldn't, I decide which projects are generally more important during my weekly reviews, I put them in that order; then, when deciding what to do, I pick among the actions that are at the top of the screen, so that I have seven or ten actions that are most important to pick from instead of fifty that are all over the place. Of course, if you have time constraints, you might use the estimated time filter to limit your choices to those that would fit in the time that you have available. Again, this is just my answer to the question that you posed and which I assumed that you wanted an answer to.
 
whpalmer4 and lucas, thank you both for your detailed and helpful replies, I appreciate them. I’m going to comment on both at the same time.

Both of you recommended using start dates instead of due dates to eliminate seeing these date dependent tasks as available when they really aren’t. I’m going to try that. Right now I've used due, and I have a view where I group and sort by due, and the status filter is ‘due soon’. That’s worked well in terms of only showing me what I need to do today or what is past due but doesn’t show anything else that is available. I might decide to stick with the due approach (over start), but I'm going to play with it for a bit and see what I see.

Re using iCal for these tasks, that’s something on which I have a significant philosophical disagreement. I know there are those that think date dependent TASKS should go onto a calendar and I absolutely disagree. I believe a calendar is for events, and a task management system is for tasks. Some of those tasks are date dependent, some aren’t, but tasks and events are fundamentally different things. One way I look at it, if something needs to happen not just on a certain date but also at a certain time, that’s probably an event. If I need to call Bill sometime Thursday and it doesn’t really matter when, that’s a task and it goes into OmniFocus. If I need to call Bill on Thursday at 2pm, that’s an event and it goes into my calendar. Works for me, ymmv.

re my comment about just working what’s available, I think the start vs due date thing remedies that. for me and the types of tasks I'm talking about, their synonymous. But if I can change the type of date I use such that I can get a better view of my data, I'll absolutely change up.

Love the idea of using prime numbers for splitting up reviews of various projects. Only issue I see there is trying to keep track of which numbers I've used for which projects and maybe that takes on a complexity of its own. But I'll play with that and just randomly assign them and see what I see. If it’s something I want to review roughly weekly, maybe I alternate between 5/7/11 to spread it out.

One of the things I've focused on this holiday weekend is the review process. My home office, well, it needed help. So I spent about 4 hours yesterday doing a ‘first level’ sweep and putting just about everything in my inbox and then processing it all. Felt great and I can already feel the mental benefits from doing it. I say ‘first level’ and ‘just about everything’ because I focused on my inbox, mail, loose files/folders/papers laying around, etc... I still have some stacks of Cds and DVDs, for example, or reference material that rarely gets any of my attention and I'll get to those inputs in a secondary sweep. They’re the kinds of things I'm OK with leaving on a shelf, but I'd like to go through them anyway as I can probably weed out some things I no longer need close at hand.

Re lucas’ suggestion and explanation of project prioritization, that makes some sense and I might play with that. My gut reaction is that I'd be prioritizing some projects because they lend themselves to it, and not others which really don’t, so my mind wouldn’t fully trust that the resulting list order had genuine meaning. But I'm going to play with it and see what happens. Thanks for the clarification.

And finally, the last point from whpalmer4 is a great one in that if a project just keeps hanging around for months with no progress, then something needs to change, either my commitment to it or the next actions I'm asking of myself.

Thanks again, folks. Much appreciated.
 
I understand your dilemma about due dates -- I have many ongoing projects that need to be addressed on a daily basis (sometimes there are specific actions that need to be taken, and other times I just need to do them for a few hours -- such as practicing my instrument, etc) and then there are a series of things that are hard and fast due dates.

With the inbetween stuff - I divide it at the beginning of the projects list in the sidebar into "Upcoming/urgent projects", "ongoing (long term) projects" and "backburner projects" -- these each have folders and are separated from the actual list of projects by type. Each of these projects within any of the three categories, of course, also has a place in my life, and so it appears it two places -- a dummy project appears in one of the three lists if it applies, and then I put a link to where all the info for the project resides in my actual database. That way I have an easy way to see what needs to be done every day, and if I want to see the actions that have to be taken, I can click on the link and go to the actual project.

