Overview: (Excerpted from Getting Things Done, Donald Allen)
A PROJECT LIST is a master inventory of your Projects.
One of the most common questions we get, as people begin to implement the GTD method, is "Why do I need to have a Projects list?" In other words, people want to know if they can get away with simply creating and looking at lists of Next Actions. A current, clear, and complete projects list is the key tool for managing the horizon of our commitments that, in my experience, has the greatest improvement opportunity for anyone leading a life of any significant complexity.
Projects
They range all over the map, and most people have between thirty and a hundred such commitments, at any point in time. Each one of these agreements with ourselves needs some sort of "stake in the ground" anchored in such a way that we revisit it frequently enough to trust nothing is being missed or falling through the cracks about it, and that forward motion is appropriately happening. If you only tracked Next Actions, then once you finished the action, without a trusted placeholder for the final outcome, you would have to keep track of that desired result in your head.
David Allen, Getting Things Done
Instructions
On a sheet of paper, name your projects. Remember the following. Projects are any and all those things that need to get done within the next few weeks or months that require more than one action step to complete. This would include getting tires on the car, getting your kids set up for their summer activities, hiring a new assistant, launching an ad campaign, buying a company, getting a tooth fixed, researching local yoga classes, resolving a contract dispute, extending your credit line with the bank, and the like.
You may use a Noun to name a project-- Workshop, for instance. But you might also try naming your list Verb + Noun. Plan Workshop. You can include any range of projects-- including personal or family commitments-- or confine yourself to those related to your academic work and writing.
Below are some nouns and verbs to trigger projects that might end up on your list.
Project Verb Trigger List
Annotate
Assemble
Complete
Contact
Design
Ensure
Finalize
Handle
Implement
Identify
Inventory
Install
Look into
Organize
Maximize
Read
Resolve
Review
Revise
Roll out
Set-up
Skim
Submit
Update
Project Noun Trigger List
Advisor
Annotations
Chart
Citations
Co author
Committee
Compose
Data
Design
Draft
Graph
Index
Illustration
Library
Map
Notes
Outline
Proposal
Research
Revision
Section
Source
Table
Table of Contents