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Handling Non-Dated, but Important Next Actions (OmniFocus, GTD method)
Scottw | Jan 24 2008
I currently use OmniFocus to implement my GTD method. I find it to be about the best organization app and I live and breath by it and iCal. I try to keep my inbox at zero, and I feel as though I am running with all four on the floor and while that might look funny, my system seems to work for me. HOWEVER... In OmniFocus, I typically tag things with a start day of TODAY (to track when it was entered) unless it has a specific start date that happens in the future. For example, if I need to change the oil in the car, I might put the start date for Saturday with an expiration of Sunday so that it will be "front center" when I reference OmniFocus on what I need to get done come Saturday/Sunday. Let's say that the kids get sick, unannounced visitors show up at your front door to stay and a last minute project from a client all combined means, getting the oil changed is last on your list. Come Monday... WHAT DO I DO WITH THAT ACTION? If the car is not in danger of being damaged and I don't have time to deal with getting the oil changed during the week, do I go in and set a new start/stop date for the following weekend? What if I have a repeat weekend? My due dates become FLUFF. I have this issue with MOST of my tasks and hence my post here. The oil change is just an example, but it might be a something like fixing a bug on my site. It is not a show stopper, paid clients come before it, but I really need to address it. So, what happens is my "DUE in the last week/month" starts to grow and expand and this is not good for motivation with a big backlog. The GTD method says that we should not assign a DUE DATE to a specific next action UNLESS it truly is due that day. Fair enough. BUT, I have a TON of next actions and single actions that just keep growing that unless I put an expiration date on them, they lose place with things I have given an expiration, whether or not they truly have one. Perhaps it's how I am organizing my information in OmniFocus, being more date centric. Perhaps there is a better way to manage next actions that may not be date centric for prioritization. 6 Comments
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 re: Non-Dated but ImportantSubmitted by Todd V on January 24, 2008 - 10:37pm.
To be true to the GTD way of doing things it is best to not use due dates. If you are regularly doing your weekly review then you will instinctually know what needs to be done from your lists that you keep with you. But that's for the veteran GTDer - not for the vast majority of us still learning to juggle all of the habits. For the rest of us it's important to have something that handles both urgent and important markers just to make sure nothing slips through the cracks. When things suddenly change on you, you need something in your program of choice that allows you to postpone it until a later time -- Someday-Maybe or a Tickler file. I eventually came up against the need to be able to see things starting to become due as well as things connected with projects that were non-urgent but important to me and added a color-scheme to my own system to help me keep it all in perspective. » POSTED IN:
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