When having an idea or recognizing a need we just dump it into inbox list. When time comes to process the inbox sometimes items look quite vague. They seem to be tasks, but occasionally they are actually projects. Let’s see how to spot those.
Everything is easy when item is obvious task or an obvious project. We all know basic things like a task is actionable and atomic, takes relatively short time to complete, and can be stand-alone or a part of some project. Seeing complex item requiring multiple actions and taking multiple days of duration are clear indication of a project.
But sometimes there is an item which is in grey area. It seems to be a task when it is actually a project. Newbies may also have an opposite situation overcomplicating a task into a project.
There are several questions that can help to deal with such grey items.
When do you want to address this item?
Really not an obvious question when deciding if something is a task or a project. Here is the thing: we need to care only about items which we are going to address in a meaningful future. Anything that is for some later time, you can just move to Someday list. It could happen that you never deal with this item at all. So keep some of your energy for more important things.
Personally I use upcoming week or two as my timeframe to decide whether an item is current or for Someday. In rare cases I create a reminder for myself to take a closer look at an item while keeping the item itself in Someday list.
Can you complete it in one sitting?
An item could be simple and actionable, but require lots of time. This means you can’t just take it and do everything at once. You have to break it down into a couple of tasks which makes it a project.
Some years ago I fall in love with Evernote. I started using it for different purposes. One of those was storing digital copies of paper documents. After using it for all ongoing documents for about half a year, I decided to digitize my older paper documents. It turned out to be a lot. If I could do this in one sitting I would say that this is a task, but instead I decided to go with a project and a set of tasks time-boxing each sitting to two hours.
Will you need to agree on anything with others in the process?
Basically whenever you need someone’s decision to be able to compete the item, you’re facing a project where one of the tasks is on another person.
When I needed to declutter cabinet with old stuff, I could easily decide what I can throw away of my things. At the same time to do this for my wife’s or children’s things I needed them to show me what can I throw away and what I should keep. This makes decluttering a multi-step process (meaning it’s a project for me).
What is your context and experience?
Is the item at hand unique or you do similar thing often? Can you block whole day to complete time-consuming item in one sitting? Can you streamline decisions from others?
Your current context and experience can make a big difference.
Decluttering a closet from above can switch to a task if we (as a family) do this together. In such case everyone reviews his or her own stuff, we pack not needed stuff to the trunk, and I drive to waste station right after we’re done with sorting.
Talking about experience, painting a room sounds like a project for regular person with at least a couple of preparation tasks (like buying tools and materials). At the same time for a professional painter this is just a regular task.
As you can see deciding between task and project is highly subjective. I hope that questions above can ease this process for you and lead you to actionable tasks. At the end of the day original item had appeared in inbox because you saw a need to get it done.