Thanks to the help & suggestions on the forum I started using a system that uses the tags to separate projects and within the tags using the priorities (colors) to determine projects, next actions and future steps

red: project title
blue: next action
light blue: future actions

I've also read previous requests to include subprojects and have seen some creative solutions. I thought adding more colors to individual items on a list could solve the subproject request and open the doors to many other creative ways to use RTM. Naturally color makes things stand out but I really like how gmail, gcal and other programs have integrated this idea.