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A post-it task on your door, wall, or window is great when you’re sitting at the door, wall, or window. The minute you need to work from a different area, head home, or head out on errands … you need a more portable option.

Here are some options for you.

we seem to use most in our office. If we need to go mobile, we label a few pages in a notebook. There is one page for projects. And there are separate pages for each context we need to take on the go.

When ready to head out, simply transfer post-it note tasks, and any related projects, into the notebook. Just make sure that when you return to the office, you put all tasks, including new notes and completed tasks on your wall.

Option 2: Electronic

Although you have some options here. You could take a static picture of the wall with your phone camera to have on the go.

You could also use the Post-it® Plus application which digitizes your notes and allows you to further markup your notes or even regroup them. This application is available on iOS. There could be similar applications for android, windows, and so forth.

If you are an Evernote user, you might want to think about using the Evernote Post-it Notes which allow you to indicate what type of Evernote note each color denotes. This way, when you take a picture with your camera phone, the post-it notes get processed directly into your Evernote.

Option 3: Another surface?

This is the great thing about post-it notes … they can stick to many other surfaces!

One way in which we have used this option is when running errands. Instead of moving the @errands post-it notes to a nicely labeled page in your notebook, simply stick them on the dashboard of your car and head out!

Now that your GTD wall can go mobile … I hope that makes it easier to use regularly. The key to having a task management system that works is to stick to one for a while and keep tweaking it so that it works.

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The definition of a project in GTD® is any outcome that requires more than 1 next action to achieve. This could be as complex as launching a new product line or repairing a car tire.

This variety in project complexity and size offer leads people to assume that each project has to be managed the same way in their list manager. It doesn’t have to be that way. My advice, simplify where possible.

In this blog post, I describe the method I use to manage less complex projects – repairing a car tire – in Evernote. In this blog post, I describe the method I use to manage less complex projects – repairing a car tire – in Evernote.

Let’s define the simple project

I think of a simple project as one that has all of the factors below:

  1. a single thread of “next” actions (further explained below)
  2. A  number of next actions (somewhere between 2 and 4)
  3. no more than one piece of content (completed action notes or action support material) that I would need to maintain

‘Single thread of next actions’ defined. Let me explain further what I mean by a single thread of next actions. Let’s consider two projects – Project A and Project B.

Project A depicted below, is a project that has more than one thread which means that at any one point in time there could be two next actions in the system. These two next actions are for A1 and A2, or A1 and B3 (if A2 has been completed), and so forth. But Project A is one outcome there is a single outcome defined that requires both C1 and C2 to be completed.

Project B on the other hand has only one next action active at any one point in time. It is also a single project – it has one outcome defined by action C being completed. Project B has what I call, a single thread.

No project file for simple projects

For complex (not simple) projects, I create a project folder with an Evernote notebook. For simple projects, I do not create an extra Evernote notebook – this is just too much complexity for what I need to do. Instead here is what I do.

  • “Single Items” Notebook: I keep one notebook for single next actions that I title “Single Items”.
  • ^Next Action tag: I create the first next action for that project, and give it the appropriate context (e.g. @Calls), and the ^Next Action tag.
  • Remembering thread: In the body of the note, I may document the project outcome and I usually document what would be the next action in the thread. Hence in next action A (from Project B above), I would add: “Next Action: B, C” 

Then as I complete the next action for the project, I can simply refer to the body of the note and remind myself of the project outcome and what I had initially brainstormed the next action to be. I can either complete this next action (if in the right context) or change the tags and title of the note to that of the next action B.

In other words, I am using one Evernote note to track the entire project.

Discussion Question: 

Do you prefer checkboxes to notes as your next action?

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