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Implement GTD with Doit.im - (2) Process>
What happens after Processing?When you finish analyzing and processing, decisions on“Stuff”in
Inbox have all been made:
- You’ve dropped trash into “Trash” box;
- You’ve put those which don’t need any actions now but may need in the future into “Someday” (or maybe “Scheduled” box if you want to be reminded of the thing);
- You’ve decided to put the materials into “Reference” box (which is a custom box in Doit.im);
- As to the things you want to take actions, you’ve specified if it is a project (a multi-step task). And if it is, you’ve divided it into actions by ways like brainstorming and known exactly what the Next Action is; if it is not, you’ve also found its Next Action. And then, you’ve processed the next action based on the 3 directions:
- You get it done if it takes less than 2 minutes.
- You delegate it to others if someone else is a more appropriate person to do it.
- You decide to put into your own “Next Actions” or “Scheduled” box if you need to do it yourself and it takes more than 2 minutes.
It has to be figured out again that
Process and
Organize are not done within one step.
Processing is mostly a thinking phase, and once it’s complete, one needs a way to organize the output.4.
OrganizeIt’s vital to keep in mind that things to be organized have to be the actions that are “
actionable”.
1) Directions of OrganizationDavid Allen gives seven primary places to keep the outputs, and provides us guidelines to make the places work . In
Doit.im, we’ve preset corresponding boxes to help organizing the actions (or you can also add
Custom Boxes by filtering ):
a)
A Project list (We have “
Project” boxes in
Doit.im, you can add or edit projects.)
b)
Project support materials- It’s been suggested in “Process” section that you can add a custom box “Reference” for materials that are not related to any project;
- As for project-related material, you need also to add custom boxes such as “Doit.im References”. Later, we’ll support “Notes” for projects, and more features to make notes more convenient in both tasks and projects.
- As to the paper materials, we suggest you set corresponding folders in real life, and make records in the projects in Doit.im.
c)
Calendar actions --
Doit.im contains both “
Scheduled” task lists to give you an overall view of all the tasks with time set, and “
Calendar” to give you clear view of to-do and completed tasks on certain days.
d)
Next Actions -- In
Doit.im you can now set up a
custom box “Next Actions” by filtering (refer to “
Process” section). And later, we’ll add Next Actions with more considerate features.
e)
A Waiting for list -- In
Doit.im, when you forward a task to others, you’ll find the task would automatically go to “
Waiting for” box. (“Waiting for” in
Doit.im is actually a
context automatically applied to
tasks forwarded to others, so, you can no longer set it when you pick a receiver.)
2) ProjectIn the “
Process” Section, it’s been figured out that if you get a multi-step task from Inbox during procssing, then
- Transfer it into “Project”. (At the moment, you need to copy and paste your task into a newly added project in Doit.im. We’ll support the direct transfer soon.)
- Write down actions as a result of the thinking process.
- And then categorize the next actions. (We’ll talk about it soon in this part.)
GTD has no requirement on sorting of the projects. But we’ve made it
sorted alphabetically in
Doit.im so that you can find the target project more easily. (BTW,
Contacts and
Contexts are also sorted this way.)
If there is sub-project, you can do it this way:- Apply different tags to the actions belonging to different projects and filter then by each tag. (We’ve made an example in our previous piece “How to apply "Project" of GTD in Doit.im” )
- And there is another way, you can also make the sub-project as a project, and add a new project named in format like “Project - subproject”. (These are ways to use Project currently. We’ll enhance the project and tag features. )
ChecklistsMany things would be much easier if we have checklists. For example, we create a checklist named “Travel checklist”. Then each time before we go traveling,
we just need to check if everything is ready.You can create one project for each checklist in Doit.im, or one for all, and then categorize them with tags. (As we said, we’ll make it much simpler.)
3）Categorize next actions“Next actions” are vital section. Having decided which are the next actions, we need to trace:
- things to be done on a specific date or time -- Just pick that date or time in Doit.im.
- things to be finished as soon as possible (ASAP actions) -- Put them in “Next Actions” box in Doit.im. (The current way is to tag the action with “Next” and put it into “Someday”, and then set a custom box “Next Actions” with the condition “tag = Next” )
- things waiting for others to complete -- In Doit.im, once a task is forwarded to others, it would go to “Waiting for ” automatically; If you delegate a task but not through Doit.im, then you need to write it down in the system and put it in “Waiting for” box to trace.
a) “Scheduled” VS “Next Actions”GTD regards Calendar (which means both “
Scheduled” and ”
Calendar” in
Doit.im) as a sacred place, only the following three task types can be put in it:
- time-specific things
- date-specific things
- information to be picked on specific date
All the other tasks should be put into “
Next Actions” so that you wouldn’t mix them up with the time/date-specific things and miss the latter.
Of course, if it’s an important thing, but you haven’t decided yet, you can list it at specific time in several days so to remind you of making that decision.
“Tickler” file in GTD VS “Scheduled” in Doit.imDavid regards it a good way to manage time/date-specific actions with “
Tickler” file, which consists of
43 folders. He checks the folder with current date marked. Things become much easier in
Doit.im:
you just pick a date/time for a task when you organize it, and that task would come to “Today” box automatically on the Start Time you’ve set.
While for “Next Actions” tasks, you need to check after you’ve finished all in “
Today”
box. Sure you can set a reminder for some the tasks.
And, yes,
if you set a “Deadline” for a task in any box, it’ll come to Today automatically on the Deadline date.b) Organize “Next Actions” with ContextsIt’s been approved through David’s many years experience that
Context is the best way to manage “Next Actions”.
In
Doit.im, you can set a context for each actions. A context can be a place, or tool, or related person. For instance, you have to call someone to finish something, you can set “Phone” or “Call” as its context. Thus, when you’ve nothing in hand but a phone, just open your phone and find everything you can do with your phone and make the calls.
If you have many tasks sent by others and need reading, then set a context “Reading”. You can read it whenever you have time.
c) Waiting for“Waiting for” is a special category of “
Context” which are used to store tasks sent to others. Currently,
Doit.im locate “Waiting for” on the home of the app to both emphasize its importance and make it convenient for your to trace to tasks sent.
As we said previously, tasks forwarded to others through
Doit.im would come to “Waiting for” automatically; and also, as for tasks delegated but not through the system, you can add them here.
4）Non-actionable tasksAs for these tasks, we’ve mentioned above that trash can be thrown into Trash box, things that may be done in the future can be dragged and dropped into Someday, and materials can be put into a custom box. (refer to “
Process” section)
Thus, you’ve finished the “
Organizating” work, and everything are in their own place now.
