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More efficient way to create a task?

tim.byng says:
Hello,

I was just wondering if I'm using the most efficient way to create a task. Let me describe my workflow. When I open RTM, I have it open my "Today" smartlist. I have it open on this for most of the day.

1. When I need to add a new task, I click on the Inbox tab.
2. Press t to add a new task.
3. I enter the title and press enter.
4. I use shortcut keys to enter all the other info (due date, tags, notes, etc.)
5. I click on the drop down list and move it to the appropriate list (I only have work and personal).

Here's what I'd like to do:
1. Press t to add a new task.
2. Enter the title, due date, tags, notes, etc. and select the list I would like to move the task to.

I generally use only smartlists. I only put it in another list so that it no longer shows in my inbox.

Basically, I would love to be able to add a task with due dates, tags, etc. without having to change from my smartlist to a standard list.

Thanks,
Tim
Posted at 4:11pm on May 5, 2008
tim.byng says:
Is there no way to add a task with more than just the title if I'm currently in a smart list?
Posted 15 years ago
raymond.bergmark Power Poster says:
You can add tasks to a smart list and have it inherit ALL the smart list criteria if, and this is important, ALL smart list criteria are un-ambiguos.

For instance, you can't have OR or NOT in the filter, neither things like dueBefore:tomorrow or timeEstimate:"<1 hour".

Looking at each part, RTM tries to figure out what properties to set, and if it fails ONCE it forgets the whole thing. Hope that helps!
Posted 15 years ago
ranbarton Power Poster says:
Some people have a smartlist (or several) that "catch" tasks without complete metadata. Then they can add to a smartlist's query the language to also include tasks that match the missing data smartlist, so when you create a task in the working smartlist with ambiguous properties, the new task does not vanish from view, but instead remains to be edited.

Pretty darn clever.
Posted 15 years ago
raymond.bergmark Power Poster says:
More on the tip ranbarton describes above:
www.rememberthemilk.com/forums/tips/3700/
Posted 15 years ago
tim.byng says:
Thank you rajjan and ranbarton! I can use both of those tips!

I have created a "Check" smartlist that I have added to other smartlists. My "Check" smartlist only contains "isTagged:false" for now, as all of my tasks should have tags. I'll just make sure that I add tags to new tasks after entering all other info. I'm very happy with this workaround.

As for the inheritance rule, I thought that it had done this before for my lists, but I wasn't sure. I checked my smartlists and noticed that all of them have "AND NOT list:Sent" to exclude tasks that I have assigned. I guess that once I added this, the inheritance stopped working. At least I know how it works.

Any tips on how to have a query that will show items assigned only to myself and still use inheritance for new tasks?

Thanks again for the great tips!
Posted 15 years ago
tim.byng says:
I have been modifying my smartlists bases on these tips and have come up with an answer to my last question "Any tips on how to have a query that will show items assigned only to myself and still use inheritance for new tasks?".

All I did to resolve this was to change "AND NOT list:Sent" to "AND list:Work" (for example). Most of my smartlists are projects for work, so this works perfectly.

Thanks again for the tips. They have opened my eyes on how to better use RTM.
Posted 15 years ago
This topic has now been closed automatically due to a lack of responses in the past 90 days.