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Neverending projects
Adam Byrtek | Sep 22 2007
Organizing even the simplest multi-step activities into projects is one of the most powerful ideas brought to me by GTD. I had assumed that a project has to be something big, involving whole team for a long period of time, but after reading the book I understood how dividing one's activities into discrete projects can help with organization. However refining the project list is not as easy as it looks like at the beginning. I found my ways to do it right, but I'm stuck when it comes to "neverending projects". For example in my small company we are having ongoing recruitment, people submit their applications, we have to contact them, arrange meetings and reply in time. This is like project that never ends, because creating separate projects for every candidate doesn't really make sense. The same goes for prospect customers, and many other situation. By definition project should lead to completion, so what is your suggestion to deal with such "neverending projects"? Adam Byrtek 4 Comments
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 ChecklistsSubmitted by wood.tang on September 22, 2007 - 1:10pm.
This may not work for all types of neverending projects, but for repeating processes like your recruiting example, you could create a standard checklist of tasks for each type and use that as a template. Example: Step 1: Sift through resumes, sort out ones on construction paper. Step 2: Call back ones who sound like they're hot. Step 3: Arrange meeting at bar with the best wings. Et cetera, et cetera. Then, for every new candidate, print that out/copy onto an index card/type in a spreadsheet and check off each step. Disco. I write little TV and music reviews for a parenting website, and this works well. They're short and require the same steps every time: watch show/listen to music, write, send to editor, wait for check. Like you said, it doesn't make sense to make a separate project for each one, so I have one project in my list for the reviews, and that reminds me to look at my checklist. » POSTED IN:
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