ThinkingRock Forum

Hi,

next tutorial is online and has become part of the wiki. If you ever wanted to know how to setup TR to get @waiting for list please go to http://www.thinkingrock.com.au/wiki/doku.php?id=waiting_for

Volker

It is great to see so much work done for us. Thank you very much.

I will have to start to learn how to use the Wiki.

_________________
Claire
ThinkingRock Analyst and Tester

Claire,

please don't or make this at least a future action or an action dependant from the final release of TR 2.0.

Every minute you and Jeremy play around with that wiki will delay things to come. Your time is too precious and needed elsewhere.

Volker

Hi Volker,

thank you for the tutorials. I've been creating an '@waiting for' view by following your tutorial. I think this is a good view for people who have to follow up lots of delegated stuff (like me).

I have a suggestion, though. I have set up my view slightly different than yours. I have:

Done - Description - Delegated to - Created date - Action date - Project/Thought description

This setup has the advantage that you see both the date on which you delegated a task, and the date on which you need to follow it up (as can be entered in the Process screen under the button 'Follow Up').

You can even throw in a filter 'Action date <=' to show as a drop down box in this view, so that you can filter on delegated tasks that are e.g. to be followed up today, or tomorrow, or one week from now.

Just my two cents,

Geert

Geert,

you may do whatever you want to do. Feel free to add any columns or filters that you want.

But yo may want to rethink your action. The core principle of GtD is that you put things out of your mind and into your trusted system. You do not have to think of them because your trusted system makes sure that nothing falls through the cracks and that the things will pop up out of your trusted system at the wright place and the wright time.

@waiting for is a place where you store items you want to forget until your next weekly review. You don't have to be reminded of those items before the next weekly review. Nothing bad happens if these items sit idle in that list until then. Out of sight and out of mind. So do not place any items into that list that do not fulfill these requirements. Especially do not place any dated items into that list. In my setup waiting for (status delegated) and due dates are mutually exclusive. I am even so bold to call a dated follow up with status delegated a major flaw of TR (TRs daddy will shoot me for that ).

Don't you see what you are losing by adding those dated things into your waiting for list? Instead of getting that list out of your mind until your next weekly review you are pulling it into your mind because now you have to go through the list daily to be sure not to miss any of those dated "waiting fors". Completely wrong approach. Once again, status delegated and a due date / follow up date / action date are mutually exclusive. If a follow up has to be done at or by a given date and can't wait for the weekly review there is only one correct place in a good GtD system where this follow up has to go! Guess which place? Hard landscape of course. This is a calendar item. So change status from delegated to scheduled plug in the date and get this item popped into your face in your today view. If you want to see upcoming calendar items in advance create a calendar view showing all calendar items. This will keep your waiting for list clean.

I guess it is time for a major rant now too. To all those asking for due dates and action dates and blind dates and whatever dates to be integrated into TR. In a GtD system the only things that get dated are scheduled items put into the calendar. These are the hard landscape. Nothing else. Period. No need to put any date on a someday/maybe, waiting for, next action. All those lists contain only undated items. Once I have finished my dayload of hard landscaped items I am allowed to skim through my next action lists by context to see what has to be done now. If something is sitting too long in such a list one may do one of three things. Do it, delete it, defer it (aka schedule it) by promoting it into the status of a hard landscape item.

We all shall make a step back to see the whole picture again. Those next actions lists are only a small component of the complete GtD system. Recognizing overcommittment, learning to say no, deleting items, delegating tasks, someday/maybe lists, scheduling tasks are components of at least the same value. Endless fine tuning of next actions by adding tons of informations and dates and whatever may pull the focus to much onto that part of GtD. There is no real need for all of that. There is no need for nested contexts as well.

Compare TR to a paper pased GtD setup. Nothing is faster than pen and paper. No need to lug around a computer to fire up a computer to start an application. It works everywhere and at everyplace. TR should do one thing and it should do that in a perfect way. Be more comfortable than a paper and pen based setup. And not be more complicated and more feature loaden and more optionable. A GtD application should be used as less as possbile. It's soul purpose is helping me getting things done and not occupy myself with the application. So it should be lean and clean straightforward easy to use and help me focus on one thing at time. No need of tons of informations at every moment at my fingertips. No tree views of projects are needed when I want to look at my next action lists. No due dates / action dates whatever dates when I watch any given context to decide on my next action. So when you setup and use TR always ask yourself do I really need that feature, do I really have to type in that additonal information? How get I be getting things done easier? How could I strip down TR to a TR light which makes me lightning fast? Do I really have to ask Jeremy and Claire for another and additional feature?

Ok, that should be enough for now. As usual this is my opinion only your mileage may vary.

Volker

Hi Volker,

wow, some post !

It's been a few months since I read the GTD-book, and you're probably right about '@waiting for' lists not having due dates in pure GTD.

As for myself, when I have to wait for a reply from someone (say a phone call or an e-mail with information), or when I wait for some other small action that will probably get done in a couple of days, I don't pick a follow up date, and I catch these things on the weekly review, like you say.

But when I delegate bigger/more complex actions or subprojects to people, I like to agree on deadlines for these actions or subprojects. This makes things clear for me and for the people I work with, and keeps the projects from coming to a standstill because people let time go by without working on them. And sometimes, when the due date comes, you *do* have to follow up to get results. And that's why the follow up dates come in handy for me in the '@waiting for' view.