I realize this is not exactly what you were asking for, and I agree that it would be nice to have a system where there are serious due dates for stuff that is really due, and then a different kind of due date for stuff that would be nice to get accomplished on that day, or stuff that needs to be done over the period of the next week, so it would just appear every day for a week, etc. Other people have mentioned this on the forums too, so I'm hoping OF will figure out a way to do something like this....
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by rmathes View Post
Both of you recommended using start dates instead of due dates to eliminate seeing these date dependent tasks as available when they really aren’t.
Minor quibble: not instead of, but in addition to
Quote:
I’m going to try that. Right now I've used due, and I have a view where I group and sort by due, and the status filter is ‘due soon’. That’s worked well in terms of only showing me what I need to do today or what is past due but doesn’t show anything else that is available. I might decide to stick with the due approach (over start), but I'm going to play with it for a bit and see what I see.
I don't work from just one perspective. I'll look at the one that shows items due today and substantially work that down to empty before I do anything other than the daily routine stuff from my "tickler" perspective that just shows tasks that became available today. You can construct such a "tickler" perspective in context mode, grouping by start, available actions, closing the groups for actions you don't want to view, and saving it as a perspective with the restore expansion box checked.
Quote:
Re using iCal for these tasks, that’s something on which I have a significant philosophical disagreement. I know there are those that think date dependent TASKS should go onto a calendar and I absolutely disagree.
David Allen among them :-)
Quote:
I believe a calendar is for events, and a task management system is for tasks. Some of those tasks are date dependent, some aren’t, but tasks and events are fundamentally different things. One way I look at it, if something needs to happen not just on a certain date but also at a certain time, that’s probably an event. If I need to call Bill sometime Thursday and it doesn’t really matter when, that’s a task and it goes into OmniFocus. If I need to call Bill on Thursday at 2pm, that’s an event and it goes into my calendar. Works for me, ymmv.
It works for you, and that's what's important. I tend to put things that I need to do on a specific day (what DA calls "day-specific actions") in OmniFocus with a start date of the beginning of the day and a due date at the appropriate time, but more as a practical matter than a philosophical disagreement with the standard GTD line; I dislike iCal's data entry UI, and I always have OmniFocus open. I also have relatively few "call at 2pm" tasks vs. "get this done by 5pm".
Quote:
Love the idea of using prime numbers for splitting up reviews of various projects. Only issue I see there is trying to keep track of which numbers I've used for which projects and maybe that takes on a complexity of its own. But I'll play with that and just randomly assign them and see what I see. If it’s something I want to review roughly weekly, maybe I alternate between 5/7/11 to spread it out.
To give credit where credit is due, the prime number bit is Curt Clifton's idea, though I've got a post somewhere that illustrates why it works so well, and how to smooth out the review workload in a bit more detail.

It's very flexible, and not worth agonizing over getting it exactly right, because you'll likely always have new projects showing up and old projects being completed or dropped. If a project doesn't seem to be making as much progress as you would like, change the review period to a smaller number. If a project is being pushed towards the back burner, or simply doesn't need to be reviewed as often, pick a bigger number. As long as they all get reviewed periodically, and you either do some work on them or ruthlessly cull the herd, everything should make progress.

I think one should still do the longer-term reviews. My view is that the weekly review helps drive execution of tasks, whereas the longer-term ones guide your direction, make sure you're meeting your goals, etc. DA's weekly review makes sense if you are doing GTD on paper, but with a computer to do some of the drudgery of keeping track of what you have and haven't reviewed yet this week, each project having a variable review cycle becomes practical, and can have great value. With a weekly review, you're only forced to confront the lack of progress once a week, but set that review period down to daily and do a daily review cycle and it's like those annoying questions from spouse or parent without the inconvenience :-)
Quote:
Re lucas’ suggestion and explanation of project prioritization, that makes some sense and I might play with that. My gut reaction is that I'd be prioritizing some projects because they lend themselves to it, and not others which really don’t, so my mind wouldn’t fully trust that the resulting list order had genuine meaning. But I'm going to play with it and see what happens. Thanks for the clarification.
The whole list doesn't have to be ordered, just nudge something to the top if it needs a bit of emphasis. After that, you can choose by date added if you want to get some of the older tasks done, or use Curt Clifton's "Where to Focus" dashboard widget to pick the context with the most accumulated actions, or even your magic 8 ball or other executive decision-making tool.
Quote:
And finally, the last point from whpalmer4 is a great one in that if a project just keeps hanging around for months with no progress, then something needs to change, either my commitment to it or the next actions I'm asking of myself.
It applies to stuff, too, though one shouldn't look to me as a shining example in that regard :-)
 
whpalmer4.....thanks for those clarifications. the one challenge I have with start dates is it adds another level of complexity to a system that already has a lot of complexity. The quick entry window, for example, let’s me input due dates but not start dates. So now if I want to add start dates I have to manually go back and fiddle with those tasks, whereas now, unless I want to specify one as a repeating task, once I'm done with quick entry, I'm usually done. That’s just one example. But I'm giving this some thought.

ReeEs....that IS what I'm looking for, any kind of suggestion for dealing with this stuff.

Right now I have 2 project folders, ‘Work’ and ‘Personal’. But I really like the idea of adding a folder that contains those projects I'm more actively working or more urgently deserve attention. That idea has some potential.
 
 


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