Types of Lists VIII - The Dynamic List

The Dynamic List is similar to the Open Daily List except that it refers to one project only. It is a way of ensuring that your action on a project is up to date with your latest thinking on the subject.

The technique is simplicity itself:

1. List some of the things you need to do for the project

2. Start working on them in any order.

3. Add new things as you think of them.

The list is valid for one day only. You should construct a new list the following day.

If you need to refer to notes, reminders, etc, then that should itself become a task on the list (e.g. Check Project Notes).

Dynamic lists are extremely effective, but unfortunately I have not yet succeeded in constructing a whole time management system out of them. They lose effectiveness when not constrained by the limits of a single project.

Tomorrow:

An effective “No List” system?

Comments

[Paul B from Canada]

Hi Mark - Are you thinking of an Agile-like system? ie. defined sprints in a fixed time on a defined set of planned outcomes...and then re-focusing when this sprint is done on new priorities? Or maybe a Kanban approach like the one proposed in years past by Eric from Japan?

Just speculating.

Paul

[Mark Forster]

No!

One of my requirements is that it should be simple to work.

[matthewS]

Mark, what if each project had a list? So with project A, you might write A1 & A2. And on another list for project B, write B1 & B2. So if I was working on both project A & B today, I could quickly jump back and forth between the few items I decided to work on for each today. And of course this only works if A & B are the sort of projects where both could be worked on somewhat at the same time or at least over the same day. Would that work, or still getting too complex?

[Mark Forster]

matthewS:

The problem is that you don't just have to think about Project A and Project B on their own. You also have to think about projects which don't need a checklist and the myriad small tasks which don't belong to any specific project. I've experimented with chunking small tasks together to make an artificial project (e.g. Family, Office Maintainance, Reading), but all that seems to achieve is to make everything more cumbersome and inflexible.