[jasong]

Originally Posted by Craig

But [David Allen] also states that any objective that requires more than one step is perforce a project. This is what I've struggled with in implementing GTD in the past: is

- look up movie showtimes @web
- call Mario re: movie tomorrow? @calls

really a project?

It depends on how you got it into your system, and what you're focusing on. If it pops into your head "Oh, I need to call Mario about going to a movie tomorrow", you jot that down. Then you realize, "oh, wait, before I call Mario, I should have a few ideas about movies and times, so I need to 'look up movie show times'" and you jot that down.

Either you can then make "See movies with Mario" a project with two items (seemingly overkill here), or you can make "look up movie show times" an action item of "call mario".

Unfortunately, if you do the latter, you end up with the "action group" and once you've cleaned it up, that action group doesn't show up in the Projects list.

Worse yet, the action "look up movie show times" never shows up as a next action (it shows up as a "remaining" item), and even when you check it off, "call mario" never shows up as a next (or even remaining) action: it's (seemingly) lost for good.

This behavior might simply be a bug, but it underscores the importance of treating items with consistency.

(I suggest you try reproducing this yourself, as it wasn't the behavior I was expecting:

1. Create an action "Call mario about movies", context @calls
2. Create an action "Look up showtimes", context @computer

(use your own contexts, they aren't the important bit here.)

3. In your Inbox, move "Look up showtimes" under "Call mario..."
4. Clean up your Inbox
5. Find the "Call mario" or "look up showtimes" action as a "next" or "available" filter.)