I absolutely agree that this (yet-inactive subsequent tasks in projects) is something that deserves to be addressed promptly and correctly.

Meantime, what I do is I use No Priority for these tasks (all other tasks have a High-Normal-Low priority). Further, I split them between Next and Someday such that only the "just-round-the-corner" subsequent tasks are in No Priority Next and all the rest are in No Priority Someday. It works well in practice, and I am quite satisfied, but is not GTD - it is just something I have invented myself. (In GTD these tasks should not be on the general lists at all - neither Next, Waiting nor Someday; they should be visible only in the actual project.)

Maybe an optionnal "Later" folder ?

Well, yes, a "Later" folder would be another manual workaround, on a par with using No Priority - there are some minor pros and cons with both methods, but essentially they are two quite similar solutions.

One distinctly bad solution, which runs contrary to GTD and common sense and actual reality, but which still enjoys some popularity, is the sequential one-at-a-time approach, as implemented by Omnifocus, MLO and Nirvana (a parallel/sequential option for each project) and FacileThings (only sequential), and to some more limited extent by Doit (manual sorting + Show One, which affect all projects in the same way on the Next list.).

A more proper, realistic and true-to-GTD solution is implemented by Zendone, where at the beginning of each project you can group as many actions as you like as Next, but keep all the rest hidden. Unfortunately, Zendone's default placement of new tasks is at the very end, so if you just drag a task to a project ant forget to place it properly, then the task will remain hidden until your next review.

The simplest and best solution, in my opinion, would be for Doit to implement a "line" (or group heading called "Subsequent" etc) within each project, and simply let users drag their tasks from whatever active box they were originally in and into the subsequent section - and vice versa if things change. And let users arrange their tasks in manual order within the Subsequent section. This solves everything:

1. You get all the true Next actions (and Waiting For actions) correctly listed on their respective lists, but everything else hidden in the project, just as you should (and as described by David Allen).

2. Minimum risk of losing sight of a new task: If you drag or create a task into a project and forget to position it exactly, it will be in the upper (active, parallel) section, and will therefore be visible on the normal lists (Next, Waiting etc). If this was wrong, i.e. it is not yet ready for being on Next or Waiting etc but an "upcoming" task of some kind, you can correct the error as soon as you notice it. But you will never lose sight of it accidentally until your next thorough review, which is what would happen if it were placed in the subsequent section, say at the very bottom.

3. Minimum work adjusting the position: Very often - the most frequent scenario - the intended correct position actually is the top section (active in parallel). Maybe the task is just something small that you had forgotten to write down and which also needs to be done now. Or maybe you use this project more as a "container for related things" than as a real project, in which case all tasks are intended to be active in parallel. Default placement at the bottom of the subsequent is almost guaranteed to be the wrong position, except in the rare case that you are typing in tasks off an already written list.

4. Can easily be automated for a guaranteed "minimum speed": Whenever the active section is empty, Doit could move the first subsequent action up to active. This guarantees that there is always at least one action visible on the main lists, which is a good safety measure if you have forgotten to review your project, or which can even be good enough if the project as a whole is quite unimportant or if all its tasks requires a the same context and energy etc. But as soon as you notice (e.g. in a project review) that there is more than one task that can be started now, in any order, you can always drag these additional tasks up to active, which is particularly important in time-critical projects and in projects where the true Next actions require different contexts and there is no way of telling which will be possible to do first.

+1

Well I actually totally agree with both posts of "Folke".
He nailed the point ant pointed out a superb sollution.

What do you guys of doit.IM think? Any response?

2 Weeks passed. Any response from doit.IM?

Amen.. and I still say that having a default Status of "Not Started" (or even a null value) would solve the entire problem. No manual work for each incoming task, no confusion about where it should be, and no sorting of the entire task list necessary. You go to the next action (or next actions, if applicable) and set them to "Next".

@JDavidCarr

Yes, I think you and I are in full agreement on all of this except for one little detail that is so simple that it could be a user preference setting:

I would prefer the default to be "active" ("started") and change them manually to "inactive" ("not started") when appropriate, rather than the other way around, as you prefer.

