I’m looking for ideas on how to deal with the following.
I’m working on a home maintenance project that involves multiple areas on the home, for example: “porch sub area 1”, “west side”, etc. The work includes things like:
Cross-cut wood to length.
Rip wood to width.
(The following actions are in a sequential action group.)
Prep (pieceOfWood (or segment of house siding)) (Note field: Optionally pressure wash and/or use mildew remover; scrape; sand.)
Prime (pieceOfWood1), first coat, let dry
Prime (pieceOfWood1), second coat, let dry
Paint (pieceOfWood1), first coat, let dry
Paint (pieceOfWood1), second coat, let dry
My project currently has action groups for each physical work area.
I’m somewhat handy with basic woodworking and carpentry, but in this project, I’m doing a fair amount of research and discovery along the way, and this means adding / modifying actions in the project as I go.
I realize that (assuming conditions are available) I can do prepping / priming / painting for boards that will be used for multiple areas in the same ‘batch’. I could change the project hierarchy so that prepping / priming / painting are in an action group—however I’ve been trying to somewhat focus on one particular area, then move to the other area—so having all actions for an area in an action group makes some sense for me. And things are partially fluid, because my next action might be to prime a house siding area, but it if rains, I will instead work on painting boards under cover, or cutting wood.
Also, there are other areas that may involve the same work, depending on inspection of wood condition. I’d rather not flesh out such areas, unless and until I am committed to doing the work. With a ‘per area’ model, I could duplicate an existing area action group and modify as needed, for an area that ends up being a ‘go’ action group.
I’ve been improvising a bit, meaning in an action group: “west area”, I sometimes modify actions to include work ‘belonging’ to another area, like prepping / priming / painting boards for “porch sub area 1”, to be included in the “west area” action group. Example: “Prime trim, including trim for porch area 1.” This works in terms of getting the work done, but I then have to review the overall project for area actions listed in an area action group that are not marked as completed, because they have been completed in another area’s action group.
Somewhat related, is that I’ve found doing a decent amount of planning so that I always have several potential next actions, and updating the project after the fact—then somewhat improvising the order of actions based on what I see in front of me, and documenting (from scratch) actions done, but again, then needing to look for those actions I already listed, and deleting, if redundant.
And, definitely related, is how to identify sequencing, and next actions. I’ve tried using due dates for potential next actions for the current day’s work, and that helps. I’ve also tried prepending (only a few) obvious next actions with "1 ", "2 ", etc. I realize traditional GTD theory doesn’t call out for that kind of sequencing, but instead relies partly in always having a next action. But when I’m covered in dust and wet paint, I don’t want to be doing much input on my laptop (in the work area), so having a handful of next actions is useful.
These are probably common project management issues; I do have the benefit of being the project manager, and one and only ‘worker’.
Anyway, quite the situation to untangle, but I thought others may be using techniques I haven’t thought of.
