Waiting-For Considered Dangerous. Let’s Break It Together.
Before a little cartoon cloud filled with punctuation marks appears above your head, know that I am not about to write anything asserting that you should stop following up on loaned items, delegated projects, actions, etc. What I am going to write about is a better way to do it.
The Problem with Waiting-For
If you have a Waiting-For list in your own GTD setup, you may have noticed something annoying about it, especially if you are using a paper-based system as I did a few years ago. That book you loaned to a friend? Yeah, you look at that same line several times a day for weeks or even months even though you don’t really care when it is returned. That action you delegated to your boss that isn’t due until next week? Yeah, it looks back at you, stealing your attention when working through your contexts each day. And where exactly will this follow up occur? Via email? While running errands? Online? Isn’t that why we have contexts?
Perhaps you stored your Waiting-For list outside of your main method of flipping through contexts, on some kind of low-fi list. Maybe you placed the item from your boss on the Weekly Review list somewhere and will rethink it on Friday afternoon, placing a follow up action in a context or on your calendar. This just seems fiddly.
The Fix, Part One: Verbs in Context
The concept of “Waiting-For,” introduced as a list in Getting Things Done, is really more of a meta context list. “Deferred” is really “deferred until…” and the real action behind a Waiting-For item is a verb describing the follow up action. So instead of having a noun/person combo like “Dave: On the Road” to remind you that you loaned a Kerouac book to a friend, you can use “Call Dave re: On the Road” on your @calls list, placing a verb in context just as with the rest of your system.
The Fix, Part Two: Crouching Context, Hidden Action
Having a verb in context will mesh with the GTD flow in a better way. We don’t really need to see that Kerouac reminder until we’re able to make calls and we won’t look at the @calls context until we are able to actually, you know, pick up the phone. (Seeing this action on your phone is the subject of another post, getting closer…promise.) So now we need to simply deal with the problem of seeing that follow up action everytime we look at our @calls context from now until who-knows-when. We need to hide that action until we care. My tickler file used to take care of this. More recently, iCal has taken care of this for me. Somehow though, this just isn’t as smooth as it could be.
This is where Actiontastic and its wise users come into the picture. Quite a few blog comments and emails have rolled in about adding due dates and start dates to actions and projects, but my DEVONthink reference for this date mini-project just grew in size while not turning into any real code for the app. You see, “dates” have been on the brainstorming board for quite some time now, but I didn’t want to just toss them in a table. I wanted to add meaning to them, design them, and keep the app super simple. How will we view these items? Do they affect project ordering? What related filters are needed? So a daily fight has been taking place via paper sketches and electronic notes. A very recent email from Michael Grant pushed me over the edge regarding the relationship of dates to Waiting-For and I am now very close to adding a general concept of time to Actiontastic.
Right now, here is the plan (subject to coffee, design fits of fury, and of course change):
- Add a “pause” feature
- Add start dates
- Add due dates
Pause
The Great Koz mentioned pausing “blocked projects” as he calls them. Those are the kind of things where your Next Action depends on someone else or some outside event before it can be executed. His wish was to not see this action until later, thus Pausing. I agree. Seeing something on my Next Action list that I can’t do right now is distracting. So the plan is to add a simple “pause” button to Projects, Actions, Inbox Items, and maybe even Contexts (think about hiding your @errands list while you are sitting at your desk). This pause will not be based on a date. It is more like “deferred until I un-defer it” or “stop looking at me with your shiny blank checkbox…right now!”
Start Dates
Right now, these things are going in the drawer. Items that make it into the main Action table must prove that they are essential for Action, the centerpiece of Actiontastic, before they are granted a sliver of the main attention zone in the app. Items with start dates before today can be displayed or hidden via a filter, and there is no reason to keep looking at them once the Action is in play.
Due Dates
These are probably going to make it into the main Action table as it is important to know what absolutely must be completed today. However, I don’t see any logical way to sort items by these dates, nor does it seem to mesh with GTD or even a clear view of urgent vs. important. It is quite possible to have an Action with no due date executed prior to an Action that is due today. There may be no due date for calling an old friend over lunch and this will likely be executed before “call boss re: cover on TPS report” due at 5:00 PM today. (As many of you already know, Actiontastic allows drag reordering of actions in projects. This ordering defines the order in the Context view as well as what appears when the “Next Action” filter is selected.)
Thoughts?
So what do you think? Crazy? Good? Both? I want to keep this app super clean and super simple so sticking to a minimal set of features is important. The Action must stay at the center of focus. Dates seem to be important enough to warrant attention, but let me know if you think otherwise.
leslie wrote:
For due dates I just need a way for the reminder to end up in my mail inbox. It seems the most straightforward thing would be to have AT set alarms in iCal and let ical do the work. But, so long as I can get an email reminder, I do not care so much about how I get it so long as its easy to set and trustable.
Posted on 30-Nov-06 at 12:36 pm | Permalink
Brab wrote:
I really like the “Pause” button idea. For starting dates, I currently use GTDAlt on TextMate with a simple script that runs a very simple tickler system (which I’ll have to describe sometime again in my blog). Every item in the tickler current day get dumped in GTDAlt inbox with a “Review: ” prefix and a due date of today. (I’m not so sure about this in fact, maybe I should assume implicitely that anything in the inbox is meant to be reviewed today.)
