Ep: 368: How Long Should Your Lists Be?

Summary

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Episode Overview

Main Theme:
This episode of the "Getting Things Done" podcast, hosted by John Forrester and Ana Maria Gonzalez, delves into a fundamental and often-debated area of GTD®: the ideal length and organization of your task lists. The hosts respond to community concerns about "lists feeling too long" and offer practical guidance for optimizing productivity without overwhelm. Their discussion covers best practices for organizing projects, next actions, actionable vs. non-actionable items, and clarifies distinctions between categories like "Incubate" and "Someday/Maybe."

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Why List Length Matters

• Recent feedback from webinars indicates people often feel their lists are too long, especially during daily or weekly reviews ([00:24]).
• The hosts emphasize: Perception is reality—if your lists feel too long, they probably are for you.
• The goal is not arbitrary perfection, but creating lists that support clarity, reduce overwhelm, and make the GTD review process both effective and sustainable.

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The Foundation: Distinct Lists Are Best Practice

• Do not mix projects and next actions. Keeping these separate vastly reduces confusion and list bloat ([01:00]):
  • Projects List: An index of multi-step outcomes (to be achieved within ~12 months).
  • Next Actions Lists: Single-step, actionable tasks.
  • Waiting For: Tasks where you're waiting on others.
  • Someday/Maybe: Not current commitments but possible future actions or ideas.
• Worst Practice: Mixing everything together (projects, actions, waiting for, someday/maybe) leads to longer, less effective lists ([01:30]).

Notable Quote:

“The worst practice would be to mix [lists] where you’re looking at a list that’s got a combination of projects and actions, stuff you’re only waiting for, stuff that you’re not really committed to. That kind of a mixed list is definitely going to make your lists longer and less effective.” — John Forrester ([01:15])

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Organizing Your Actionable & Non-Actionable Items

• Actionable Inventory: Should be divided into:

  • Projects (multi-step outcomes)
  • Next Actions (single-step tasks)
  • Waiting For (actions you’re tracking on others’ behalf)

• Non-Actionable Inventory: At minimum, three categories:

  • Trash
  • Reference
  • Incubate

• Someday/Maybe — Sits at the intersection: currently not actionable but incubating for potential future action ([04:20]).

Example Contexts for Next Actions ([07:24])

• By location (e.g., @Office, @Home)
• By person (e.g., @With John, @With Lawyer)
• By tool or resource (e.g., @Computer, @Phone)

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Tackling "Long Lists"

• If you have only one "next actions" list, it can quickly become unwieldy.
• Solution: Sort actions by context. This helps trim what you need to see in any given situation, keeping action lists manageable and relevant ([07:53]).

Notable Quote:

“Context...means where does the action happen? Once you’re clear on what your next action is, where does it happen? And then based on that answer, you start creating lists.” — Ana Maria Gonzalez ([07:33])

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Projects: Small vs. Large—Does It Matter?

• Even small projects belong on a project list. Don't lower your organizational rigor just because a project seems “small” or might finish in under a month ([08:11]).
• Why: It’s often difficult to predict how many steps a “small” project will require; a mini-project can easily become more complex.
• Key criterion: Will I need to review this outcome during my Weekly Review? If yes, it belongs on the projects list, regardless of its perceived size ([09:47]).

Memorable Example:

• “Pick up Dad at the airport” may not be a project if all you need is a calendar reminder. But if prepping the house, arranging food, etc., are needed, the outcome justifies a project entry ([11:00]-[13:18]).

Notable Quote:

“You want to use a criteria where you go, will this be an outcome that I need to review as part of my weekly review? Even if it only qualifies for one review or two reviews or three or four or twelve reviews...that’s to me a more reliable criteria.” — Ana Maria Gonzalez ([09:57])

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The Weekly Review: Your Critical Success Factor

• The value of proper lists: They support an easy, pleasant Weekly Review—the “critical success factor for implementing GTD” ([13:55]).
• Tailor your projects and next actions lists to make your Weekly Review light, actionable, and motivating, not draining.

Notable Quote:

“The weekly review is, as David calls it, the critical success factor for implementing GTD...What do I need to see on my projects list to contribute to that?” — John Forrester ([13:55])

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Incubate vs. Someday/Maybe: What’s the Difference?

• Incubate: Not currently actionable, but you want to revisit it (later—via tickler file [calendar] or review cycle).
• Someday/Maybe: Also not actionable, but you’re willing to look at the idea regularly (typically during your Weekly Review).
• The main difference is how often and when you wish to reconsider taking action.
  • Incubate (via tickler/calendar) can be “hide it until X date.”
  • Someday/Maybe is a regular, intentional re-evaluation ([15:43]-[18:50]).

Example:

• “Learn to play the guitar”:
  • On Someday/Maybe if you want to ponder weekly.
  • In Tickler file if you only want to revisit it a year from now.

