The organisers challenge Review vs Do

#1

I was wondering if anyone using a TiddlyWiki as a productivity tool or Get things done, task or project manager has found a way to deal with the need to review tasks to get an overview and the separate process of doing them?

  • Currently I have a touch date stamp that indicates I have opened and reviewed a tiddler today, typicaly a project, but then of course I also want to action all of part of what I see needs to be done.
  • I am wondering if anyone has an approach to how to handle separately the review process then return for the do process?
#2

Not sure if this is what you were looking for, but over many years I’ve evolved a system that works for me - stealing from many other systems (GTD and mGSD mostly). For me the main glue between the needs is done via routine and process:

  • Annually: Set main goals and measurables for the year (wiki has “Goal” tiddlers)
  • Monthly: Prioritize which Projects get attention or shelved (MustDo ShouldDo, CouldDo) by linking them to a Goal.
  • Weekly: Ensure each Project has appropriate tasks (with ticklers) setup, if not add for each project
  • Daily: Look through tickler list each day and put time into primary Calendar (Outlook) around meetings for each one I plan on doing for the day, the remainders get pushed to tomorrow or killed.
#3

So would it be fair to say that your review occurs then you place it in your calendar to action?

  • For me if I don’t get it all done I have a messy calendar.
  • I will give it more thought thanks
#4

Yes, each morning the review is something like “is this less than 2 min, then do now”, then “is this important to do today?” Then put it in calendar, then after the first pass through all ticklers, if there’s time left on calendar, fill it with less urgent but important items.

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#5

@stobot do you just use a standard amount of time for each event?

In a similar way to adding selected items to the calendar in the review process, I have been keen to develop a day scheduling tool which is more like an agenda but also responds automatic start and end times, drag and drop reorder and inserting scheduled events and interruptions.

  • although this may be more detailed it does require thinking about how much time is needed for each task.

The hassle is I need this tool today, but cant afford the time to make it today. I dont want it to be they proverbial “pencil sharpening syndrome”.

#6

Have a weekly review of these tabs plus Google Calendar.

Current month tasks
Waiting tasks
Tasks by the domains I track (family, work, “better me”)
Google Calendar for this week
Big picture goals

Tag tasks to “This week” as part of the review. Then when ready to “do”, go to “This week”. Recurring tasks will not be deleted but the tag for “This week” gets removed.

For quarterly review, also check “Someday/Maybe”. I don’t have a separate tab for this. I put them at the bottom of each domain tab that I track.

#7

This is philosophical for me but I believe it’s important to not over-automate some things.

Part of the skill of good time management is the ability to guess we’ll on how long a task will take. I don’t know of a shortcut past try, fail, try again. So, I consciously spend a minute thinking through how long a thing should take, add a bit of padding and then book myself for that.

As the day progresses I’m learning already which things I over or under estimated and will remember that for each future task. This is really important because decisions over whether to prioritize, delegate, or even reject a task are based on a ROI of time.

Anyway, just my two cents learned over many years in project management.