Not everything in your todo list needs to be a proper GTD Next Action
In GTD, the “next action” is “the most immediate physical, visible activity that would be required to move the situation toward closure,” and in the GTD system next actions are of critical importance. In my experience there’s effectively a binary: either a project has a well-defined next action, or it needs planning work — perhaps during a GTD review — to define the next action. Either an inbox item is well-defined enough to be a next action, or it needs refinement before it can be removed from the inbox.
This is often really valuable! It's a good fit for probably 95% of the things in my personal todo app of choice (Things). But I struggle sometimes because it's not always possible for a project to have one or more well-defined next actions.
Suppose that you're faced with a garage filled with a mix of tools, kitchen renovation materials, and half-finished solar power projects. Suppose that winter is approaching, and you'd like to park your car in the garage. The project here seems clear enough: “Clean the Garage”.
It's important to be clear on what the goal for the project is. Are you trying to end up with a YouTube-worthy garage that’s a amsterpiece of organization, complete with 3d-printed Gridfinity storage? Are you just trying to shuffle crap around enough to fit your car in? Something in between? You need to decide on that, and title the project appropriately: “tidy the garage,” “organize the garage,” “weed out the garage,” whatever works well for you.
Beyond having a clear goal in mind, is planning a series of atomic, discrete, next actions really going to be helpful here? I argue that no, this isn’t valuable, and it’s not a good use of time. You might define broad next steps (“clear trash off the back shelf,” “get everything off the floor”), but it’s not worth taking the time to stand in the garage and carefully document everything that needs to happen. When you go to work on cleaning the garage, next steps will be self-evident; just start picking stuff up and putting it away, or trashing it, or whatever.
The point is: I think it's clear that some projects simply don't need to be planned with specificity and might be so ambiguous that it's not worth the effort it would take to plan them out. In this post, I’d like to outline — as much for myself as for you, the reader — things to consider when you’re figuring out how much (more) time you should spend planning a project.
“I’ll know it when I see it”
Sometimes, as with a messy garage, you don’t need to plan next steps in detail because you’ll know what the next steps are when you look at the mess and start picking stuff up. Even a next action like “put tools away” is unnecessary — you’ll ntoice tools as you pick stuff up — and anyway, “put tools away” barely meets the strict GTD standard for a next action anyway.
Intertwined Tasks & Dependencies
Some projects will have intertwined tasks and dependencies that make it difficult to figure out what the next action is. As with the messy garage example, you’ll discover these naturally as you organize — “oh, I guess I should clear that shelf in the shop where these tools live.” It’s difficult and not worth the effort to anticipate and untangle each of these ahead of time.
Context Dependency
It may be impossible to put together well-defined next steps until you’re already doing the thing. Consider unpacking boxes after moving to a new home. “Unpack kitchen” is vague for a GTD-style next action, and it’ll take days to check it off the list, but it’s roughly as in-depth as is possible given the circumstances.
Specificity
Consider the specificity at which you naturally think of tasks related to the project in question. Can you even think of specific next actions, or is it just “go do the thing?” If you struggle to plan more specific next actions, stop struggling and allow yourself to put a broad task on your todo list.
Note on specifics you agreed to: If you agreed to anything specific, it’s important to note that as a task in the project.
Is Status Tracking Necessary?
Some projects are complex, and if you step away and come back to them it may well be far from obvious where you left off & what’s next. Detailed, GTD-style next actions are necessary for these projects!
Is that necessary for “clean the garage?” No, it’s not.
Risk of Stalling
Projects that are easy to abandon partway through might benefit from more detailed next actions to maintain progress. Meanwhile, physical tasks with natural momentum — again, like cleaning the garage — might not see similar benefits from in-depth planning.
Don’t Procrastinate by Over-Planning
Sometimes, we — especially GTD practitioners! — over-plan as a form of procrastination. Are you procrastinating on the project by trying to plan it at an unhelpful level of detail? Try to question yourself, answer that question honestly, and use the answer to inform your decision on how to plan the project.
Cognitive Load
This is effectively the inverse of “I’ll know it when I see it.” “Organize photos from 2024” might be an overwhelming task depending on your photography style, and whiel it might be possible to jump into this task and immediately see what you need to do to make progress, perhaps some planning effort could break it into pieces that feel more manageable.
Value in Planning
Considering everything discussed in this post, are you spending an appropriate amount of time planning this project? Are you actually getting value out of this effort, or have you reached a point of diminishing returns? If you have, you might be over-planning, and it’s definitely time to stop.
Final Questions to ask yourself
When you find yourself thinking perhaps too long about the plan for a particular project, consider:
- Am I spending more time planning this than feels helpful?
- What do I really need from this plan?
Remember, your GTD system/todo list/perferred personal productivity system, or lack thereof, exists to serve you, not the other way around. Put into it only as much time as is actually helpful, and for any given project plan, consider what you really, actually need from it.