For those of you who are adherents to @Kourosh Dini’s “Navigation” Project (formerly “Land and Sea”), I have a quick question (I know that @TheOldDesigner is a big adherent, but maybe others).
I have about 20 to 30 projects. Following GTD, I keep them active with next actions, reviewing weekly.
Now, in the Navigation list, do you create Engage/Parked tasks for each of these projects, as soon as you add them to omnifocus? Or does the Engaged/Parked list emerge organically as you go, choosing from week to week which projects will be “engaged” and which will be moved to parked.
I really like @Kourosh’s elegant approach, but a little tripped up on how closely the Navigation list maps onto the comprehensive list of projects contained in the system. It seems a bit much to create a corresponding navigation task for each project; but then again when I don’t, I’m sometimes asking myself “is this in my parked list”?
Thank you for the reference to the book and the Website. I look forward to exploring them further.
As a preface, I have not read the books or the methods. I do however have some sense of what you face.
I think you can define the approach however you want to be more effective. Since you see that your current approach has holes, find a way to fix them. You might benefit by looking outside of OmniFocus to tools that are better suited for reviewing the big picture to track your navigation. This could allow you to stop flipping projects in and out of folders in OF and instead moving them on maps or boards, with links back to the projects in OF. Or you might consider whether tags can replace folders to denote your navigation marks. Tags are easier to flip compared to moving tasks or projects in hierarchical lists.
I currently have 3 launch tasks in the Engaged project and 5 in the Parked. Parked only refers to those that I intend to get to once something opens in the Engaged. Otherwise, the rest of my projects hang out in the database. When I review them, I might add a launch task to Engaged or Parked if I want to, but then I might have to remove one of those that are already there to maintain minimal noise. I can still do small tasks throughout the database using a @Quick tag.
Thanks @Kourosh! A privilege to have a response from the author himself!
Ok, I think I see better now how the Review process and the Navigation Folder/Engage process go hand in hand - and how it fits into your philosophy/ontology about task management. When it goes in Engage/Parked (or Activate) it does so as a consequence of a deliberate decision or consideration about “engaging” with that work. The Review is the logical place for those considerations to be made.
@DrJJWMac thanks also, I’m still trying to sort out how to manage scale and different sorts of project. I think you are right that some things can be moved out of omnifocus (i.e. case files that I am merely “watching” until I fully take them on; a couple collaborative projects) for a more parsimonious (and useful) OF database.
Hi
If it helps I had the same sort of issues, I now only keep client projects and things I must do in parked. These are things like “work on redesign of XYZ web app” or “start tax returns”
This makes the parked list easier to maintain and more relevant. Other “parked” projects tend to be things I want to do rather than need to do so I prefer to keep them out of the way and just review them regularly and maybe then decide to activate them.
I am also experimenting with just having one “engaged” project, I have a lot of routine things to do and just one “big rock” project every week seems to mean I focus on it and hopefully complete it in a week