Notable Quote:

“It’s all about the commitment you have. If it’s on your Someday/Maybe or you have incubated it in some way, you’re not committing to take any action on it.” — John Forrester ([18:50])

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GTD Definitions (from the Book) ([19:14])

• Incubate: “To allow something to remain within a system without commitment to take action yet, but to be reassessed at a later time. Reminders are usually held within Someday/Maybe lists, tickler files, or triggered for later calendar items.”
• Someday/Maybe: “A common category used to organize projects and actions one is committed to review only for potential action at a later date.”

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Memorable Moments & Quotes

• On perception vs. reality:

  “If the list feels too long to you, that means it may be too long for you.” — John Forrester ([00:48])

• On why to keep even tiny projects on the list:

  “You could treat it as not really a project and then you find out it’s got more things or it starts to morph into something else. So do yourself the favor of being really clean about what’s a project and what’s a next action.” — John Forrester ([08:46])

• On managing overwhelm:

  “What can you do to take care of yourself so that you can make the weekly review a habit? One of the things you can do is consider what you want to review about projects during your weekly review and then back up from that...” — John Forrester ([13:57])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:24] — Introduction to the “long lists” problem and initial best practices.
• [01:15] — Importance of not mixing projects and actions on the same list.
• [02:23] — How to separate actionable from non-actionable inventories.
• [04:20] — Defining Someday/Maybe as a hybrid category.
• [07:24] — Using contexts to organize next actions and keep lists short.
• [08:11] — Handling small projects; the value of clear project definitions.
• [09:47] — Determining what is “project-worthy” via Weekly Review criterion.
• [13:55] — Weekly Review as a central GTD ritual; designing lists to support it.
• [15:43] — Incubate vs. Someday/Maybe: definitions and real-life examples.
• [18:50] — Commitment and re-evaluation principles for list organization.
• [19:14] — Quoting GTD book definitions to clarify Incubate and Someday/Maybe.

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Conclusion

This episode delivers a very practical, user-centered take on GTD list management: keep project and action lists separate; use contexts to make next actions manageable; and apply clear criteria—centered on weekly review needs—for what makes it onto your Projects list. The hosts break down the subtle but important distinctions between categories like "Incubate" and "Someday/Maybe," and, most importantly, stress kindness to yourself as you iterate your personal GTD system. GTD is a framework but should always be tailored to support clarity and stress-free productivity for you.

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Transcript

[A]

Foreign. Hi everyone, this is John Forrester and I'm here with Anamaria Gonzalez. Hi Ana Maria.

[B]

Hi John. Welcome everyone. Thank you for joining.

[A]

And we're here to talk about lists and, and particularly what if you think your lists are too long and what makes too long a list and what you can do about any of that if anything needs to be done. So just generally we're going to look at lists here. Ana Maria is going to run a slide deck that we'll start in just a moment. And that's about it. We are doing this just because in the last couple of months I've noticed a couple of people saying in the comments as we do webinars, they talk about when it comes time to review, in particular either a daily review of their lists or a weekly review where they look at their projects and all of their lists, they're finding that the lists feel too long. So perception is reality. If the list feels too long to you, that means it may be too long for you. So we're going to look at ways you can work with that and adjust if you are finding that your lists are too long. And that's what we're going to talk about. On our best practices we have two things, it's pretty straightforward, two things we consider to be best practices. One is distinct lists of projects and next actions. Plus you're waiting for and someday maybe the worst practice would be to mix those where you're looking at a list that's got a combination of projects and actions, stuff you're only waiting for, stuff that you're not really committed to. That kind of a mixed list is definitely going to make your lists longer and less effective. Anna Maria, I think that's something you also teach early in the, in the fundamentals course as well. Is the, the idea of not mixing lists, is that right?

[B]