The reason why I personally prefer the "active" default, rather than "inactive", is the fact that I would feel constantly anxious about maybe having inadvertently "hidden" something important - I'd rather have the "hiding" done as a separate conscious step. And also the statistical fact that most of my new tasks are in fact doable anytime now - they are "active" Next actions, and it would mean additional work to have to "activate" them manually, which I would have to do if the default is "inactive".

And for you, apparently, the opposite is true.

A simple checkbox in the settings would allow for both.

Folke, I think I figured out why you and I aren't in alignment here.

I'm not suggesting that "Not started" tasks should be hidden from view. If I look at a project that has three tasks, I should see all of my tasks. I just want to have only one next action.

Let's assume my project "Make a Cake" has three tasks: Buy ingredients, Mix ingredients, and Bake cake. Currently when I add those three tasks to my project, they all have a status of Next. Discerning which task to perform first requires ordering the tasks (and to be honest, I don't care about their physical order, just which one(s) is the Next Action) when in fact they cannot all be done next. If they were created with a status of Not Started (or null, or whatever) then I could select the next action (in this case, "Buy ingredients")and change that one to Next. Or I could make it Today, or whatever is appropriate. None of the other tasks are hidden; they just aren't the Next Action.

When I complete the step of buying my ingredients, I can look over my remaining tasks and set the next one as the Next Action, in this case, "Mix ingredients".

Obviously there economies of scale here... nobody cares about this in a project with two or three tasks, but in a project that has 10-12 tasks, the value becomes more obvious.

One of the really nice features of todoMatrix, which was the system I replaced with Doit, was that completing a task prompted you to view the project folder (for the purpose of selecting the next Next Action). Sometimes I used it, sometimes I declined the prompt, but it made ongoing project organization very easy.

You mention often that your projects typically have multiple tasks (or in cases, all of the tasks) that are doable now. I'm not entirely sure I would consider that to be the norm for most people. I don't know what kind of work you do (I'm a web developer and a solutions architect for a B2B health/wellness platform provider) but I suspect that most people would have at least some sort of sequential nature to the tasks required to complete projects. Perhaps this approach has less value (based on your comments, it certainly has value, just to a lower degree maybe) for you than for me. While it's a minor pain to have all my tasks start off as "Next", there's no formidable workaround (and to N1TeSH1FT's point, I've been voicing this opinion for a year now) and even the minor increase in organization effort adds up over time.

In the end, I don't know that you and I are really saying different things.. which seems to be a frequent occurrence with us when we go back and forth on topics like this.

On an unrelated note, I noticed that after adding this thread to Pocket so I could read it later, the entry auto-updated with your comment, which was left after I added it. Pretty cool.

@JDavidCarr.

I believe we are very much on the same page. The "inactive" aka "not started" aka "subsequent" tasks should be clearly visible (not hidden) when looking at the project, but they should be hidden from the next actions list, waiting for list etc. I think we both mean the same thing.

As for the "sequentialish" nature of (true) projects I agree with you. Some (many) tasks can only be done after others have been done, and these "subsequent" tasks would tend to be the majority of tasks in the project. But despite this statistical fact I still prefer "active" to be the default. One major reason for this is the risk of otherwise forgetting it ("hidden") in the subsequent section - for example if I drag a new urgent task to the project but then forget to go to that project and change the status to "active".

Another reason is the fact that I am not at all convinced that the larger number of "subsequent" tasks equates to more work. I imagine that if, during a project review, you enter 10 new tasks, some of them (say 2) will really belong in the active section and some of them (say 8) in the subsequent. So you would afterwards click-select all the "misplaced" tasks and bulk-drag them to the other section. Not much work either way. In addition, there is every opportunity for the developers to avoid this dragging step altogether by allowing you to click-mark (highlight) an existing task anywhere in the list (either in the active or the subsequent section) and have the "add task" command place the new tasks right there. Don't you agree?

As for the sequence among the subsequent tasks I am sorry to say that I disagree with you. I think it is essential to be able to place them in a roughly realistic (sequentialish) order, because this makes it so much easier to review and understand the project and see if anything is missing. It also opens the door for partial automation - automatically moving the first subsequent action to "active" when the active section is empty, and thereby have that task replace the previous action on the next actions list.

You asked about my projects.

Very good point about pre-ordering tasks. I can definitely see the value in that; I just do it differently.

Over 2 years passed, nothing happened. Heard that there will be a new version out soon. Hope that this will be implemented.