Someday/maybe: park ideas with two dates
by Andreas Tissen · · updated
There is a line on your project list that says "print edition of the guide". It has been there since spring. Nothing under it has moved, and every Monday you read past it on the way to the work you are actually doing. You keep it because you might still do it one day.
A project list with eleven entries, four of them real, is hard to trust. Getting Things Done has a place for the other seven: the someday/maybe list, and below is how it works, the two dates that keep it from turning into a drawer, and how an idea moves between it and your projects.
A list for not now
David Allen's someday/maybe list holds everything you might want to do but are not committing to now: the course, the trip, the side project, the print edition. Nothing on it gets a next action, which is what keeps it apart from Projects, and Allen includes it in the weekly review, so the list gets read and an idea can move back up when its time comes.
What the list changes is the size of the question. Whether an idea is good is hard to settle. Whether you are doing it in the next few months usually has a clear answer, and moving the line to Someday records that answer while keeping the idea.
Parked, looked at
Without dates, a someday list becomes a drawer you never open. Give each idea a note with two kinds of date: when you parked it, and each time you looked at it and still said no.
"Parked 3 May. Looked at 1 June: still no." is a no you have now given twice, in writing. Three no's and it goes. By then the list is only repeating what you already decided. A glance during the weekly review is enough for most entries, and once a month the list deserves a slow read.
The monthly read in the template comes with two rules. Promote at most one idea to a real project, so next month's project list does not fill up again. Delete anything you have said no to three times.
Moving between the lists
In most task apps a project and an idea are different kinds of object, often in different places. Promoting an idea means creating a project and copying the text across, and demoting a stalled project means the reverse, so stalled projects stay on the project list looking active.
Pando, the outliner I build, has only one kind of thing: a bullet, which can hold other bullets. It runs in the browser and on the phone, and Claude can work in it over MCP once you connect it. Projects and Someday are two branches of the same tree, so promoting an idea is dragging its bullet from one to the other.
The idea arrives in Projects with its note, so the record of how long it waited comes along, and you then add children as next actions, or write a five-line brief under it. Demoting a project that has not moved for two months is the same drag the other way, with a new "parked" date in the note, and it is the last box of the monthly look in the picture. That checklist comes from the someday/maybe template, where you duplicate it each month and date the copy.
Claude adds the dates
With Pando connected to Claude, the bookkeeping of the monthly read can be Claude's. You tell it which ideas you looked at, and it appends "looked at 14 June" to each note. It can also count. Ask which ideas have three looks and no move, and it lists them from the notes.
The template's prompt stops there and tells Claude not to suggest what to promote or delete. Which idea gets a quarter of your time is your decision.
Pando is free up to 5,000 bullets, and Pro costs 3 EUR a month. To keep a someday list whose dates Claude maintains, create a free account and connect Claude.