> It quickly becomes obvious when you have too many active projects
The issue I'm discussing isn't the number of active projects, but the number of someday/maybe projects.
> Great if you're actually getting all that non-work stuff done, but I just can't imagine you're doing hundreds of non-work items each week.
See paragraph above.
The issue I'm complaining about is that GTD tells you to review the Someday/Maybe list often (e.g. every week). I'm pointing out the infeasibility of that. Culling the Someday/Maybe list is fundamentally problematic in GTD, as the whole point is to get these ideas out of our head and into a list somewhere.
A simple (if impure) solution is to add a secondary "Someday/Maybe" list. Call it something like "Eventually/Remotely-Possible".
Limit your S/M list to a comfortable number of entries, and drop the ones that don't make the cut to E/RP. Review S/M regularly, review E/RP only when curious, or when one of the items becomes of renewed interest.
I'm an archivist by nature. I don't like to delete items. E/RP can grow to thousands of items, and that's OK. Occasionally one will be revived. The rest will be keep each other company.
Yes, precisely. I've found solutions similar to the other commenters. My complaint is:
1. This is a common problem - I'm not unusual.
2. GTD's approach to this problem doesn't really work - hence everyone here listing how they solved it in a way that differs from GTD (i.e. not reviewing it weekly).
My strategy to handle a too-long someday/maybe list is to clarify how often I want to revisit the list. I have a list to review weekly, a separate list to review monthly, quarterly, etc. I have separate lists for someday/maybe date night ideas, vacation ideas, professional development ideas, and so forth.
Someday/maybe exists to get something out of my head and into a trusted place where I know I’ll see it again at an appropriate time. If I know that I only need to see something quarterly (or when planning a date night), I don’t need to revisit during every weekly review.
What I find is that, when I have more distance between reviews, it is easier to call the list organically. After a quarter, I haven’t thought about some of those items for months and I can easily say, “Actually, that doesn’t sound interesting any more.”
I don't agree. You're describing tickler items. If you make a decision that you should revisit the potential item in two months, it goes in the tickler for that time. Indeed, that's exactly why the tickler exists.
No, I'm describing Someday/Maybe. If you're not sure when or even if you'll do a project, it goes into Someday/Maybe, and you're supposed to review this list regularly.
Tickler file is for when you'd like to be reminded of something. So yes, if indecisive about a project, you can let it sit there. However, if you decide you won't do it any time in the near horizon, you move it out of tickler files and into Someday/Maybe.
The two are not mutually exclusive, of course. One could treat the Tickler file as equivalent to Someday/Maybe, but for me that would be horrible. I can't imagine having to deal with hundreds of items spread across only 43 folders.
The issue I'm discussing isn't the number of active projects, but the number of someday/maybe projects.
> Great if you're actually getting all that non-work stuff done, but I just can't imagine you're doing hundreds of non-work items each week.
See paragraph above.
The issue I'm complaining about is that GTD tells you to review the Someday/Maybe list often (e.g. every week). I'm pointing out the infeasibility of that. Culling the Someday/Maybe list is fundamentally problematic in GTD, as the whole point is to get these ideas out of our head and into a list somewhere.