[gary]

How do you track actions required for your areas of responsibility?

Folders. I have an automobile folder for projects. If it's a singleton auto task I use the singleton bucket.

Please know I wasn't putting down your methods. I've actually tried to do what you're doing. I've had "maintain my website" and "keep yards nice" projects. It just didn't work for me.

[dhm2006]

Originally Posted by GeekLady

I find them silly because they are implicit. It would be like making a repeating task for brushing my teeth every morning. Setting that up in OF would be 2 minutes of my life I could never get back. Yeesh.

Brushing your teeth is an action. I was talking about implicit projects. DA seems to promote making implicit projects explicit to determine whether to pursue them or drop them -- in any event, get them off your mind. It is really no different than asking yourself "why am I doing this? what outcome do I seek?"

But as I have said, I maintain singleton lists because it is faster. What I am suggesting is that faster is not necessarily better in all cases.

I am sorry that you find it necessary to ridicule what I said - posting ridicule also takes up "minutes of [your] life [you can] never get back."

[dhm2006]

Originally Posted by gary

Folders. I have an automobile folder for projects. If it's a singleton auto task I use the singleton bucket.

That is what I do also, complete with the singleton bucket. I am looking for a better way, or suggestions of a better way.

[GeekLady]

Brushing my teeth was just an example of something stupid I would waste my time putting in OF. If you really want a sample stupid project, how about "Hygiene" which would contain "brushing my teeth" "showering" and "applying deoderant".

Making that into a project is just as silly as inventing some fictious project about kitchen harmony for the simple task of watering plants.

Originally Posted by dhm2006

Brushing your teeth is an action. I was talking about implicit projects. DA seems to promote making implicit projects explicit to determine whether to pursue them or drop them -- in any event, get them off your mind. It is really no different than asking yourself "why am I doing this? what outcome do I seek?"

But as I have said, I maintain singleton lists because it is faster. What I am suggesting is that faster is not necessarily better in all cases.

I am sorry that you find it necessary to ridicule what I said - posting ridicule also takes up "minutes of [your] life [you can] never get back."

[seismichippo]

Of course, there are those of us who would create a project to contain "water plants" because we forget to do it otherwise. And getting it into the system gets it out of my brain. If it logically fits with other things I need reminding to do I would create a project to hold them.

Fortunately, I do not forget to shower or brush my teeth. But there are many other things that others would put in the, "Duh, that doesn't need to be explicitly part of MY GTD" category, I need to have a reminder or they don't get done. So kitchen harmony it is for me.

Originally Posted by GeekLady

Brushing my teeth was just an example of something stupid I would waste my time putting in OF. If you really want a sample stupid project, how about "Hygiene" which would contain "brushing my teeth" "showering" and "applying deoderant".

Making that into a project is just as silly as inventing some fictious project about kitchen harmony for the simple task of watering plants.

[GeekLady]

Oh, I forget to water plants all the time. I have a notorious black thumb. While single tasks still worked, I had a repeating task to water my plants. But it's not a project. It's just watering my plants, and I don't need a special project to do it. It's just unnecessary detail.

Originally Posted by seismichippo

Of course, there are those of us who would create a project to contain "water plants" because we forget to do it otherwise. And getting it into the system gets it out of my brain. If it logically fits with other things I need reminding to do I would create a project to hold them.

Fortunately, I do not forget to shower or brush my teeth. But there are many other things that others would put in the, "Duh, that doesn't need to be explicitly part of MY GTD" category, I need to have a reminder or they don't get done. So kitchen harmony it is for me.

[Ethan Schoonover]

My canonical singletons action groups:

Grocery Shopping (non repeating tasks)
Household chores (with some repeating, some non repeating tasks)

There are several others as well, but these are my standard examples.

I agree that it's weird to say that they aren't projects but then stick them under projects. It might make more sense to just change the name of the top level "projects" folder rather than move them elsewhere. I still want to have them live near/with my other projects within folders.

Also, in many cases the singletons "groups" (buckets) are really projects of a sort. For the most part they are "perpetual" projects. I.e. Grocery Shopping singletons bucket is really a perpetual project that has a goal of "maintain stock of food for the upcoming week's meals".

So for me, the key difference between singletons and "normal" projects is that singletons projects are, generally, perpetual and never complete.

In some cases, singleton tasks may break out and become full projects on their own (this happens for me with "Household chores" where what I thought was a single task turns into a project when I realize it is actually multiple physical actions).

e

[curt.clifton]

Welcome to the OmniFocus forum, Ethan! That's a snazzy new "Omni" under your username. Congrats.

[Shanana]

How do you track actions required for your areas of responsibility? Do you track these actions differently than you do actions for projects that have definite completion possibility?

I recently started using mind maps to "map" out my areas of responsibility. Then I turn some of the tail end "branches" of the maps into projects. These maps are reviewed during higher level planning sessions and I have one for my for my "get a phd" part of my life and one for my personal development part of my life. Sometimes related projects are placed in folders that represent groups of branches. The maps serve as a sort of very long range reminder of someday maybe projects that aren't really on my radar yet to be in OF. They are also a great way to link little projects to your larger life goals without needing to write out all sort of labour intensive mission statements and that works well for me

In keeping with some of the examples above, if I felt the need and wanted to build up an area of my life such as "taking better care of myself" that branch might have exercise, food and even "hygiene" as branches. Thankfully brushing my teeth is a habit but there are other things in there that might be habits for some (such as running daily) that I need to put in as a project which lives at the end of a branch as "run a half marathon" and then exists as project in the "physical fitness folder".

There are as many ways to do this as there are people I imagine. What ever works for you is best as long as it is working and you aren't wanting more results than you are getting.

[al_f]

Originally Posted by GeekLady

I find them silly because they are implicit. It would be like making a repeating task for brushing my teeth every morning. Setting that up in OF would be 2 minutes of my life I could never get back. Yeesh.

I think David Allen has this covered in the section of GTD where he discusses the fact that you need more control and reminders in areas of your life that have just changed, i.e. where the habits you want to be in place aren't yet. He uses the example of a change in business structure, but it's just as applicable to other areas of life. In that model you certainly wouldn't need a "personal hygiene" checklist/project as the habits are already ingrained (hopefully!).

For me it's more the intermittent single tasks (like checking my reading list of journals for new articles each month, watering plants every week or so, cleaning the filter on our pond) that I need reminding of. I have to admit that I tend to use all-day events in iCal as ticklers for a lot of this stuff, then either do the action that day or create a single action in OF for the task as appropriate. I don't really use repeating tasks in OF at all, which I suspect is a leftover habit from when I used Outlook (and then iCal on its own, shudder) for my GTD implementation.

I'd be interested to know how other people are using OF and iCal (or the calendar app of their choice) in combination in their workflow.