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GTD Part 4 – Projects

One of the challenges many people have with GTD is determining the difference between a project and a next action. Many times this line can seem blurry, but it’s actually very sharply defined. A project is a series of next actions that leads to a result.

For example. “Get snow tires for car”. Many people would just put that into a next action, but is that the next action? The next action would probably be “Research snow tires” or “Ask mechanic for recommendations”

Fleshing this out further you would have the following actions in your “Get snow tires for car” project.

  • Ask mechanic for recommendations.
  • Schedule appointment for garage.
  • Go to garage to get snow tires

Now this is a really simplified example but you can can see where this is going. Projects consist of multiple actions. It can be as few as two to a major project that could involve hundreds of actions. The principle is the same.

From our inbox processing you probably have a few items that should be projects. Some examples;

  • Build new shed
  • Clean out garage
  • Client X proposal

With each new project you create, do the following steps. (I’ll be using the Clean Out Garage project through this example)

Decide what the outcome is: e.g. “A clean clutter free garage”

Start to list the very next action you can do to move this forward. e.g. “Bundle old newspapers”.

If you know further next actions then write them down. Depending on the project you may not know all the steps to complete the project at this stage. There is nothing wrong with that, as you do your weekly review you can add more steps as they come to you.

The idea is to break the project up into manageable chunks so you don’t suffer from overload paralysis because you are overwhelmed by too many things at once.

Once you have the next step or steps written and entered into your system, move on to the next new project. Remember the goal here is to get the folders started with a final outcome and at least one next action put in. If you are spending more then 5-10 min per project then its too long. You can return later on and review and add more actions.

Go through your existing project folders and briefly review each one. Is the next action listed still valid? Is there any more actions you can add to the project?

What some people find handy is to maintain a separate list with all their projects and the next action listed for each one. In this way they can quickly scan through the project list to see what can be done if some time comes up.

You’ve noticed that we are not actually working on the project, we are documenting what we have to do with the project. We are getting those items out of our head and down into our system. In this way we won’t be distracted by them when working on other things. This is one of the most positive things GTD can do for you. The ability to be “in the zone” without distractions can you make you enormously productive.