Outlining, GTD, Task Management

I’m no task management wonk—when it comes to GTD and other project management I do not belong in even the same vague ballpark as folks like Merlin Mann and David Allen.  I have, though, been known to adopt their methods in a vain attempt to stem my inevitable slide into writerly disorder.  I have no problems accomplishing my core goal, of generating new stories and books; the hard part comes in doing that while keeping up with the maintenance and career advancement tasks that, if I’m not careful, hide in the dark corners of my subconscious and reproduce like tribbles in heat.

Guess that metaphor got a little away from me, there.  Anyway!

So I have a to-do list and I capture as much as I can in it, and I check stuff off, and all that’s well and good except the system doesn’t work very well for long-form creative work, which leads to the to-do list not actually representing what I have to do on any given day, which is a bad idea in the Getting Things Done universe.  So, I’ve asked myself for a while how I could incorporate writing a novel into task management.  The obvious answer was to add ‘write for three hours’ to the list, but that barely qualifies as a task.  It’s not very specific, for one thing.  It’s hard to feel satisfied when you check it off.  Three hours of staring at a blinking cursor would theoretically qualify.

Last week, I had a revelation, which may seem totally common-sense to you, Dear Readers.  Trying to figure out the next steps of a project, I started at the end of the story and worked forward, ending up with a beat-by-beat outline.  There’s room for flexibility, but basically I know which scenes need to be done when.  Pretty common approach for me about a third into the project—no big deal there.  The cool part came when I realized I could slide all those scenes into my to-do list program, where I can move them around, prioritize, flag, and geek out to my heart’s content.  Also, because it’s a task list, there’s always room for more stuff.  Need a scene?  Add scenes!  Those beats don’t matter any more?  Delete away.

All of which is basically to say: I’m in the middle of a new novel, and may be boring for a while.  Though I’ll try to keep you posted!