How to Manage Projects
January 17, 2011 | 19 Comments
Projects are a way to group together tasks that need to get done in order to accomplish a goal. Unlike Smart Groups, they are not tied to tags and they are Area specific. This is a very exclusive group, a task cannot belong to more than one project. All tasks associated with the project will take on the Project’s Area, even if the task was not assigned an Area during creation. This is an easy to way to move a large amount of tasks into an Area.
The first step to creating a Project is to click the “add” button 
next to the heading “Projects”. The following screen should pop up for you:
Project Dialog
As you can see in the following screen shot, you can very quickly see where all your tasks assigned to your ‘Project’ are, no matter if they are in your ‘Inbox’, ‘Today’, ‘Next’, or even if they are scheduled for review at a later date — they will still show up here. And, of course, you can still drag&drop your tasks, reorder tasks, or to put them into a different folder, just like in your other views. You can also double click to edit the task or put your mouse over the note icon to see the note.
Project View
To add a task to this group, there are 3 ways.
- You can select your Project list and just add a task the usual way (via the Quick Add at the top right corner or the Add menu on the bottom left corner).
- You can click on the Project icon to the far right of a task and select the Project from that list. If the task does not belong to any Projects, the icon will be grayed.
Quickly Add a Task to a Project
- Lastly, you can assign the task to a Project via the Edit Task dialog.
Assigning a Project Via the Edit Task Dialog
Next: How to use Get It Done Smart Groups?
jim foley 26 Jan 2011
hi,
just getting started but this seems to be a great app. quick question – can i not assign a task to a project and an area of responsibility? When i choose one from the drop down list the other automatically turns to “none”
thanks<
jim
Mike 'Get It Done' Staff 26 Jan 2011
If you choose an Area then we only show the Projects that are in that Area. You can put a project in an Area by going to the ‘Edit Projects’ dialog.
If you put a task in a Project and that project is assigned an Area then the task will automatically show up in that Area.
Herbert 27 Feb 2011
Hi,
Just starting up with GID – looks promising. Was using Omnifocus, but work is now on a Windows…
In loading up my first batch of tasks, I find it strange that tasks which I’ve dumped in the inbox stay there even after I drag them to a Project. I see that they do disappear when I drag them into Today, Next or Someday. I would like to ‘assign’ each task to a project before dragging them to Today, Next or Someday, but I have no way of seeing, while I’m in the Inbox, which tasks have already been assigned into their relevant project.
What am I missing?
Thanks!
Herbert
Mike 'Get It Done' Staff 28 Feb 2011
If the project icon in the task is highlighted then it is assigned a project. If you put your mouse over the icon it will tell you which project it is in.
Mark S 1 Jun 2011
I am a huge fan of omnifocus, however your app is intriguing because the of task sharing and evernote integration. Looking forward to learning more. Keep up the good work.
Rusty 19 Jul 2011
Most projects have multiple tasks with many of them sequential (ie, A,B,C) If I can’t do B or C until A is done, then I don’t really want to be conscious of B or C until A is done. So I don’t want B or C to show up anywhere, except for when I look at the project to see what the next action is during a periodic review. That’s the way GTD is supposed to work, but that doesn’t seem to be the way Get It Done handles it. Correct?
Mike 'Get It Done' Staff 19 Jul 2011
In Get It done the idea was to keep all of your upcoming tasks in ‘Next’ and every day you review it and bring the tasks into ‘Today’ that you want to do today. We do not do this automatically, we feel that it is better to manually review the tasks so that we remained focused
AJS 20 Jul 2011
Mike,
does this mean that you should move subsequent project actions into the Next category even if they aren’t the actual next step? I am wondering where to park these tasks as I don’t like leaving them in my inbox as I like to clear my inbox daily and they aren’t ready to be scheduled or Someday/Maybe tasks either. It’s not a major problem I just would like clarification as it’s obviously slightly different to the GTD definition of Next.
Mike 'Get It Done' Staff 20 Jul 2011
I like to keep all my Next Actions in my next folder, these are items I want to get done soon. I also reorder the task in that folder so that I know which task I want to tackle first. I keep items in my Inbox until I know how I want to file them.
AJS 21 Jul 2011
I also leave things in my Inbox until I decide where to file them, but I prefer to do that daily to keep my Inbox clear. It seems to me this is just a question of different words being used to describe the same function.
e.g. depending what system you use, Today could be either of the following:
Starred item
Due Date item
Calendar item
Start Date item
Scheduled item
Floating item
The point being sometimes we get trapped into obsessing over terminology and ignore the options which with a lot of software is fairly similar in reality.
Matthew Bowe 13 Aug 2011
How do I archive a project OR/AKA What do I do with my project when I’m done and still want the history?
Tim Hickernell 19 Aug 2011
I need completed tasks to stay with a project view and preferably with a Smart Group as well. Is there a way to do that? I have to see all tasks at once, open and completed. Obviously completed task would be at the bottom of the project task list.
I also wonder if there is a Project Archive feature, same as the question from Matthew, after the project is done? Even a simple “Show/Hide” feature would satisfy that requirement for me. Then I can just hide the projects I consider done in my project list.
As with other testers, the Evernote integration is what sold me to try your product, and then the GTD model after that. But I really do need these two features.
Mike 'Get It Done' Staff 20 Aug 2011
There is an option in the setting not to move completed items immediately, this is probably what you are looking to change. There is no archive for entire projects but you can create a new ‘Area’ called ‘Archive’ and just move the project into there when you want to get it out of your way.
Bill 2 Sep 2011
This product looks great.
Can I vote for the ability to
a. ‘Complete’ a project in the same way that I complete a task.
b. Show all completed tasks for a project (possibly in a new section under the ‘someday’ tasks)
c. The ability to tag a project. When tasks are added to a project they would be assigned the project tags by default.
Sergei 21 Nov 2011
d. The ability to recover project from “Completed” to “Active”. This gives the opportunity to use Completed projects as a library of project templates.
frank marciano 23 Dec 2011
Hello, Starting on the trial
Isnt there a way to show what project a task is in from all the task views, it should be next to the tag.
Is there a way to have task in inherit setting of the project they are in, tags, people etc
I am an attorney I have a few different matter types an want my client matters listed under that matter type
so
divorce
client 1
client 2
client 3
Landlord/Tenant
client 4
client 5
client 6
Can you advise, thanks
Mike 'Get It Done' Staff 26 Dec 2011
We will offer this in the upcoming version 4.0 of the app. I n the meantime you can just keep your mouse over the project icon and it will tell you the name of the project.
Liz 4 Apr 2012
Hi Mike,
Is there anyway to just see tasks that I assigned to a project under the project name? I don’t want it to be in my inbox, today, scheduled, or anything like that.
Mike 'Get It Done' Staff 4 Apr 2012
I am not sure exactly what you are asking, you can view the tasks assigned to a project by clicking on the project in the left column.