As for due dates, they are tricky, as there are several kinds of them. Real hard due dates (the report needs to be sent by Friday), due dates that may slip a little (I need to get a present for my wife for Christmas, let’s say … by December 20th, or I need a day to write the report for Friday), and expiry dates (if I can get to it, I’d like to go this show before it’s not programmed anymore (I know it’s not an action, but “Call theater for show times” should an some kind of expiry date)).
I guess what I’m saying is that some due dates are in fact contexts, whereas others represent urgency, and the distinction is not clear cut.
Posted on 01-Dec-06 at 7:11 am | Permalink
zoltan wrote:
I think things with real hard due dates should go on your calendar.
Most of the time I’d just want to get reminded of things a few days from now - I’d prefer a simpler interface with a ‘remind me in a week’ and ‘remind me in a month’ type buttons, not a full-fledged calendar widget where I have to click around eight times to set a due date.
Posted on 03-Dec-06 at 9:05 am | Permalink
Oskar L-B wrote:
I strongly second the ‘remind me in x days’ suggestion. With a full calendar choice available as a fold-out option, of course.
All options on the table, just make the simplest ones the preferred. (See: Mac OS X’s standard Save Panel layout.)
Posted on 03-Dec-06 at 6:46 pm | Permalink
Nick wrote:
I like the idea of dates, but hate calendars. They always distract me with all the empty boxes artificial structures and multiple items in other boxes. What makes more sense to me is a list of dates viewable by action or project so that I only need to see relevant information.
Posted on 03-Dec-06 at 9:36 pm | Permalink
Steve wrote:
How about forcing some projects or contexts to bring up items for review every x days? This is what inbox does and I think it is a good idea.
Posted on 03-Dec-06 at 11:26 pm | Permalink
Jon wrote:
@Everyone:
Thanks for the input on the dates. I am working on the basic date pieces for nearest possible release — 0.8.3 or 0.8.4.
Posted on 05-Dec-06 at 10:43 pm | Permalink
Oliver Nielsen wrote:
I’d love to be able to prioritize my projects, move them around, and maybe make some projects sub-projects of parent projects. Simply something like:
A hierarchy in projects listing, with folders.
Dragging the order of projects. Higher in the list yields a larger font, og maybe just a darker font color. So the bottom project becomes light grey text.
Posted on 20-Dec-06 at 12:30 pm | Permalink
Bushford wrote:
Hi Jon,
I don’t agree on the way you suggest to treat delegated actions…
It just doesn’t work in practice.
If I am waiting for someone else to do something in order for a project to move forward, this indeed requires me to chase the person, so “Send James e-mail reminder about his draft proposal” is useful, but it doesn’t really help me moving forward the project. I can send the e-mail, but I still don’t have James’ draft. And after sending it, I need to log another action for me to check my inbox for a response? This isn’t very efficient.
The only thing that makes the project move forward is for James to “E-mail me the draft proposal”. That’s what I want to see on my Waiting for… list, so I can take whatever action is suitable or convenient. In any case, until James e-mails me the proposal, the project is incomplete, the loop stays open.
The missing dimension in Actiontastic is that of the “delegate” or “actor”, apart from Context and Project. A third view, with same UI as the other two. That should do the trick, I think.
I have been using NoteBook (CircusPonies) to do GTD, but am hitting its limits. Currently I am trying out kGTD for OmniOutline r, but it doesn’t do the delegation well either. Actiontastic looks great and I am looking forward to the next release (with delegation features :-))
Posted on 29-Dec-06 at 5:32 pm | Permalink
Skeeter wrote:
Two things…. no three…
1. When looking at contexts, why do actions from paused or future start date project show up in my actions for a context. If the project is on hold, why don’t the action inherit that pause or start date?
2. I’d like to put a start date like “3 days” or “next week” and have it translate that to a date for me.
3. Just started playing with this app. Looks nice, simple, and well designed. Kudos.
Posted on 30-Dec-06 at 1:28 am | Permalink
Clive Walters wrote:
2 points for a new user like me (having used KinklessGTD):
a. allow note on action to include link(s) to file(s) involved in the action (eg drag the icon onto the note section) - so double click on a file icon and I am there in the app’s doc (again!)
b. REPEAT/RECUR facility - the first to chalk it up as a new action again once the check box is ticked, the second to initiate after set time *since* the check box ticked.
PS: dates are good - but they often conflict with sorting lists as offered already. EG- There might be two actions dated today - but one is essential for knock on items - the other a low priority single one. Both have the same contrext - how to highlight to reflect need?
Posted on 01-Jan-07 at 12:15 pm | Permalink
Jon wrote:
@Bushford:
I agree that an inventory of items that are expected from others is necessary and that after an action is taken to check on that item, something still needs to exist to track that open loop. I just don’t keep those items in a “waiting for” context, because they are not actions and “waiting for” isn’t really a context in my opinion. This sort of hits at the difference between lists of actions and lists in general (like goals, inbox prompts, and in my case waiting-for items). Given Actiontastic’s strong slant toward the physical action items, I have been looking at ways to augment this while still keeping the app focused. One of the next updates will address this.
Posted on 02-Jan-07 at 8:12 am | Permalink
Jon wrote:
@Skeeter:
Taking the filter down to the action level is indeed helpful and is planned for one of the next releases. Thanks for the input on the date fields. Some minimal wording is allowed (like “tomorrow”) but it could be better.
@Clive Walters:
Thank you for the suggestions. Recurring items are on the maybe list at the moment, but may be upgraded soon. Direct links to files would be great and is on the brainstorming list.
Posted on 02-Jan-07 at 11:14 pm | Permalink