Wellcome to the second part of this guide to my GTD system. The first part is available here.
In the first part you saw how to write todo items and check them. In this part I talk about projects.
A short description: for GTD, a project is a work to do which require more than one physical action to achieve. I added several other things to it (thanks Anthony Robbins!).
In order to write efficient and attractive plan, the project should have a purpose, some goals and some notes. I built my system over this. See an example:
== WRITE A GTD BOOK ==# Purpose:Help people that prefer read a paper book. Earn several euros.# Principles:Slim (less than 100 pages), very simple to read, sell at minimum 1,000 copies.# Displaying the result:People write me how the book improve their lives. The book sell more than 2,000 copies.# Brainstorming:Syntax, Kate, call the publisher, set the price (10€ or 9.90€?), syntax of dates.
The title is between “== TITLE ==” and is all uppercase.
Some suggestions in order to increase the readability and waste less time:
- For the “purpose” is preferable to write only one line.
- For the “principles” is preferable to write only one line or a short realistic list.
- For the “Displaying the result” write a short good scenario, not a dream one! Write less lines as you can, one if possible.
- For the “Brainstorming” write all on a one line comma separated, if possible.
So you should to write less as you can.
Add your todo items after a blank line:
== WRITE MY GTD BOOK ==# Purpose:Help people that prefer read a paper book. Earn several euros.# Principles:Slim (less than 100 pages), very simple to read, sell at minimum 1,000 copies.# Displaying the result:People write me how the book improve their lives. The book sell more than 2,000 copies.# Brainstorming:Syntax, Kate, call the publisher, set the price (10€ or 9.90€?), syntax of dates. - @Tel Irene for a review of the draft.- @Write the second part.- @Email a draft of the cover to the designer.
Write only the todo items that you can do in the same time. So, if you have a things to do after write the first part of the book, you should: add to the brainstorming list, or add “Next write the second part.” to the end of line. See the example:
- @Write the second part. Next write the third part.
Add your project in the same GTD.txt file after the todo items without project and separate it by two blank lines. A fast example:
@Buy @Home @Office @Tel @Web - @Buy 1l milk, 2 lemons, chocolate.- @Buy An iPod.- @Buy 2 new Moleskine (one slim and one big) and a flicker. - @Home Repair the chair. - @Tel Elisa for the appointment of Monday 13 November.- @Tel Marco in order to set a meeting with Company S.p.A. - @Web Renew the Backpack login.- @Web Make a review of www.ontiles.com == WRITE MY GTD BOOK ==# Purpose:Help people that prefer read a paper book. Earn several euros.# Principles:Slim (less than 100 pages), very simple to read, sell at minimum 1,000 copies.# Displaying the result:People write me how the book improve their lives. The book sell more than 2,000 copies.# Brainstorming:Syntax, Kate, search a publisher, set the price (10€ or 9.90€?), syntax of dates. - @Tel Irene for a review of the draft. Next send an email to Elena with some Irene's opinions.- @Write the second part.- @Email a draft of the cover to the designer. == REPAIR THE CAR == [...]
Remove the project when you have done it, use an old_projects.txt file if you like.
With this system you can store a large number of projects and items to do in an easy to read (and very fast to write) file. If you use Vim or Emacs for this you can really be a lot faster than any program or web application can do!
In the next part I will talk about dates.
Ran across this in my RSS Feeds today. Nice series of posts. Have you considered the possibility of keeping each project in a separate file? Keep all of these project files in a folder called “PROJECTS” or something similar. Then you have and automatic GTD Project List just by looking in that folder. You could then have a second folder for “Archived Projects” or “Completed Projects.” When you finish a project, just drag the file to the second folder and it is there for your reference if you need to account for your activities, but it is no longer in your active folder. Just some thoughts based on David Allen’s suggestion that you should not really be working out of your project files, but your Next Action lists instead. You would reference the above mentioned folder during your “Weekly Review” and leave it alone the rest of the time.
Thank you Gabe.
Yes, I have considered to use a file for each project, the result is not so good.
One file permit you to sort all items in one time with grep or the search function (I will write a post for this).
With one file you can chose the right thing to do for the context/time/energy/priority of the moment. With separate files this take too much time and too much energy in order to open and read all files.
Actually I have more of 30 projects open, is impossible to have 30 files and do a fast chose.
With all things to do in one file (projects included) is very easy to do the items with the same context, and this is the most efficient method to getting things done (using grep or the search function).
Also the copy&paste is faster with only one file.
You will have problems with projects with the same name (20% of my projects have the same name of some old projects).
There are others motivations if you want to write a software over this system, but are less important.
Consider this if you think that close a project is faster: in order to close a project you have to open the file then check the items done and close the file, close a project is a thing that you have to do only few times so the difference is only several seconds per month (no difference).
There is more of one method in order to switch projects in one second if you have a single file.
I wrote only the base of my system, I will write several optimization tips for you.
The items to do in a project are really next actions: are parallel next actions.
In a large project there are many things to do that you can do in different context: several calls, several things to buy, several things to write…
In the project you have to write only next things: only parallel next things.
So, when you sort the list with the same context you can do things of different projects without consider to open a project! All projects runs!