Does your project belong on a Project List?

Around mid October I decided I wanted to re-do my bathroom. The paint was never really the right color, the shower curtain was old and falling down, and the hooks to hang the towels were not really where I wanted them to be. So, being a good student of GTD I added "re-do bathroom" to my Projects List as well as all the next actions that I would need to do. A few weeks went by and preparations for Thanksgiving and Christmas began. Time and money became very sparse. I started to notice one of two things every time I reviewed my Project List. The first thing I noticed was sometimes I would look at my list and not even see "re-do bathroom". Things like: invite so and so for Thanksgiving Dinner, put up Christmas lights, and do Christmas shopping seemed to be the only items on my list that showed themselves. The second thing that started to happen was when I did notice "re-do bathroom" I felt guilty and anxious that I hadn't started the project. Then one day I discovered the solution. During my weekly review I decided to be honest with myself, "I know I'm not going to do this until sometime after the New Year", I thought. The solution was simple, move "re-do bathroom" to my Someday Maybe list. Instantly the stress was gone. My project was out of my head, in a place that I would review often, however I now had permission to not worry about it. It was no longer hiding from me nor would it cause me stress when I realized there was something on my Projects List that I was ignoring. Now, each week, I look at my Someday Maybe list and ask myself if this is the week I move it to my projects list. Maybe next week I'll move it...maybe not.

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