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authorLars Wirzenius <liw@liw.fi>2011-07-23 19:48:30 +0100
committerLars Wirzenius <liw@liw.fi>2011-07-23 19:48:30 +0100
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+Projects and next actions
+=========================
+
+In the GTD system, a "next action" is a physical action you can take,
+preferably something that lasts a fairly short time. Examples of
+next actions would be "write e-mail to project mailing list explaining
+your plan to implement a new test driven development approach", or
+"buy apples and bananas for home".
+
+A **bad** next action would be "start a side business". It's bad for
+two very important reasons:
+
+* it's not short; indeed, it might be of indefinite length
+* it's unclear when it's finished
+
+When you actually start doing things, it's much easier if you know what
+you need to do, and when you're finished.
+
+Obviously, some things you want to get done are going to take a lot of
+time. That's OK: they just should not be next actions. Next actions need
+to be things that you just do. No more thinking or planning should be
+required.
+
+Anything that takes more than one step (more than one next action),
+is called a project in GTD. Like next actions, projects should have
+a clearly defined goal so that you know when you're finished. For
+example, "form a corporation for side business" might be a good
+project:
+
+* it's clearly defined (it's done when the corporation is formally and
+ legally founded, and has a bank account, accountant, e-mail address,
+ and other such things)
+* it takes several steps: decide on name, register, open bank account, etc
+
+Also like next actions, projects should be finished within a limited
+time, though the time will be much longer. Next actions should typically
+be doable within half a day (but shorter is better), whereas projects
+might last up to a year.
+
+Not everything will fit into these definitions of next actions and
+projects, but we'll get to that later.
+
+Keeping track of projects and next actions: the art of lists
+------------------------------------------------------------
+
+You'll likely have more than a handful of projects or next actions.
+Even if you only have a few of each, it's best to write them down.
+The human brain is not good at remembering things without triggers,
+whereas even the cheapest pen and piece of paper will do lists with
+excellence. (In fact, my memory seems to work better the more I write
+things down.)
+
+You should keep one list of projects, and another list of next actions.
+You can keep them in any way or form that you like:
+
+* a single plain text file for each
+* a web page for next actions (so you can read it on your phone), and a
+ folder on your computer's desktop for every project
+* using an outliner: one tree for next actions, one for projects
+* using a specialized GTD application
+* a sheet of paper for next actions, and a project folder for each project
+
+If you choose to have one folder per project, whether digital or physical,
+that provides a convenient place to store files related to that project.
+However, this requires all files to be arranged according to project,
+which can be inconvenient: if you have two projects related to the same
+software, do you check out the source code twice, once per project folder?
+You might instead keep a simple list of projects, and then store the
+supporting files in a way that is more natural than per project. Or you
+might decide that per-project is the natural way. Your choice.
+
+There is one right way to do this: anything that you do that helps you
+keep track of things is fine. Anything that is a hassle or gets in your
+way is wrong.
+
+Next action contexts and categories
+-----------------------------------
+
+The list of next actions is what you will be dealing with most with GTD.
+It is important that it's easy and fast to use. However, as soon as it
+grows longer than two or three dozen entries, it will become hard to
+pick something from it quickly: you need to read through a lot of it
+to find something suitable to do.
+
+Say you're waiting for the bus, and you have maybe ten or fifteen minutes.
+You have your laptop, and there's a place for you to sit. This would be
+a perfect time to knock of an item from your next actions list, but
+what should you do? If it takes five minutes to scan the list and find
+something to do, you've wasted maybe half of your available time. Not good.
+
+You should break down the list by context or other suitable category.
+A context is the things that are reqwuired for you to do the action:
+"at phone" would be the context for anything that requires you to use
+your phone; "online" would be all the things you need Internet access
+to do; "at home" for things you must be at home to do, etc.
+
+Geeks have spent inordinate amounts of times figuring out the ideal
+contexts and categories
+for them. This is an easy thing to obsess over. However, it's
+also clear that nobody else can decide what contexts suit you than yourself.
+Still, for inspiration, here's the list of contexts Lars uses:
+
+* **In progress**: for anything that has been started, but is currently
+ waiting for something, typically a long computation being performed by
+ a computer
+* **Unfun**: anything that is unpleasant, and is therefore easily postponed;
+ having this as its own category helps avoiding that (also, there's a rule
+ that every workday at least one unfun thing needs to be done)
+* **At phone, able to call**: for phone calls one needs to make (a special
+ category of unfun, most of the time)
+* **Errands**: things that require you to go somewhere, such as a shop, or
+ office, or meet someone outside your normal locations
+* **With person X**: things that need to be discussed with a specific
+ person, either in person or perhaps over the phone
+* **At home, not using a computer**: cleaning, dishes, etc
+* **At home, using computer**: typically involves a desktop computer, or
+ external hard disks, or a printer/scanner, or other hardware that is
+ hard to carry
+* **At laptop, offline**: the laptop being my primary computer, this is all
+ the things I need to do at a computer, which don't require Internet access;
+ I travel a bit, and I often go sit in a cafe to work a bit, and so I can't
+ take the Internet for granted; there's a lot of things that fall into this
+ context, so this is often quite a long list
+* **At laptop, online**: like the previous one, but these require both the
+ laptop and Internet access
+