2-level project / grouped projects

04/05/2014 21:41

Hi,

been working according to GTD for a few years now. previously I had an advanced set up in outlook with tasks, categories and grouped in specific ways. Then I moved to Nirvana but due to their very poor update of the platform I moved to Doit.im. Been with Doit for around 6 months now - best platform yet.

One thing I never really get to work fine is how to manage projects effectivly. I know what defines a project - a task that is breaked down in to more smaller parts. I like that approach and that use to help me get stuff going forward... But I never really get it to work as I want.

I work as a consultant in multiple big projects at the same time. right now I am involved in 7 - 8 major projects in some way. They tend to run from 3 months to 2 years. Often me days are "allocated" to one specific project/customer, or maybe two. So I really need to group my tasks depending on which high-level-project / customer I work for. Right now I am using context for that (using context as the GTD way, @call, @computer etc doesnt really work for me. I am a what some people call a "road warrior" and always carry me iPhone and computer with me. and there are almost no tasks that I need to me at the office to do... ).

So then my tasks within these big projects are associated to them through the context. But I then struggle when I want to break these down... because the Doit.im projects isnt linked properly (in my opinion) to context. So I cannot really get a good view of todays tasks grouped by project and context (that really is "high level project").

I think I need some kind of way to group projects together... then I might be able to skip the use of context.

unless no one got a good idea for me :) and hence this post. :) :)

12 comments

Folke (积分：2425)04/06/2014 20:29

1 floor

@fspets

Are you using the Project feature at all? And/or the Goal feature? You could set a a Project for each customer, and simply stay with just that, or, if you have many small projects for each customer you could define each customer as a Goal and have multiple projects under that Goal. You only need to connect the project to its goal once. From then on you just assign tasks to projects (not to goals).

Either way, in this way you would be able to view the tasks one customer at a time.

Have you manually sorted your project list in a practical order? That sorting order (of the projects list itself) is later reflected in the grouping of other lists, such as Next, Waiting and Someday, when you choose "group by Project", so by having them in a practical order will make it easier to read the correct portion of those lists. (I keep my projects sorted by Goal, and then in the same order as I keep them within that Goal. That makes it consistent and easy.)

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fspets (积分：125)04/07/2014 18:35

2 floor

Folke - thanks for that update. Right now I use context for the customers/long time projects and actual projects for the small ones. Every time I add tasks within a project I also need to associate it with the customer context... And yeah I need to manually sort the projects... I got a naming convention like - -

I need to be able in an easy way see all today's tasks in a convenient way. Now I can in the task list see both which customer and the eventual project. Don't think I can so that using goals?

Really like you taking time here Folke

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fspets (积分：125)04/07/2014 18:37

3 floor

Hmm seems the. Among convention disappeared.... Its like Customer - long time project - short project name

Folke (积分：2425)04/07/2014 20:30

4 floor

The Goals feature is very underdeveloped. It has great potential, the only thing it can help you with at the moment is keep your left menu tidy. You can keep your projects list collapsed. That's all.

But using contexts for the customer, and applying a context for every task, sounds very troublesome. I would not have the energy to do that.

Why don't you simply use the star to mark the tasks you want to consider doing today? Or maybe you could work off the individual project list? Or, if you keep your projects sorted by customer ("goal") you can work straight off the next actions list grouped by project (and simply ignore the today list)?

I wish Doit would complete the Goals feature:
- see all actions under each goal when you select a goal in the left menu (and also see the list of projects within the goal, like today).
- group all lists by Goal (the projects list, too)
- filter advanced/saved by Goal
- quick filter any list by Goal

fspets (积分：125)04/08/2014 20:59

5 floor

Yeah maybe I could try out replacing context with goals. The issue I see there is that I hardly see the goal tag anywhere in the tool... As you say it's very undeveloped. I wouldn't survive a week without today list, tomorrow and schedule. On every weekly review I do I schedule up which day I need to be finished with what (which I never fully a age anyway hehe).

But looking at today using goals (for customers) and projects I cannot see which project task that belongs to which customer in an easy way...

Hmm...

Folke (积分：2425)04/08/2014 21:43

6 floor

Correct. You cannot even see the goal in the lists (I forgot to mention that). There are many little things that are need to to make the Goals feature complete and useful.

The only thing you can use it for now is keep your left menu tidy.

fspets (积分：125)04/10/2014 20:21

7 floor

An idea... Have you @folke worked with the subtasks much? Maybe I can manage the customers/large projects just as regular doit.im projects. And then having tasks and the "mini-projects" as tasks with subtasks...

