 | jhollington  says:Even without the GPS, the Locations feature can be useful as a secondary "tag" -- I frequently use it in this manner far more often than the "Nearby" setting.... For example, I usually know when I'm near the grocery store (or IN the grocery store :) ), and thereby I can just pull it up directly from within Locations to see what I need to do at the grocery store.
Ironically, it would almost be nicer to have a "Nearby" listing that would simply list the locations nearby with active tasks and a number indicating the active tasks at each (kind of the way the "This week" view works). When looking at what needs to be done nearby, I'm frequently more concerned with where I have to GO than what I have to DO. I can drill down to the individual list once I'm IN that specific location.
Getting back to the original topic, I moved to RTM from Omnifocus, at least as a temporary experiment. So far I'm liking it, but the two most significant things missing in RTM as compared to OF are Start Dates and next actions. While the lack of next-action support hasn't been a big deal for me, since most of my next-actions are usually sequential anyway (ie, five or ten steps all done in one sitting), the lack of start dates has been a huge adjustment, since I don't like to put due dates on non-critical tasks, but I have a number of things that need to recur.... Usually household errands where it doesn't matter if they slip a few days, but do need to be re-done on a regular basis.
My solution with RTM thus far has been to give these tasks due dates, but leave them with NO priority, so they remain grey and bottom-listed, which helps remove the sense of impending doom that otherwise comes with too many "due" tasks :) Then, to keep these filtered out, I don't use any tag views at all, instead preferring to use Smart Lists that encompass the tags.
So while I might tag things to do at the office with an "@office" tag, I almost never look at the tag view of that except during my weekly review. Instead, I use a smart list called "@office" that searches for the tag but also includes only items that are due within the next couple of days, or have no due date at all. This way, items that should be off the radar due to future start/due date settings do not appear.
(status:incomplete and tag:office and (dueWithin:"2 days of today" or due:never))
My iPhone app organization has buttons for Today, Lists, Locations and Search at the bottom. Today is a useful "at-a-glance" view, but I actually spent most of my time in Lists, specifically in my context-based Smart Lists.
Within the RTM world, my static lists are simply areas of responsibility, kept as generic as possible (ie, Work, Personal, etc), although a few major projects get their own list (ie, one called "Book" for a book I'm writring). Tags are used mostly for context, although I'll use a few special-purpose tags for specific projects where required. Locations are used generally for errands, rather than locations that would be better served by a context (ie, I don't have a location for "Home" or "Work" but I do have locations for places or areas in which I might need to run errands.... I sometimes keep these very generic by neighbourhood, ie, "Downtown" rather than by store, unless it's a place where I frequently go and pick up a number of things, like a grocery store).
Almost everything that uses locations gets the "Errands" tag, so I can see at-a-glance via a Smart List what errands I have to run, but then drill down into locations as necessary. I also have an "@ErrandsNearby" smart list that uses the "locatedWithin" search criteria to only show me errands that can be done nearby and that are due in the near future (again filtering out things with later due dates, since I like to keep recurring tasks in place for picking up regular items like coffee, which I don't need to buy EVERY time I go to the grocery store).
Posted 4 years ago |
