Some further notes from David Allen's very good book - Getting Things Done. 

Stages of planning a project

• Purpose – why are you doing the project?
• Principles – standards to which the project should meet.
• Vision / Outcome – visualize the successful outcome of the task.
• Brainstorm – hierarchy of tasks, considerations and ideas.
• Organize – into project plans
• Next Action – each project’s next task should be selected based on criteria of who is doing, priority and dependencies. This stage should constitute 90% of the project management role.

Preparation

• Take two whole days to go through your ‘open loops’ – this is existing projects with open tasks. Expect the full collection process to take 8 hours and then another 6 hours to organize those items.
• Set-up a central work space as the hub for your organization. This should hold the record of task lists etc..
• Use the right tools – paper holding trays, paper, pens, post-its, stapler, calendar etc…

Filing System for Reference

• Set-up a general reference filing system – this should hold ‘stuff’ that needs to be referred to in the future.
• Purge the reference file once per year.

Collecting

• Gather all your ‘stuff’ before processing it.
• Start with physical gathering – desktop, mail, drawers etc…
• Then move to mental gathering…
• Brain dump your issues, ideas, project, tasks in a single non-structure long list. Include incomplete projects, bills to pay, proposals not started etc… etc…

Processing Stuff

• Each item that you gathered should be classified as one of the following:
• It takes less than 2 minutes – Do It Now.
• It’s of now use and needs no action – trash it.
• It’s of use for reference at some point in the future – store in reference system (see above).
• It might require action ‘someday maybe’ – add this to a ‘tickler file’.
• It needs action but somebody else can and should do it – delegate it.
• It needs action by you on a specific date – put it in your calendar.
• It needs action by you as soon as possible – add it to your ‘next actions’ list.

Go through each task and add further tasks if there are dependencies and it cannot be done now. For example, the ‘next task’ list could end up looking like this:

• Do tax return.
• Clear out closet.
• Complete project proposal.
• Going through each one may yield further tasks, some of which are ‘waiting for’ tasks being performed externally.
• Do tax return – cannot start because waiting for K1. So, add new task ‘waiting for K1’ as a dependency for ‘Do tax return’.
• Clear out closet – cannot start because you may be at work. The context of this task is ‘at home’.
• Etc.. etc..

Define your Projects

A project is anything that requires more than one task. A project can have a priority – a task cannot. A project may start with an external ‘waiting for task’ – which means it can’t start yet.

Organizing Files

Each of the following lists of things that need to be stored as part of the workflow process:

• Calendar – contains actions that need to be performed on a specific date.
• Action List – contains a list of actions that need to be done as soon as possible. Each are attributed to a project and have a context (which restricts when you can do it). They could also have an attributed energy level and expected duration – this will further help filter down ‘what’s next’ depending on available resources.
• Waiting For lists – actions that are external either delegated or performed by somebody else. These still need chasing but do not get done by you.
• Project list – list of projects with the goals of the project. This should be reviewed once per week. Not usually changed during the course of a day. This list can be hierarchical – with sub-projects. Projects are different to actions – you cannot ‘do’ a project.
• Project support materials – this is where project plans, project reference material, documents etc.. are kept.
• Reference File – this is where information that may be needed in the future is stored, usually not associated with a specific project.
• Someday/Maybe list – list of things that don’t need to be actioned any time soon. Like recipe ideas, possible gifts in the future etc… It’s possible to use a calendar or a tickler file to defer these items (see below)

What is a Tickler File?

• A file with 43 sections.
• It contains one section for each day for the month ahead (starting with the current date).
• Then a section for each each month (starting with next month).
• Deferring an item (someday/maybe) means moving it to a specific file in the tickler file. This can be a specific date over the next month or a specific month over the next year. This is when the item is reviewed again