what to do when you feel like you have too many projects

[Jason Lewis]

Hi,

I'm working on getting organised and have made my projects list and I
feel like my current projects (i.e. not the someday/maybe ones) is just
too long and overwhelming. How do people cope with having too may
projects or how do you cull it down to something manageable?

Thanks,

Jason

[Allen MacKenzie]

Right after I started GTD, I carried around an overwhelming list of
projects for several weeks. Finally, I said to myself, "This is
ridiculous. I can't work on this many projects at once. I'm not even
making forward progress on most of them." And then I moved a bunch of
them to Someday/Maybe.

I've heard people say that anything you plan to accomplish in the next
year should be a project instead of a Someday/Maybe. And I think
David Allen even says something like that in the book. But for me, if
I don't realistically see myself making forward progress on something
in the next 1-2 months, then it gets relegated to Someday/Maybe. YMMV

Allen

[Jeff Kenton]

I put things that I won't work on for the next week into the Someday
category. But a good portion of the weekly review is devoted to
looking through these Someday projects and deciding which of them are
likely to get work during the upcoming week.

I also have an archive category that receives projects that are not
likely to get attention in the upcoming couple of months. Once a
month, I go through these projects.

It works for me.

Jeff

On 4/20/05, Allen MacKenzie <mack...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I've heard people say that anything you plan to accomplish in the next
> year should be a project instead of a Someday/Maybe. And I think
> David Allen even says something like that in the book. But for me, if
> I don't realistically see myself making forward progress on something
> in the next 1-2 months, then it gets relegated to Someday/Maybe. YMMV

--
All intellectual improvement arises from leisure - Samuel Johnson

[Thom Allen]

Jason,

I would say the same thing. I have about 50 projects defined but I only look
at one or two seriously at any one time. It isn't fair to the project if I
can't give it my all. During my weekly review I scan my projects list to see
if there is something I can do in the next week or so, if not I continue to
focus on my active projects.

--Thom

[Pitch]

For me, "too many projects" means I have to spend an hour or two
looking at my life from a larger perspective (I think GTD calls this
the 10-mile up viewpoint). I drop everything, go for a walk, find a
place to sit, and ask, "Where the hell am I going? What is REALLY
important to me this year?"

As an example: I did this a few months ago. It became clear that the
number one top priority my life, for the next 2 years at least, was *to
make more money*. Period. No vagueness about that. Once that really got
clear, suddenly over 80% of my "Oh So Very Important Projects!" became
Somedays/Maybes. Actually many of them became delegated into a hanging
folder I call "Dream On, Mister."

For what it's worth, I've gotten more money-projects off the ground in
the 6 weeks than I had in the last year. I'm no expert at GTD, but this
one experience, especially now that I can look back on the effects of
the past month or two, is quite startling. I almost can't believe that
I'm this focused, that I'm able to start each day, focused on this
"Make More Money" number 1 project. Me, the spacey Pisces. Ha.

My guess: get a clearer idea of where you want to be in 12-24 months.
This will clear the decks of all those supposedly Really Important
Projects, Honest! that right now seem so crucial.

[Betsy Schwartz]

What they all said. I had to look at my projects and say
"realistically, which of these am I working on right now?"

I realized that I have two projects that, as Stephen Covey would say,
are very "important but not urgent" (what they call Quadrant II).
These are the things that need to be done to develop my job and work
environment but that nobody is screaming for right now. These projects
constantly get put on the back burner because of all the stuff that
people ARE screaming for, but I'll be in trouble if I don't work on
them *sometime*. So they have to be active and they have to have next
actions, and I have to make the time to work on them. In order to do
this, some of the 'screaming' stuff has to get queued.

What I tried doing is lumping someof the screaming stuff together into
a bigger project - a lot of little things fit under a common category
- and then just picking a few Next Actions from that category, so that
my Next Actions on the Q2 stuff show up.

[Thom Allen]

Hey Pitch, that makes a lot of sense. I never really looked at it like that.
I know what my immediate priorities are but looking long range there has to
be a big picture that sets the tone for all active projects. Thanks for
sharing the advice.

--Thom

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Pitch [mailto:pitchbla...@gmail.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, April 20, 2005 8:14 AM
> To: 43Fo...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: [43F Group] Re: what to do when you feel like you have too many
> projects
>
>

[Jeff Porten]

On Apr 20, 2005, at 10:46 AM, Thom Allen wrote:

> I know what my immediate priorities are but looking long range there
> has to
> be a big picture that sets the tone for all active projects. Thanks for
> sharing the advice.

Something that I frequently do (although it's not a regular feature of
my system) is to have three lists: Projects, Someday/Maybe, and "Soon".
Soon is an active project that I'm just not working on now, but it's
the staging area for the next things to hit the project list. Very
useful if you're concerned that projects with some immediacy will get
lost with the "learn to speak 12 foreign languages" on the Someday
list.

Best,
Jeff

-----
http://www.jeffporten.com/portentia Tech, politics, and musings
http://www.jeffporten.com/jeffwing The Vast Jeff Wing Conspiracy

[Jason Lewis]

Pitch,

Thanks for your email. That's a very good point. I need to look at each
project in the context of what I'm trying to achieve in my life.

Thanks,

Jason

[Debbie Chinique]

On the heels of what Pitch said, you can also discover your
motivations and goals by what IS getting done and which projects seem
to stall. Perhaps the ones not getting done are not as meaningful as
you think they are. That said, I do believe that taking a "higher
elevation" view is necessary to evaluate your priorities so you know
WHY you are choosing certain actions/projects over others.

I have found GTD to be an invaluable tool to keep focus and awareness
over all aspects of my life; while keeping a "mind like water" during
my daily activities.

[Michael Gmail]

On Apr 20, 2005, at 11:16 AM, Jeff Porten wrote:

> Something that I frequently do (although it's not a regular feature of
> my system) is to have three lists: Projects, Someday/Maybe, and
> "Soon". Soon is an active project that I'm just not working on now,
> but it's the staging area for the next things to hit the project list.
> Very useful if you're concerned that projects with some immediacy
> will get lost with the "learn to speak 12 foreign languages" on the
> Someday list.

I agree. I'm still not quite sure how best to decide what goes where,
but there does seem to be a need for a funneling process and a category
of projects that require more careful thought during the review, even
if they're not quite ripe for assigning next actions for the upcoming
week. Especially if, like me, you're deliberately trying to limit the
number of active NAs to what can actually realistically be "checked
off" before the next weekly review (with mixed success so far--too many
incoming can't-ignores from clients sapping my concentration...).

Michael

--
<http://globalocal.blogspot.com>

If you don't know what you want, it's probably sleep.
- Tom Parker

[mkb]

> I have about 50 projects defined but I only look
> at one or two seriously at any one time.

If you are using GTD, then I suspect you are defining "project" a
little too narrowly. In Allen's scheme, a project is anything that
takes more than one discreet action.

"Write e-commerce application for client X" is a large project, and
certainly most of us mortals can't reasonably focus on more than a
couple of projects like that at a time. However, "loan Wilco CD to
Patrick" is a project too, consisting of: get CD from car, find case,
leave CD out for Patrick's wife, email patrick to confirm receipt.

Under this broader definition, I might aspire to only having two
projects at a time, but external realities are going to impose a lot
more on me. I'm currently running at 33 active projects after pushing
a few back to my maybe/someday list when I realized I was feeling
swamped.

--mkb