Project - task distinctionΒΆ

Tags: plone, zestsoftware, gtd

A couple of weeks ago I got triggered by a short article on working in project space . I've got a great project/todolist application (omnifocus) but there are days when I hardly look at it as I'm on the roll with a customer project. So I considered that a possible problem. The customer projects are managed in our extreme programming management website. No way I'm going to type over my tasks into omnifocus.

I'm now making a distinction:

  • Projects that I want to work on for an extended period of time. It is   actually entirely ok to get into the flow of a customer project and spent a   full day on it. One day of focused work can make a huge difference on a   project. Getting into the flow is important.
  • Loose tasks ("buy diapers") or projects that consist more of separate tasks   ("eventually I want to move my website from vanrees.org to   reinout.vanrees.org"). I can do those tasks anytime I want.

For me, omnifocus is great for the second type of tasks. I never have nothing to do if I want to do someting: just give me the list of things I want to brainstorm on or that I want to google.

An important note: maintaining the system you use for that second type of tasks is essential. Get all your commitments ("oh, I still have to ...") out of your head and put them in omnifocus/excel/paper. Only then can you really get into the project-flow, confident that you're not forgetting important things.

(Old imported comments)
"Email" by http://justinbaeder.myopenid.com/ on 2008-06-01 02:35:08
I'm feeling the same thing with my personal email (which is mostly filled with messages related to a side project that's separate from my day job). I enter most work-related and personal stuff in OmniFocus, but stuff from my personal email account would be too time-consuming to transfer. Blasting through emails (Inbox Zero style) just makes more sense.
 
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My name is Reinout van Rees and I work a lot with Python (programming language) and Django (website framework). I live in The Netherlands and I'm happily married to Annie van Rees-Kooiman.

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