Forums / Tips & Tricks

rajjan

According to Paul Allen, it's not necessary to plan all the steps to complete a project like this. When you have registered your cars.com account you just think a bit about what to do next ("Take picture of car") and add this task to this project. It helps if you have a heading task for this project that you don't complete so the tag shows up in the tag cloud.

In your weekly review you could go through all your tags and discover if any projects only have a heading and no next action - time to create one!

Posted 3 years ago

rajjan

And a picture:



Uppdatera ... is the next action in the project Rapport (tag p01rapport)
When I complete Uppdatera ..., the Project will be empty but will still show up in the tag cloud as the heading task is still present.

When the project is completed, the heading task is completed also and the tag p01rapport disappears from the tag cloud

Posted 3 years ago

This is one of my issues as well. I might have a list of tasks already tagged as being under project heading. I'm going to try using the priority field - i.e. after examining tasks will set priority of 1 to the next action. So a smartlist showing priority 1's should show all next actions, and a smartlist could be created I think to identify projects which do not have a priority 1 set yet.

Posted 3 years ago

wakela

this is an issue with me, too.

I'm not much of a tag cloud guy.
My solution is to is to tag all tasks in a project with the project name:
register on cars.com p_sell_car, s_next_action, c_computer
take picture of car p_sell_car, s_next_action, c_home
upload picture to cars. com p_sell_car, s_deferred, c_computer

The order in which you take the picture or set up an account doesn't matter. You can do either one now, so they are both next actions. When I complete a task I SHOULD check to see if it is in a project, and click on the project tag to see if there are any action that should be promoted to s_next_action status. Trouble is that I don't do this. I get so excited about completing tasks and crossing them off the list that I just mark them done and forget about them. This leaves the sell car project with no next action, which is bad.

Posted 3 years ago

sean.pfister

It's important to distinguish between your project plan and your list of next actions. It's ok to have a separate document (or list) that mignt contain all the phases of a project--with as much detail as you need:
register car, take picture, etc might all be phases.

Anyway, during the weekly review, looking at the project phases documentation (what Allen calls project support material) can help you think through the next actions.

Keeping the NA list clean--only the physical actions that you need to do next is important. Don't try to use the NA list as a method of telling you how to complete your project (e.g. the phases,the order of completion, the critical path, etc).

Posted 3 years ago

In addition to using a tag to define a project, I use the list name. For instance, sell_car would be a list named sell_car. For "next items," I make them a priority 1. Then, I have a smart list for @home, @work, etc., that filters on all priority 1 tasks. Then, I just click on my @home smart list, and it pulls up all priority 1 tasks in all projects. I tag the task with the task list name, so for a task under sell_car, I would enter it as: "post ad." The tags would be: @home, sell_car. Every item in that list would have the same tags That way, the @home smart list shows the project that it came from. This lets me see all tasks in 2 different ways: one by list, that shows all tasks for a project, and one that lets me see them via smart list as "next step" items.
An optional 3rd entry for tags might be: @home, sell_car, agenda. The added item "agenda" at the end lets me search across all my lists (smart list agan), so for example, if I was reporting on my progress, I would do a searth on all "agenda" tags for inclusion in my report.

Posted 3 years ago