This may not be pure GTD, but rather GTD meets simple project management.

Anyway, as you said: our mileages (and our systems) may vary. I just wanted to point out an other possibility for the '@waiting for' view. And I agree that you have to keep your systeem as lean as possible.

Greets,

Geert

Volker I think that is your best stated argument for your point of view so far.

I want to like your idea of how things should be handled (except that the extra stuff you don't like to use *should* be there as long as it is able to be disabled), however I just can't figure out how you deal with projects. Perhaps it is just due to how our work projects differ?

Say I have a project for my CustomerX. That project is applicationY, and it has 3 main parts which are all subprojects. Yes My Project list goes Clients->CustomerX->ApplicationY->Part1->Actions...

So with that let's say the entire project has a due date, and the main parts have different due dates (to leave enough room for testing and feedback). How... how would you handle those due dates?

Thanks.

Ok you guys asked for it

I believe using due date / action dates in any other place than your calendar is a vital misunderstanding of the core GtD principles.

Let's take a look at single next actions first.

Whenever we are down at the next action level we'll arrive sometime at this selection point:

Do it because it is less than 2 minutes
Delegate it
Defer it to a specific time/date (aka schedule it) OR defer it as a next action (do ASAP)

Do it means the following question:
Is it worth the trouble and effort delegating or defering an item because done is done and the other options may take as much or even more time to be organized?
What remains are next actions which take more than 2 minutes for me to get done.

The next question is about delegating:
Do I really have to do this by myself?
What remains are those action I have to do by myself.

Once I've decided to delegate I'll ask myself:
Do I want to follow up?
If no, the item is complete and can be checked off

The next question is about how to follow up:
Is it vital to do the follow up at a specific date?
If yes, I'll SCHEDULE a reminder into the calendar/tickler file (in TR use status scheduled). It'll pop up at that date and I have committed myself to do the followup action at that date.
If no, I'll put it into @waiting for knowing, that the item sits idle in there until the next weekly review. I may then decide to take immediately action, let it sit in waiting for until the next weekly review or SCHEDULE the item now.

The next question is:
How do I defer non delegated and not yet done (2 minute rule) actions?
Defer it to a specific time/date (aka schedule it) OR defer it as a next action (do ASAP)?

I may rephrase this question as

Is it vital for that next action to be done by a specific date or can I let this next action sit undated in its appropriate context until the next weekly review and maybe get done until then?

If yes to vital -> SCHEDULE or If I have committed myself and I don't want it to be committed at all or for that date RENEGOTIATE
If no to vital -> NA list (Do ASAP list in TR)

If I follow this workflow things are where they belong. Done is done, due dated/deadlined actions are in the calendar, the rest in my lists (next actions and @waiting for). There is no need to date anything in those lists, because dated items do not belong into those lists but into the calendar.


Now to the projects

First of all, have I committed myself to get this project done at a given date?
If no, not a single next action from this project will go into the calendar. They will all stay in the undated next actions lists. Why should they go elsewhere?

If yes,
I'll identify the due date and write it down. For example you may use the project name itself. (Organize my 10th wedding day - 2007/06/27)
I'll identify the milestones (subprojects) if any, and their due dates and write them down (Organize restaurant - 2007/31/05; Organize menu 2007/06/15 and so on)
Now at the (sub)project planning level I'll collect all single next actions. Then I switch to the single action mode and run each and every next action through the above described workflow.

And now comes the key question again:
May any next action sit undated in its appropriate context list and may be done or not until the next weekly review?
Yes -> Na list.
No -> calendar
That's it It is really that simple.

Remember, it it is the weekly review which ties it all together. During the weekly review I decide if a thing has to be moved from status Do ASAP to status SCHEDULED. Putting something into a Next Action list does not mean it has to stay there forever until done. Au contraire. It is in the weekly review when I am in planning mode, where I decide what to do with every single item and every project and subproject. Nothing will be lost and everything will be dealt with appropriately. It works. During the weekly review I'll have to through the next weeks calendar to see upcoming things and I have to decide If I have some work to be done in advance -> calendar. During the weekly review I go through my projects lists and see if any deadlines on projects / subprojects are nearing and if I have to do something about this in advance -> calendar.

There is no need for due dates in Next Action (do ASAP) lists. Remember the main idea behind those Next Action lists is, that you will only come to them unless you have completed anything which is on your calendar for today. So only those items go into such a list which may sit there idle and get not done until the next weekly review without any harm. I personally put everything into these lists which fulfills this rule. But only those next actions and nothing else. I ask myself, can this sit here another week or do I have to become more serious about by scheduling it?

Hope that helps

I scheduled a task in TR with specific time. But I am not getting the popup with remainder? is it the expected behaviour?

According to both GTD and PM paradigms I assume @waitingfor items are different from @delegated in absense/presense of followup date.

Creating @waitingfor tab (without nifty pics, but simpler, imho):

1) Create new action tab
2) Set filtering on this tab:



3) Remove irrelevant fields (i.e. follow up date)

Thats it.

Creating @delegated in the same manner

1) Create new action tab
2) Set filtering on this tab:



Here we go - 2 lists, @waitingfor and @delegated.

And again - I'm assuming that delegating a task means setting a deadline.