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'Dynamic' Projects - new components being added/removed constantly

This is a rather odd predicament.

My organization has recently migrated to a new credit card processing system and I'm one who developed most of the software that runs it. So, I spend a great deal of time with one- or two-step "projects" that involve investigating small glitches or bugs. These can take anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour to figure out, and it's very difficult to tell how long it will take just by looking at the issue description (which makes in-basket processing rather difficult, for one thing). Here's my problem(s):

  • Do I create a new "project" for each of these items? The only reason I can think of not to is it can take a minute to create the project and folder and might only take a couple more minutes to actually perform the action.
  • I don't have my own office, so filing cabinet space is an issue. I've only got one drawer for my reference and support materials, so I have to be somewhat stingy with my drawer space.

I've considered creating a project called "Credit Card Issues" and adding/removing items from the list as they come in and are solved, but that seems somewhat anti-GTD in that the project outcome and scope aren't well defined.

Any suggestions? Thanks!

juniorbird's picture

I don't think it's that...

I don't think it's that odd of a challenge; many of us have "urgent" projects that pop up on our desks and are blocking to all other activity.

Projects have two major advantages over monolithic to-dos:

  • Planning a project forces you to visualize the whole process
  • Projects give you small first steps, if getting started is a challenge

But, if you're really doing repetitive, one-hour tasks, it's probably the case that neither of these are important. Every time you whack one of these bugs, you go through essentially the same steps, so you don't need to think about the process (unless the bug is particularly hairy -- then you might want to create a project). I'd just go with the monolithic to-dos on this one.

 
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