[…] One of the problems I have faced when trying to implement GTD with my law school studies and other life projects is managing future actions. GTD focuses on knowing the next action for a task or project. Basically, ask yourself the next thing you need to do in order to move a project along. That is the next action. A given project could have multiple next steps, but a lot of the time there is only one thing you can do next. […]

[…] refactor - This is a new one. When I find an item isn’t getting done — for whatever reason — I tell myself to go back later and refactor it (see also) […]

[…] If you’ve been putting off a bunch of crap on your list, try a quick run-through and get an idea whether all your items are roughly the same “size.” If a task seems really big, make sure it’s not actually a project. If a task seems incredibly, annoyingly small (and especially if you discover it has neighbors that are also tiny), consider whether it might be more do-able if you tracked it outside your regular to-do list. Put ‘em in their own silo, and then come back later to knock them all down at once. […]

[…] Does this ‘next action’ belong someplace else? - “I’ve noticed that there are often items on my ‘next actions’ list that hang around a lot longer than they should. I scan and rescan and sort and add and delete, but there’s always a few stragglers who hang out there for a week or more. Eventually this starts to vex me, and I try to debug why things aren’t getting done.” […]

Nice little checklist to run through. I find I have a lot of similar problems with my NAs.

This is a good list. I find so many times that I want to classify the context for a task before I have committed to it as a next action. I’ve thought about using the priority field to identify a tast as something I’m committing to do before the next review (i.e., priority 2, leaving priority 1 for must do NOW tasks), and leaving all others as priority 3. This way, I can mess with the context if I want, but I’ll know I’ve only committed to tasks with a priority of 1 or 2, and that I need to consider tasks with priority 3 during the next review. Ideally, only tasks I’m really going to accomplish will be priority 1 or 2. Does this make sense?

Clint: Yes, as long as you can set whatever program you’re using to not automatically/always show tasks of priority > 2. (Or you can ignore them sucessfully.) Otherwise, at least in my case, I still don’t feel like I got enough done today, because I’ve got that big list of stuff (even though most of it is not Do Today/Now/Priority[12] stuff).

I thought that was one of the big parts of GTD (though I haven’t read the book yet); that way you can look at your empty (or nearly) list of Next Actions and feel accomplished.

Though now that I think about it, once you do a Next Action, aren’t you supposed to generate/retrieve the action [in the project] after it and add that to your Next Action list? Hm… I hope my copy of the book arrives soon.

I have enjoyed a very productive personal and professional life, but the book did have some great pointers that gave me improved performance after just one day. My list of action items (which I keep on my Palm) now has the added value of listing Next Actions, and the advice of using context/location cagetories like “@computer” and “@phone” and “@ (I use the last when writing email to that person, or prior to a face-to-face) makes scanning the list much faster (one quick sort on my work congeals visually on my screen). I too end up with — well, let’s call them “Klingons” — at the bottom of my list, which I throw back into my palm for a week. The suggestions above will help, but if something keeps coming up, almost without thinking about it, I go ahead and delete it. I find that such items, if important enough, will end up surfacing again, after it has transformed from an amorphous cloud in the sky to a falling knife (or falling gold coins) with obvious Next Actions. —Eric (Phoenix, AZ USA)

Oops, I accidentally used some HTML code characters.

This: “@Phone” and “@ (

should have been this: “@Phone and “@(insert person’s name here).. (I use the last when writing email to that person, or prior to a face-to-face). —Eric

Actionsthat donotgetdone

This got me thinking about my tasks, and I looked through my various lists to see what was getting stuck, instead of getting done. I detected a