Folke (积分：2425)04/11/2014 08:44

8 floor

Yes, I use subtasks quite a bit. They are often very useful, but mainly as checklists or as lists of tasks that all share the same context, timing and other characteristics, e.g. ten different people you need to call/inform about something, or ten different document templates you need to update with your new address, or ten different locks you need to lubricate.

But as soon as you want to give different priorities to them, or if some are not possible until a certain date, or they require different contexts (car, phone, computer etc) subtasks cannot really be used.

I would guess that by using subtasks you can probably reduce the number of projects you need for each customer, but it is not at all certain that you can reduce them down to just one. Please let me know how it worked out.

fspets (积分：125)04/12/2014 05:48

9 floor

I'm moving my set up now to use projects + sub tasks the way we wrote above. I'll post and update how it goes.

When it come to contexts... How are you folke using it? I am working very mobile... Being a road warrior at different customer sites every day. Always carrying three devices (laptop, tablet and smartphone) that are always connected to the internet.

How would a "modern context setup" look like?

I've seen an example like this....

@quick, @routine, @focus

Another thing I was thinking of was @offline <-- having a specific context associated to tasks that I can do fully offline. Then I could be extra productive on a plane, at a bad internet spot etc

Folke (积分：2425)04/12/2014 09:55

10 floor

My contexts: http://help.doit.im/group/topic/23#comment-25

Some other people's contexts are in that thread too, and here: http://help.doit.im/group/topic/90

Maybe in your case, if most of your tasks are "@Out" I would perhaps consider defining different contexts for each major location (or geographical area) or maybe I would still use a generic "@Out" context for those, but differentiate locations using tags, or maybe I would just have two separate contexts, an "@Site" (customer site)" context and @Out" (shops, car, friends' places, anything) - I think maybe this would be my preferred alternative.. Or maybe I would find that each location is well enough defined by the customer's name (project name) - so, if the action's context is "Out" and the project is "ABC Corp Renovation" it would mean that the job needs to be done at their site. Or, if almost all your actions are "out" then it would perhaps be tempting to have that as the default (No Context), but this then means you have no way if seeing if the context is missing by accident or whether you really meant "out", so I think I'd go for having a context after all (and it is not too much of a problem, because you can easily bulk drag tasks to a context; quite a handy feature.)

The way I see it, I don't want too many contexts (about half a dozen is just just nice) and they should split up the actions evenly enough to be meaningful for list grouping etc. An @offline context would probably be useful if a had a lot of computer work and often had a bad connection. Or you could split your computer tasks between "any device" (email etc) and "particular device" (CAD etc) - it all depends on what your tasks are and how many you have of each kind. No point in have many contexts and still 90% of the tasks in just one context - so I'd say split up your "large" contexts first and then merge the tiny ones into the larger ones.

(A problem with Doit's Tags is that you cannot see them in the list, even though you can filter by them. Not being able to see them is a dealbreaker for me. I cannot trust them if I cannot verify them, so I do not dare to use them for anything important. If I could see them, I would depend on them much more to make my contexts more granular without thereby making a mess of my left menu and my list groups. I hope Doit will change this soon.)

fspets (积分：125)04/17/2014 22:19

11 floor

The new project and sub task way works kinda well - same as before almost actually (using the context instead of project for the high level projects)

One thing that bothers me is that everytime I associate a task with a project it is pushed to its next list... I want to work through my inbox like... "Where does this belong!?" (Which project) and then "When do I plan to do it?" (Putting it on today, schedule or on the next list)... But know they are pushed to the next list directly... Very annoying hehe

shenia (积分：35)04/18/2014 00:55

12 floor

Hi - @fspets I'm keenly interested in a solution to this issue because I have the same challenge and its driving me nuts.

I have a lot of big projects that have sub projects with tasks and sometimes sub tasks. I hate having to find work-arounds to get the detail I need to keep my life together. I like Folke idea to use Goals but because the visibility of Goal in the current user interface is so low, I fear I may loose track of my projects.

Like you I love Do.it and I'm excited that the team keeps working on it and improving it - hopeful sub projects and a "more developed sub task" system will come soon.

* "By more developed sub task" I mean that a sub task should have the full characteristics of a task. A start and end date, context, tags, priorty etc etc. As Folke said - it's really just a check-list at this point; which nice but I can't wait till it's more :)

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