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Web developer getting started with GTD - Project question..

Hi All,

I've been reading through the GTD book this week, up to page 157 so far.

One question that's been nagging me all along, is projects. For example, take the following 3 projects;

Software Functionality A

Software Functionality B

Client Website A

At the moment, I see the following options for working with projects:

  1. Project entries contain project name, notes and mindmap, and all next actions are entered into next/actions itself.

  2. Project entries contain project name, and list of next actions, that I review when looking for next work to do.

  3. Project entries contain project name, and list of actions, that are moved/copied to next actions one by one as and when appropriate.

I'm not sure which of the above is the correct way to do it, or the best method.

As a thoroughly stressed out web developer with a mountain of work and overdue deadlines, I have been itching to sort out my workload with GTD but this part is really stopping me getting started.

I would really appreciate any pointers.

Many Thanks, Matthew

augmentedfourth's picture

What's Behind Door Number 3?

The way I do it is very much like Option 3 above. However, I don't actually move actions onto NA lists because my software task tracker (the web-based SimpleGTD) just lets me "star" actions to make them show up as NAs. Keeping full action lists for each project makes it very easy to review my progress weekly.

However, you'll need to determine a GTD implementation that works for you. I recommend picking the method that seems best to you and just using it initially, tweaking things as you go. I took me quite a while to end up with a stable system; now that I have something that works for me, all of GTD just melts away into doing actual work.

Don't forget to separate your NAs by context, not by project. Creating your personal set of contexts is another very tricky thing, but again that's part of the process of developing your own GTD-based system. The key is just to pick something and start doing it without worrying whether it will be initially perfect (because it won't, no matter what). Refinements will come later, but you can't refine a process you haven't already started using!

 
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