TOPIC: Editing Statuses

I may be missing something obvious, but I can't see how the list of available action statuses can be edited. Is it possible to add a status or is this list hard-coded?

Is it possible to add a "Waiting for" status? This is specifically mentioned by David Allen and something I continually use in my own personal GTD implementation.

I've read tips for using the "Delegated" status for this purpose, but in my mind at least, a delegated action is something differnet from an action where I'm waiting for external input to progress and need to track these separately.

A "Delegated" action is an action that I have effectively transferred "ownership" to someone else, but one that I still have an interest in tracking. The action is nolonger my responsibility to process.

An action set to "waiting for" on the other hand is still an action that I own. One that needs my attention in order to complete.

In inability to separate these actions muddies my overall view and something that just makes me feel that using TR is a bit of a compromise.

I agree there is a need to edit the status list. I rely heavily on the Waiting For as many of my tasks involved a level of input from a number of other people. Particulary waiting for a telephone reply!

I would appreciate the ability to edit the Status list

It is not as simple as editing the status list. Depending on the status, fields are displayed or not, the project sequencing kicks in or not.

For Waiting For, I use Delegated To. For example, if I made a purchase on the internet, it is delegated to the shop or the post as I am waiting for the purchase. If I am waiting for a call from someone, it will be delegated to that person.

If it is really required to have a Waiting For status, should it behaved like the Delegated status: you are waiting for someone, with a Due Date and a Follow-up Date? Do you need to send an email? Do you want to include that type of actions in the sequencing or not?

Hi Claire

There is a real difference between Delegated and Waiting For. Delegated has been passed to another person for them to work on the task exclusively. waiting For is when the task is still in my domain, but I am waiting for information from a 3rd party or even for another task to complete. An example could be I have 2 tasks, one is the building of a shed, the other to tidy the garden. I can't complete the Tidy garden option until the Shed has been built, so the Tidy garden task should be on Waiting For. Also the Build Shed could be Waiting For the builder to deliver it to my house.

My 2 cents...

For the GTD purists, the GTD Workflow Processing diagram suggests that for an actionable task, you should Do It (if the action will take less than 2 minutes), Delegate It (i.e. put it on your Waiting For list), defer it to a date/time specific item on your calendar, or put it on one of your "as soon as possible" next action lists (i.e. a context list like @Home, @Office, @Phone, etc.). So the methodology suggests that the act of delegating results in something on your Waiting For list. Accordingly, it would appear that (true to form), TR is following the methodology correctly by setting the status to Delegated. IMHO, the easiest workaround would be to use the Delegated status and put the task on a context list called "Waiting For".

However, for the non-purists, and in my experience using GTD (including several other TR-like tools), I agree with the need for a "Waiting For" status. I agree with the initial points made by douglgm concerning the distinction between Delegated and Waiting For. I too use Delegated where ownership is transferred and Waiting For for actions I still own but am waiting for an external event. As an example, I had a task on my "Phone" context to call a third party about a particular issue. I thought that I could close the task with a single phone call (hence not a project). Upon calling the third party, it became clear that they will need to send me something via snail mail to close this task. I don't want to close the initial task on my Phone context since the issue is not resolved. True, I could close the task on the "Phone" context and open a new one as delegated to the third party indicating that I am waiting for the material to arrive. IMHO, I think it would be better to simply change the status of the original task on my Phone context to "Waiting For".

I tend to use "delegated", when I'm dealing with people that I interact with routinely. I usually have specific @Agenda contexts for each of the people I interact with regularly. This allows me to Delegate tasks to them and I can see all of there actions on one specific context list.

claire to answer your question, I think there should be the option of a due date on the waiting for status. At a minimum, there should be a tickler date (follow-up date) to remind me that I'm still waiting for this particular task.

Again, the work-around could be to create a context called Waiting For and simply change the context of the original task. In my example above, I would change the context from Phone to Waiting For. But I think it would be cleaner to have a Waiting For status.

I believe rebunkerjr described things correctly: and a GTD purist should only have one status Delegated, which is Waiting for.

In the case where the you still own the larger task, but you are waiting for, then it may be helpful to break out the tasks so that each have a single owner.

For instance if you have more than one person writing a single document. Instead of having a single 4hr task:
"Write document"
break it out
Project "Write document" with actions
"Write introduction" ->Delegated -> Fred
"Write body" ASAP/Inactive
"Write conclusion" Inactive

If the actions can be executed in parallel then "Write body" would be ASAP, but if it really does need the input from Fred, then it is inactive, and Fred owns the next action.

It would be nice to keep Thinking Rock with pure GTD workflow.