Great question! I would be curious about the answers to this also, as I've
never found a use for marking things as a project that I can both maintain
and make worth remembering to check off the project checkbox.
I see them as somewhat separate choices. Folders, for me, are easy -- they
are containers -- anything that is not a task in itself. They never become
active or represent work, they just hold things that do. My folders only
change when I'm reorganizing my tree. Parent tasks that are not folders, on
the other hand, are bigger-level tasks that include the parts they contain
(subtasks). They become active when all of the subparts are done and
represent work.
So when do you mark a task as a Project? Projects can have a status, which
is mainly used for grouping in the Projects view. They can have effort
which combines the effort of the subtasks (I think there is an
inconsistency here --- projects aren't completed when subtasks are all
completed, but the project itself can't have a separate time estimate?)
To blur the line even further, folders can also be projects. (I just was
playing around with it, and if I want to group by project, I might want
"Morning Routine" to be a project, so that everything is grouped, even
though I'll never complete Morning Routine so it really does deserve a
folder tag).
So for me the question becomes, what is the difference between a project
and a parent task? What makes it worthy of clicking "Project" and manually
setting it's status? Ideally, I think I would use them to represent the key
idea of the work, rather than the actions involved. If you use GTD, "mom's
birthday" is the project. When you are reviewing work, you sometimes want
to work at the level of projects ("On my plate this week I've got Christmas
dinner prep, Christmas gifts, making progress on fixing the back deck that
is about to leak, house cleaning, etc"). With work it can be different
clients, different checkpoint deadlines, meetings, etc. Then each project
has actions, and sometimes sub projects. I need to buy gifts, wrap gifts,
go online and order some gift cards, and mail some packages. Those are all
actions -- but if I want to review my overall work I don't always need to
see those details, so I can group by the project.
But -- what about all the strays? It's a lot of work to just figure out
what belongs with what, and then not everything fits. What about all the
routine tasks and the little bits of life? so I get overwhelmed, and I
don't trust that I'll see everything with the Project view. So the question
for me becomes, how do I decide what to mark as a project and still make
sure I see everything I need?
What granularity works best to use projects and when does another feature
work better? For example, "buy gifts" really isn't a project -- because I
buy stocking stuffers at the same places I buy groceries and sundries -- so
"@Errands" context works better to group those. (Also, in such an "ever
connected world, I've moved from location-based contexts such as
"@Computer", "@Phone", to contexts that are more categorical, "!SelfCare"
-- and that starts blurring the line with folders and projects too!
So I tried an experiment...deciding which of my day's tasks (==starred) are
projects, and which are part of projects, by grouping my Active Starred
tasks by Project -- the tab system is *lovely* for this, by the way,
because I didn't mess up my regular daily view. Interestingly, many of the
project groupings I chose were also folders -- for example, "Morning
Routine". If I'm going to group my work by what it is a part of, "Morning
Routine" works as well as any for those. But I still had a lot of strays.
Where does "get tires rotated" fall? Is it part of an Automotive Care
project? Not really, but as much as Morning Routine I suppose. It's this
blurry line that really catches me up. I want easy rules to apply because
small decisions are exhausting when they add up.
I really like the idea in GTD that everything is a project until you break
it down into actions. I wonder how it might work if there were an option to
make everything a project by default. Then in order to get things off my
"project" list I would have to figure out what actions they have. I suppose
its six of one, half a dozen of the other.
Perhaps I could use the review feature to get myself to break things
down...not sure.
On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 6:31 AM, Michael Emerald, CFA <
[email protected]> wrote:
> Hi.****
>
> ** **
>
> Up front I’ll tell you I understand how each is implemented in MLO. My
> question is how do you use them, for maximum benefit? I’ll tell you how I
> use them, admitting that I get a bit confused now and then.****
>
> ** **
>
> Projects:****
>
> When I want to see Active Tasks grouped in some order, rather than a plain
> simple list, I’ll often create a project, and then group by project. The
> project, thus, isn’t really a project. Rather, it’s more of a container
> for related recurring tasks.****
>
> ** **
>
> In outline view, when I want to group tasks I use a folder. Those folders
> don’t affect my active task list, since I don’t do anything with folders
> (group by, etc.) in my active task list.****
>
> ** **
>
> Would you recommend a better implementation than what I do presently?****
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> *Michael Emerald, CFA*
>
> ** **
>
> *Facebook:*
>
> http://www.facebook.com/michael.emerald****
>
> ** **
>
> *Boston Plein Air Artists Group: *
>
> http://painter.meetup.com/84/****
>
> ** **
>
> *Art Blog:*
>
> http://emeraldartandphotography.blogspot.com/****
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> --
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--
Lisa
------------------------------
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