This seems similar in concept to what I have had to learn to do with my projects at work. Each project is actually a standard set of subprojects (or stages) with multiple tasks for each subproject, and I may have several projects being worked at the same time but in different stages. To help me maintain a clue on what was being done, I set up a macro in Outlook to automatically create a task for all the subprojects of a project. Then I add a due date to the task so that I can use the handy reminder feature in Outlook (“Hey, David - you should be done with this by now!”). Then I just work from the list.

The difficulty seems to be when your various projects are so distinct as to have unique subprojects or processes, but basic project management techniques seem to help with this, I think.

I was a bit surprised when GTD made no mention of how to plan for due dates, other than setting your “hard” landscape. For me the trick is to make a very modest daily to-do list that includes things like “Start research for article” or “Revise that paper for 1 hour”. Not promising any big finishes, but slap enough of those together and things move along.

David: I ganked some great tips from Janice Fraser who has an excellent, Excel-based method for tracking repeating projects with parallel tracks. It’s great for publishing in particular.

I know what you mean about those small differences. The artful thing in PM is learning to key on how projects differ one to another. That’s where the devil lives. :)

I wouldn’t call your daily to-do list heretical at all. I think that when Allen rails against putting a daily to-do list on your calendar or in a tickler file, he’s talking about trying to write one for the distant future. Writing one as a part of a daily mini-review is not only kosher, but recommended: “Review your lists as often as you need to, to get them off your mind.” I’ve been using your Seven Things hack for exactly that—it helps me to sweep through my list of actions in the morning and select a handful of the most important. Of course, I rarely only have 7, but it’s the same idea. And when I get interrupted, having that list helps me get right back into flow (which is the whole point of GTD, isn’t it?).

Leland: I dunno. I think the idea of a daily list defies the “touch it once” philosophy, although I see your point. Maybe you’re right, and I am kosher.

(Speaking of which, I love that GTD fandom has evolved to a point where relative strangers can conduct Talmudic debates on its interpretation. ;-)   )

I’ll concur w/ Leland—daily to-do lists are useful and not out of step with GTD. The benefit of GTD (and I am relatively new to it all) is both a way of conceiving my tasks and a location for keeping everything together. As long as I know that I have everything I need to do on a master list, then picking the key items for the day/week seems reasonable. If I make a daily to-do list, I still consulted my larger NextAction list, and I continue to consult it throughout the day, uptdating the to-do list accordingly. Allen’s argument about daily to-do’s was that a daily to-do should not be your only system. If that daily to-do is tied to a larger action items list (isn’t your NextActions list really just a big to-do?) then it seems to me you are being efficient. What Allen wanted (and what the classic to-do misses) is the big picture that you acquire setting up his system. That’s my read.

It seems that, rather than creating a new list, what you’re doing is reshuffling your existing project subgroups (subprojects?) and defining a near-term goal. Hardly trayf. ;)

Let’s see. If I was to apply this to my idiosyncratic folders-and-cards GTD project system, I’d take whatever projects minifolders are “on the map” for this week (Sprocket Redesign recommendations and budget SWAG would each have their own minifolders), and pin them up over the desk. Then pin a “near-term goal” up next to them.

There. You’ve got a short-term commitment to accomplish that limited subset of your larger goal, without having to rewrite any extra lists.

Not to get all “let’s talk about me,” it’s just retranslating into how I’d implement it help grok the idea. I like it, and now I have to go take pictures when I get home. :)

The “avoid daily to-do’s” rule was also to keep you from feeling defeated when one of those went unfinished and you had to move it to another day. So part of it is conditioning yourself that it is okay if one of your non-time specific next actions doesn’t get done, as long as it stays on your list for later use.

The latest Palm OS has a nifty feature to help do this. You can pick certain to-do list categories to show up on your calendar when you assign a date to the to-do item. Each day, review your next actions in your to-do list, assign today’s date to your “daily wish list” and they sit on your calendar for the day. If you don’t cross it off, it pops up the next day, where you can always set it back to “no date” if the window of opportunity has passed.

As a long-time GTD acolyte, I gradually evolved to doing exactly the same thing on both fronts. And, after months of testing, it seems to be yielding stellar results.

At first, I similarly felt like I was ‘cheating’ somehow - especially with the daily subset of actions. But, eventually, I realized it was actually bringing me closer to, not farther from, the ‘touch it once’ ideal.

The area of GTD that has always seemed to come up a bit short for me is choosing which next action to do next. It took me a while, but I finally realized that my problem stemmed from having a job that, like yours, didn’t provide nearly enough ‘contexts’ to break down my work reasonably. Running a movie company, I have huge @online and @phone lists, and very little else. With only the unbroken lists, each time I finished a task, I’d have to sift through the entirety of both, looking for the next most important thing. In essence, I was ‘touching’ every single one of my next actions countless times each day, weighing the priority of each every time I moved from one task to the next.

Instead, now, I do the weighing just once each morning, and separate out the next actions that are the highest priority. I feel far less overwhelmed - not because the shorter list gives me the false impression that I have less to accomplish, but because I’m no longer subconsciously terrified that something high-priority is falling through the cracks with successive list scans.

As talmud study is always an attempt to examine and extend the spirit underlying the letter of the law, I can’t help but think Rav Allen would be pleased with the modifications.

JoshD—could you explain more about your setup? That photo looks intriguing. I have been trying for a while to move to a completely paper-based GTD implementation and this idea of using little envelopes looks awesome.

I’ve been doing something like this for a while now, but I really like the ‘moving part’ nomenclature, which definitely clarifies things for me. I’ll be implementing this for sure tomorrow at my weekly review.