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Projects in GTD

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Author	Message
will.sargent	Posted: Mar 30, 2008 I've always found projects in GTD to be one of the vaguest areas. Theoretically it's just a list of all the areas where you have open loops (more than one next action). But that doesn't take into account short term goals, long term goals, places where they conflict, etc. I can understand it from the perspective that GTD is about making sure short term actions take place first, but how do you scale it... up?
Roman	Posted: Apr 03, 2008 i think you might be mixing up projects and goals, because for projects, david allen gives a short, concide definition:"... any desired result, that has more than one action step." no much room there for vagueness i´d say. yet when it comes to goals, the book stays really vague. not on what goals are, but on how to incorporate them into the methodology. i can´t blame david allen for that, as he states, that GTD is after all a bottom-up approach for "clearing the decks" as he puts it. i must admit, that i have not yet resolved that problem. what i try at the moment is to use GTD for tasks, and the "first things first"-approcach by Stephen R. Covey for my goals. the nice thing is: once you clarified your goals, they slip rather smoothly into the goals-mechanism of toodledo (at least they did for me).
Qrystal	Posted: Apr 08, 2008 What I think is most important about projects is this: You must be able to easily review your progress in them in your Weekly Review. Disclaimer: I've not yet actually done a GTD Weekly Review. And this method I'm about to describe has kinda just been floating around my head, waiting for me to sit down and write about it. I've started implementing parts of it, I just haven't gotten around to actually going all the way and Reviewing. If you try it, let me know if it helps! :) STEP ONE: Figure out some way to get your projects listed on a list of their own. This could be a tag or context or part of the task description; it just must be SEARCHABLE, because... STEP TWO: Set up a Saved Search entitled "Projects" that lets you quickly see all the projects you have on the go. Make sure every project is labelled, but only label it ONCE so it comes up on the list just once. I chose to use a context of -project-, figuring that I'd only be in "Project Review Mode" during my weekly review. Some thoughts on how to apply the label (which as I said above, may be a tag or context or part of the task name): - For larger projects that will involve more than one Weekly Review, set up a weekly repeating task that says something like: "review progress on project ABC" and label it -project-. - For smaller projects that can be defined in a Pro account as just a handful of subtasks under one parent task, just slap the -project- label on the parent. - Then when you do the Weekly Review, you just go to your Saved Search entitled "Projects", and presto! The list reminds you to review the bigger projects, and you can also see the parent tasks for the smaller projects. The next thing to figure out (and I'll admit, this is where I'm stuck) is what to actually DO in a Weekly Review. I think it's mostly just making sure there is a clearly defined Next Action for each project, and that's supposed to make progress easier. I'm gonna have to try it someday and see.. :) This message was edited Apr 08, 2008.
cknicker	Posted: Aug 23, 2008 An excellent synopsis of the GTD Weekly review is at http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/audiobook-review-david-allens-gtd-weekly-review.html

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