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Does anybody have waiting-for subgroups?

derek.conjar says:
I've managed to establish a pure GTD system in RTM, and I love it. I'm using all smart-lists, except for an "archive" list where I put all of my tagged tasks. The inbox is basically just to-be-filed.

I'm using the tag cloud colorizer and RTM Enhanced. I have the following smart lists:

! - due, past due, due in 2 days, or not tagged.

+cell - cell phone context
+go - errand context
+home - home context
+net - Internet context
+pc - computer context
+read - read/review
+sf - part-time job office context
+tu - school campus context

-action - tags marked as actions or next actions, or someday tasks that are due within 30 days.

-goal - list of goals, marked with -goal tag

-next - actions marked -next or actions due within 2 days (not gtd, but important)

-payment - recurring payments due to me (goes into -waiting if do in 30 days.

-project - marked w/ project tags (.p+do_project) and -project, to hold project support material.
(I have projects divided in my tag cloud by area of responsibility.)

-someday - someday/maybe tasks.

- waiting - list of everything I'm waiting for someone else to do.

Has anybody managed to divide those -waiting tasks into subgroups? When I'm productive, my waiting-for list becomes very large.

If you use GTD, do you try to categorize your waiting list? Do you think that it's worth the effort, and if you do divide your waiting tasks, how do you do it?

I can think of a dozen ways to accomplish it, but I want to know what works for others before I bother with it. Any help is appreciated.
Posted at 12:03am on May 12, 2008
i3aj3 says:
Hey Derek,

I'm using something similar. I took a page out of Google Astrid's playbook and reorganized my entire to do list with the following 4 categories:

1. Action
2. Waiting
3. Project
4. Pending

The top one actually holds all active to do's. The second is for things I'm waiting to hear back on (i usually include details like when i replied or what i'm waiting to hear back about). The third has big picture stuff that the action tasks might be contributing to (it's good to keep that perspective). And the last, is pretty much the same as your 'someday' task list.

I don't like having too many different task lists; rather, I like to have tags differentiate between task types (I have 4: Body, Mind, Spirit, & Other, but sometimes I use phone, internet, etc tags as well).

I definitely like having 'waiting' separate so it doesn't clutter the 'action' task list. Hope this helps!
Posted 14 years ago
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