On Mon Feb 26 00:40:00 UTC 2007, Luke Melia <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> I was doing a review of my projects in Tracks (using the trunk  
> version) and found myself dissatisfied with the experience. A few  
> thoughts:
> 
> 1) Some projects have no remaining next actions, and there is nothing  
> more to do, but I didn't complete them. They're no longer applicable  
> for one reason or another. Do I mark it Completed? Hidden? Do I  
> delete it? Or is there a new state necessary - "dead" or "canceled"?

Reinier Balt and I had a conversation about this kind of thing recently. As he 
mentioned in this thread, archiving would be a good thing for these kinds of 
things, and perhaps also for completed projects that you might need to refer to 
in future for reporting purposes.

> 4) Does ordering projects make sense? I find myself just trying to  
> keep projects listed roughly alphabetically (but am never up to  
> date). Do you use that feature?

I have quite a short project list (see below), so I'm not the best one to judge.

> 5) Because we use the project name to create a URL, you can't create  
> a project with the same name as a previously completed one. This is  
> problematic for certain projects. For example, I have a project  
> "Upgrade my blogging software", which I already completed but now  
> need to do again.

I think that my project situation is probably a bit anomalous, judging by what 
other people have said, but more than 50% of my projects are these kinds of 
ongoing, recurring, or otherwise never-ending projects. In some ways, this is 
contrary to good GTD practice because you should be able to visualise what the 
end of the project will look like. In my case (for a lot of my projects), this 
is "I'll be retired." :-)

So my feeling for projects that you know are going to recur in a reasonable 
time (like your example of upgrading blogging software), I would mark it as 
hidden to put it to sleep [1], then mark it active again when you next need to 
complete the project. In projects that recur in very predictable ways (e.g. 
when I'm lecturing on a module every year, I have to check over and update my 
lectures, print the handouts, give the lecture, set exam questions, look at the 
feedback, mark the exam questions etc.), it would be helpful to have templates 
for projects, so that it is created with a fresh set of actions (which you 
could add to if you wanted).

[1] I actually tend to think of these projects as volcanoes: they go dormant 
every now and again, but eventually, they will erupt and cause enormous damage, 
chaos and possible loss of life ;-)

cheers,

bsag

-- 
but she's a girl - the weblog of a female geek
http://www.rousette.org.uk
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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