David Allen once said, if I remember correctly, that if we are bogged down in deciding what’s next on a project, or if the project isn’t moving, we likely have not broken the project down to the simplest, clear, physical next action.

Do you need more information before you can make a decision? Where are you feeling stuck? Who or what source could be of help here? “Call the accountant and ask for suggestions on the Y Project in view of X situation.” Do you need time to think about it, get your ideas moving, get more inspiration? “Mind map for 30 minutes what needs to be done for the upcoming family celebration.” Is something bothering you about the project? Do you possibly need to review the project to determine what is causing you concern and perhaps check it out with others? “Review Project RCD and check out possible concerns with the project team.” Could this be the wrong time to handle this project, or could you be repelled by this project? “Block off one hour on the calendar Thursday to rethink commitments and concerns and possibly renegotiate this project.”

Hope this helps. Thanks for sharing.

Tom, I have dealt with this issue in my job, and this is how I managed it. Think of each monthly report as its own project. So, September’s report has its own project folder, October’s report has its own folder, etc. The spreadsheets and other resources you use to create these reports should be stored in the report project folder of the current month. Store these resource files in a sub-folder called “Project Support Materials”. So, for instance, in September’s Report folder, you would have the report file itself (I assume you copy, paste, and rename this file each month, or something similar), and then in the “Project Support Materials” sub-folder, you have all the necessary resources to complete the report. Once September’s report is finished, you archive September’s folder in your project records, and move the “Project Support Materials” into October’s report folder, which would be located wherever you store all your current project materials. In this manner, you always have the project support materials with the current iteration of the report, and don’t have to copy and paste these resources every month for each report. The only items which are archived here are the complete monthly reports. Let me know if I can provide more detail on this structure, or answer any additional questions. Thanks!

My understanding is that projects should either have a next action, a waiting for, or a calendar task associated. When you do your regular review, you review your projects list and assign next actions, waiting fors, and calendar items as needed to each project; I would also evaluate project direction and planning at this time. The time when you actually process these project tasks is the same time when you process your other one-off tasks. I collate my one-off tasks and project tasks, so when I’m processing tasks I do the one-off tasks and the project next actions during the same period, and similarly for one-off waiting fors and one-off calendar items.

The time to do the project planning is when you identify an Inbox item to be a project. Then you create a project out of this item, define the desired outcome and probably define a few more steps that either go into your inbox for later processing or are being processed right away. And even if you can’t define any next actions for now, they maybe will pop up during the next days and eventually the project will be reviewed in your weekly review. If there are no more next actions definable for the project, you either have to abandon it, put it to someday/maybe or find another way to define a next action.

I think you can just schedule a calendar reminder to review in 4 months

I just read a book discussing setting up GTD in OneNote and they recommended you create a ‘section’ for the project and then within that section each page is ‘next action’. You would move the next ‘next action’ page from the project section to the Next Action section and then delete/archive it when it’s completed. I’m not sure this is the best most smooth way to do it within your system but it would work. I also have a ‘master list’ of to-do’s for each project that is a bit easier to look down for my weekly review.

I’m struggling with this in a specific way.

I work as a freelance copywriter, and usually I’d get an order from a client, who needs 20 new SEO articles. Each article may require 1-2 hours of work.

How do I manage this? Would you guys move the whole thing to projects or actions? Or a combination?

Best regards