Yeah, sure. I mean the bottom line, and I think everyone on this call probably knows this, but the bottom line, if you're needing like a refresher, if you want to kind of share with someone else best practices that you want to at the very least separate actionable inventory from non actionable and never have those mixed up. But then within each, within the actionable inventory and within the non actionable inventory, then there are best practices for organizing each one. So under your actionable items, let's say you will typically have, you know, outcomes that will require more than one action step or another way of thinking about that will be multi step outcomes that more or less will take 12 months or so to be completed and that's what we define as projects. And that you want to have on on a separate list on its own where you just keeping, you know, like an index of those project titles. But then you want to have an inventory of also your actionable items that are done in one sitting or what we refer to as your next actions. So those two are not mixed up because they're very distinct one from the other one. It's just your index of project titles, your multi step outcomes that will get done within a year or so. And the other one is your list of next actions which are your one sitting items or single step items, those next physical visible activity that will either move the situation forward, let's say in this case any one of your given projects or will get you to done. So they're quite different one from the other. And then of course there's also an inventory of actionable items that need to be kept separately from these two. And those are all the items that you're waiting for one way or the other. Either you're waiting for a decision to be made, you're waiting for an answer to come back to you. You're waiting for products that you order online, you were waiting for a reimbursement, you're waiting for theater tickets. Whatever it is that you find yourself, I am on waiting for mode. In other words, I cannot take another action until that one it's done. So that's usually your list where you're tracking others, where you're tracking the actions of others. That's why it belongs to your actionable inventory and none your non actionable inventory, because you're tracking the actions on others, the actions that you're waiting for others to complete. And then someday maybe assumes that one day, perhaps, maybe someday you will want to do something about whatever that is. So it's a commitment you have with yourself about something in the future. But that will you're not going to invest any time and energy in terms of action thinking or action doing towards that. So someday maybes you know, are vary in many different ways. It could be, you know, someday maybe places to visit, someday maybe movies to watch, someday maybe projects to get started with, Someday maybe investment ideas. Someday maybe fill in the blank. So the assumption is that their nature is actionable at some point in the future. And then of course your non actionable items are also expected to be organized at least in three distinct categories. Trash if it can be throwable, reference if it needs to be filed, or incubate, which is things that you can put as A tickler reminder somewhere in your calendar and even a someday maybe. So you may say, well, that's confusing because you just said someday maybe belongs to actionable, and now you're throwing it into non actionable action because it's a bit of a hybrid in the moment when you're organizing it. It's not actionable on your end, but it may well be in the future. And then of course, as we progress today, or as you progress in your journey as a GTD user, you will probably want to categorize your next actions by context, because maybe just one next actions list would just not do it. And particularly today we're talking about long list that may very quickly result into a long list if you just have it as one next action, right? And context just to kind of give it context basically means where does the action happen? In other words, once you're clear on what your next action is, where does it happen? And then based on that answer, you start creating lists. We use the word context to pretty much help you understand how to organize the next action in relationship to where does it happen? Does it happen at the phone? Does it happen at home? Does it happen at the office? Does it happen at the train? Does it happen when you're out and about? Does it happen when you're with John? Does it happen, you know, when you're with your lawyer? Does it happen anywhere? So that's pretty much an easy way to remember what this context mean is where does the action happen?

[A]

I'd like to handle a couple of comments before we go on too much more with context. One is distinct lists of projects and next actions. One of the comments was what? What about small projects? Things that are going to be done in a month or less that only may have a couple of actions, I highly recommend that you still distinguish those. You put the project outcome on your projects list and the next action or actions on your next actions lists. And don't talk yourself out of that rigor just because you think the project will finish in a month or less. I can only say, I strongly recommend that you stick to this discipline for, I'm going to say a couple of months at least to give it a chance, because I think you'll find that it's very stress relieving psychologically to track all of your projects, not just the ones that you think are larger projects. The reason I say this is because for most of us it's really hard to note exactly how many steps a project may have. So if you think it might only have two Steps and it'll be done in less than a month. You could treat it as not really a project and then you find out it's got more things or it starts to morph into something else. So do yourself the favor of being really clean about what's a project and what's a next action?

[B]

And I'm going to add another criteria because part of for me it's very hard to do to help by being asked, well, what if it's a small project as opposed to a large project? I don't even know what that means. What do you mean by a small project? What do you mean by a large project? Because then basically what I'm reading is that what would take less than a month? So then is the question, is it a short time frame project versus a long time frame project? I still, I would ask what does that mean? See, you want to use a criteria where you go, will this be an outcome that I need to review as part of my weekly review? Even if it only qualifies for one review or two reviews or three or four or twelve reviews? The question is, is this outcome one that I need to review as part of my weekly review so that I can make sure I'm moving this situation forward or I'm bringing it to the end, whether it's because it has two actions, three, four or 150. So that's to me a more reliable criteria that I can then teach anyone because then we're all going to be under the same understanding. Oh yeah, this is something that I will want to look at as part of my weekly review because there are some outcomes and as part of Level 2 projects and priority, we talk about this difference. There are some outcomes that even though they're multi step, they still don't, they don't qualify for your, for your projects list. And you may go, what? Now you're really confusing me. Because many times these are things that life will remind you. I mean, they're second nature to you. There is no, you know, kind of risk of you forgetting about the next action because you didn't review it as part of your weekly review. For example, get that at the airport, he's arriving in a month. So you may go, well, a month that kind of qualifies in terms of time frame. We'll get that at the airport. More than one action step. Why is that not on my projects list? Well, how much do you need to be reminded so that you identify the next action as part of your weekly review? When you look at a project called get that at the airport and you may go. Nothing. All I need to be reminded it's the day that he arrived to get to the airport. So then that's an example of something that just goes on your calendar. Tuesday at 3pm on whatever, March 2, get that at the airport flight number, blah, blah, blah. There is nothing I need to do to. To get to mark that outcome done. Other than show up at the airport. If on the other hand, there are things around that visit that you need to get ready for, that you need to prepare, that you need to organize, et cetera, et cetera, well, that may be the project. Given that dad is coming and given that dad is visiting, I need to move children from their room to another room. I need to organize that room and make it comfortable for him. I need to make sure I get all. All the stuff that he likes to eat on the. He has a special diet, you know, whatever you. I'm making stuff up, as you can imagine.

