Get Everything Done

One recurring issue for "long list" methods seems to be that the long list continuously grows, which eventually makes it unmanageable. I am still early enough in adopting the methods and ideas on this site that I haven't run across this issue just yet, but I know for a certainty that it will happen to me too eventually-- judging by the way my email inbox and browser tabs tend to behave. (I actually have noticed that the way I have intuitively come to handle emails and browser tabs is very similar to the "simple scanning" method.)

One possible solution that occurs to me is to split the long list into two-- an "active" list and an "archive" list. The active list would serve the same function as the long list, with the exception that items from the active list could be moved to the archive list as one chooses. One can maintain a recurring task of "review the archive list" on one's active list, and when this task is selected according to the rules of one's current system, one would scan the archive list and for any items that stand out (or whatever other criterion one chooses), one would move these items back to the active list.

This would have the effect of (1) helping to keep the active list a manageable length, and (2) reducing the frequency of review for tasks which one feels will be relevant / actionable / desirable / etc. eventually, but may not be relevant / actionable / desirable / etc. in the short term. By keeping "review archive list" as a task on the active list, one would ensure periodic review of the archive list in a way that is amenable to the principles of one's current system (e.g. only doing so when the "review" task stands out).

I'm curious if anyone has tried something like this, and what your general experiences and thoughts around this idea might be.

Here's a discussion of a very similar idea:
http://markforster.squarespace.com/forum/post/2782266

Brian:

The important distinction in your post is the one between "long term" and "short term" and you propose to group all long list items accordingly.

Autofocus (AF1) already has this incorporated as the list of highlighted dismissed tasks.

For other long list systems one could always maintain such a list and one way to action on a task would then be to put it onto that other list, maybe in a topical subdivision there.

I would not call such a list an archive list though, because an archive is something filled with things that ought to stay there forever. The common term Someday / Maybe describes the ambiguity of it's content and meaning quite well.

I find such a division quite natural. Yes, we capture everything we want to do at some point in life. That is one of the fundamentals of the long list. Some of these things are not so much tasks to do, but datapoints to be accumulated at other places suited for further procurement of action impulses.

Other common places can be logs such as the Bullet Journal or time-based postponement like it is done in Real Autofocus (RAF) or with the Tickler File in GTD and Worday Now.

It is worthwhile to reflect upon the specific reasons why one would like to put a task onto the Someday / Maybe list.

It is often the case that, what project managers would call dependencies, are the reasons behind a wish to postpone a task. Often dependencies on a large scale, so big that it wasn't visible at first sight in the short-range view on things.

I have been working mostly from a long list for one month now. Before that, although I had a long list, I was using short lists so often throughout the day, that the long list was not being useful. I am trying to work mostly from the long list. At about one week, when there were enough items, there is a good rapid flow. But increasingly, there are more and more items, that don't get actioned. I was transferring them to another list, but I got out of the habit of looking at it, and in the mean time there are even more items not actioned.

What gets entered on the long list, what remains, and what gets removed - there seem to be different practices on this forum.
If the list only contains active items, one could enter tasks only as they are started, and remove them when finished. Or enter them when they are ready, that one is committed to doing. Or enter them when they are being considered. If one has a time frame of let's say 4 days, anything not actioned in that time, gets removed.

However, if one starts with the catch-all list, like Autofocus, or mind dump, like GTD, then the long list is likely to be much longer. It is more likely that the catch-all list will be reviewed. What remains on the list then if it is not actioned? One could just keep it on the list, but eventually the list will grow so big that the reviewing will take longer than it is worth. One could review these items at less regular intervals, transfer them to another list (Someday/Maybe?), delete them, rewrite them at the end of the list, work on them for longer periods of time if procrastinating.

However, if you start with a catch-all list and only keep items that are started, or that you will act on in the immediate future, there could be so many items to remove, that it might not be worth it to enter catch-all items in the first place. In that case, one could have a catch-all list or a mind dump, or Someday/Maybe list, and treat it as a Master List, and then transfer them over to the active smaller long list.
Even so, you now have two lists.
If one wants to have several lists, like Unfinished, Recurring, Ready, etc. Sometimes this works better at the project level, but at the task level, the work moves so fast, that it is hard to determine what category to put it in.
If people say they have a long list with only current tasks that will be done in a few days, it is not always clear where other items go.
The long list starting with a catch-all list with Simple Scanning seems to be the best way to start from scratch and get a lot of work done. It is delaying the processing, when other methods do all the processing at the beginning.