Project management
dregourd says:
Hello,
I am fascinated by the number of questions about projects. The fact is that RTM is not a project management tool, but a task management tool.
Nevertheless, RTM has become such a paradigm for us all that we could not imagine to use another product to manage our projects. Here are some guidelines I gathered to help you manage your projects.
Brainstorming:
Most of our projects come from brainstorming sessions. This phase is crucial. Most of the time we do it with a text editor, like notepad. We just write items and play with ENTER and TAB to organize the project. I suggest to keep this method, and use the result of your brainstorming to import it in your RTM, through import email address or copy paste in a note.
There is another way to brainstorm efficiently: it's RTM the notes feature itself. RTM users generally ignore how rich it is. For example, notes offer a title level if notes have more then one line. You can also open many notes at the same time, just clicking on the add note link, fill them separately, and close them in any order.
Once your brainstorm is finished, you must complete your "project description task" with all the brainstorm in it as notes. Simply rename this task so it begins with a "-p" sign to float on the top of the list. You should also put it in a new tag named at your convenience to identify the project.
Another key point is to maintain in a note a global outline of your project to follow its completion until the end. Be careful: tabs are not supported in RTM notes as direct inputs. Nevertheless, they can be pasted. You can also use other text signs, like _ (underscore).
Project life
Once your project is created, it has to live. It lives in two major ways: some actions are added to the global outline of the project (actions you have forgotten during the brainstorming phase) and some existing actions pop up as Next Actions.
Actions that are added can be put inside the global outline or added as new notes (if the contain subactions). A great tip in RTM is that last edited notes always float on the top of the notes list, so you are sure to alway see the last modifications you made.
Actions that need to be done can be simply created in the current project tag with a copy-paste action in a new task. By this way, you can really focus on your next actions.
Project review
The last part is the project review you must perform daily or weekly. First, you can easily see all your projects by filtering on the -p sign of the projects descriptions tasks. Some of you will create a smart list to do that. Second, you can select the next actions of a project with a click on its tag link in its properties sheet.
Check also the global outline of the project and simply add your "done" sign to the completed subtasks. I like that because you can see the completion process. It is not the case for regular tasks, that "desappear" as they are completed.
Another way to keep an eye on important and vast projects is to use their "print page" url to instantly see what is completed. You can put this url in a favorite when the project is active.
Conclusion:
I suggested you a way to maintain your projects in RTM while keeping the focus on you Next Actions.
The project description task is the key of it all. If you maintain it (and its outline note) you are sure not to lose any subtask of your project and you will follow its progression until everything is complete.
Cheers,
David.
I am fascinated by the number of questions about projects. The fact is that RTM is not a project management tool, but a task management tool.
Nevertheless, RTM has become such a paradigm for us all that we could not imagine to use another product to manage our projects. Here are some guidelines I gathered to help you manage your projects.
Brainstorming:
Most of our projects come from brainstorming sessions. This phase is crucial. Most of the time we do it with a text editor, like notepad. We just write items and play with ENTER and TAB to organize the project. I suggest to keep this method, and use the result of your brainstorming to import it in your RTM, through import email address or copy paste in a note.
There is another way to brainstorm efficiently: it's RTM the notes feature itself. RTM users generally ignore how rich it is. For example, notes offer a title level if notes have more then one line. You can also open many notes at the same time, just clicking on the add note link, fill them separately, and close them in any order.
Once your brainstorm is finished, you must complete your "project description task" with all the brainstorm in it as notes. Simply rename this task so it begins with a "-p" sign to float on the top of the list. You should also put it in a new tag named at your convenience to identify the project.
Another key point is to maintain in a note a global outline of your project to follow its completion until the end. Be careful: tabs are not supported in RTM notes as direct inputs. Nevertheless, they can be pasted. You can also use other text signs, like _ (underscore).
Project life
Once your project is created, it has to live. It lives in two major ways: some actions are added to the global outline of the project (actions you have forgotten during the brainstorming phase) and some existing actions pop up as Next Actions.
Actions that are added can be put inside the global outline or added as new notes (if the contain subactions). A great tip in RTM is that last edited notes always float on the top of the notes list, so you are sure to alway see the last modifications you made.
Actions that need to be done can be simply created in the current project tag with a copy-paste action in a new task. By this way, you can really focus on your next actions.
Project review
The last part is the project review you must perform daily or weekly. First, you can easily see all your projects by filtering on the -p sign of the projects descriptions tasks. Some of you will create a smart list to do that. Second, you can select the next actions of a project with a click on its tag link in its properties sheet.
Check also the global outline of the project and simply add your "done" sign to the completed subtasks. I like that because you can see the completion process. It is not the case for regular tasks, that "desappear" as they are completed.
Another way to keep an eye on important and vast projects is to use their "print page" url to instantly see what is completed. You can put this url in a favorite when the project is active.
Conclusion:
I suggested you a way to maintain your projects in RTM while keeping the focus on you Next Actions.
The project description task is the key of it all. If you maintain it (and its outline note) you are sure not to lose any subtask of your project and you will follow its progression until everything is complete.
Cheers,
David.
Hi David,
and thanks for the great article. I also work with project description task and a separate smart list for them. I also have a special tag for each project (mine begin with ".").
Yet three hints from me:
- Normally I have two or three project I work on most. I have a smartlist for each of them, searched by the ".projektname" tag. I see the project description task and all the active tasks at once.
- Instead of using notes too much, I use the URL to link at an web based file, where I have the whole project plan in (goals, brainstorming, next steps, etc.)
- I have another list with the major goals in it (life goals, near goals, month goals, week goals, dayly goals).
Greetings,
O.
and thanks for the great article. I also work with project description task and a separate smart list for them. I also have a special tag for each project (mine begin with ".").
Yet three hints from me:
- Normally I have two or three project I work on most. I have a smartlist for each of them, searched by the ".projektname" tag. I see the project description task and all the active tasks at once.
- Instead of using notes too much, I use the URL to link at an web based file, where I have the whole project plan in (goals, brainstorming, next steps, etc.)
- I have another list with the major goals in it (life goals, near goals, month goals, week goals, dayly goals).
Greetings,
O.
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