[A]

And then she's not making too much stuff up because she just. She just took her father to the airport yesterday, I think it was. So this is a very. This is a very current situation for her.

[B]

So that makes sense. And then you will put, you would add that outcome as part of your projects list because you go, wow, of course I will benefit from seeing this outcome as part of my weekly review because then I will be, you know, I will. I'm confirming that I'm ready instead of dad is coming today at 3pm I got nothing. I moved the kids out of the room. I'm gonna have to kick them out. And then everything becomes, you know, crazy making. So that to me, it's a criteria that you can probably rely more for deciding whether it goes on my projects list or not.

[A]

Got it. And just to back that up a little bit, one of the things I've heard in between the lines of you saying just then, Anna Maria, is this is about your weekly review and being kind to yourself when it comes time to do your weekly review. So let's start with the idea that the weekly review is, as David calls it, the critical success factor for implementing gtd. If that's the case, and we find that it is, what can you do to take care of yourself so that you can make the weekly review a habit? One of the things you can do is consider what you want to review about projects during your weekly review and then back up from that going, I want to make my weekly review pleasurable and easy every week. What do I need to see on my projects list to contribute to that. Back that up and help that inform your decision about what you put on your projects list. And let's see a couple of other comments here. I wanted to look at the difference between Incubate and Someday maybe. Someday maybe is a form of incubation. The other one that comes to mind for me is Tickler file where you you could do this either with a physical Tickler file or a digital one on your calendar where you move something out to a future date to reconsider. You're not deciding about it now, you're putting it out in the future when you may know more about what you'd like to do and be ready to commit to it or not. Those are both forms of incubation. Someday maybe in Tickler on Maria. Anything else to say about the distinction there?

[B]

Yeah, no, that's, you know, incubate. It's a very interesting bucket, let's say to describe because since it's not exactly black or white, incubate probably fits in the middle because it's not a non actionable 100% bucket neither. It's an actionable 100% bucket because its nature is that it will transform from in the future. So today as I'm emptying my inn, I may come across something that today I decide to not do anything about it. However, I may still want to consider in the future. So is that in between that? It's. It's often a bit like, oh my God, what is it? Is it this or is it that woods? Neither. But it kind of fits both based on your agreement with yourself in this moment. So in this moment I'm not going to do anything about learning to play the guitar. I'm not. But I may want to in the future. So I will add that learn to play the guitar as a someday maybe item on my list. So that's basically me deciding as I'm emptying my inn, this idea that I had of learning to play the guitar that I wrote myself a note about, now that I'm emptying my in, I'm going to go, I'm going to incubate this in a place where I can incubate it on my Someday maybe list. Because my Sunday maybe list is something that I look at every week. So every week I'm going to ask myself, hey, is it time now to learn to play the guitar? Yes or no. Or I could say I'm going to incubate this and I don't want to see it until a year from now. I don't even want to be bothered weekly to asking myself, hey, do you want to play the guitar now or not? I want to put this thing out there a year from today. I'm just going to kind of make that wild guess and then you can put it on your calendar as John was saying, and kind of tickle yourself in one year with the thought of hey, do you want to learn to play the guitar this year kind of thing. So eventually it will become actionable or not. Because in one year you may say, you know what, I don't want to play the guitar now or next year or never. I'm deleting this thought. And you know, as a thought it may be an easier way of kind of describing it, but it applies even to this work related decisions. It can apply in relationship to acquiring a company to a merger and acquisition. It can apply to responding to be a guest speaker at a conference. It's just where are you at in the moment that you're emptying? You're in in terms of the agreement with yourself in relationship to that item. And then every week you decide to change your mind or not.

[A]

Yeah. It's all about the commitment you have. If it's on your someday maybe or you have incubated it in some way, you're not committing to take any action on it. That's the difference with projects and next actions. There is a project is an outcome you're committing to complete. Next action is the, the next action that you're committing to do to move something forward.

[B]

Yeah. And here in the book because I just like to be, you know, try to be as, as, as thorough with what GTD is about based on what the book says. Right. Because at the end this is what we all have and what we can all go by. So incubate to allow something to remain within a system without a commitment to take action yet, but to be reassessed at a later time. Reminders are usually held within Someday maybe lists, tickler files or triggered for later calendar items. Then under Someday maybe, a common category used to organize projects and actions, one is committed to review only for potential action at a later date.