Yet Another "System" inspired by 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

There are 2 other systems inspired by Covey's 7 Habits in the forums, so why bother reading mine, right?

https://www.rememberthemilk.com/forums/tips/17936/
https://www.rememberthemilk.com/forums/tips/8205/

I thought mine was considerably different in enough ways that it warranted its own post -- hopefully you agree and this will make sense to you, too.

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WHAT'S MISSING IN OTHER SYSTEMS?
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There are a few things that I find lacking in the above "systems":

1. There is no work flow. When I arrive at my main page I want to easily and quickly assess which things I need to do now (and are important) and have a good way to know the general priorities of things. It sounds like having tags for the quadrants and priorities should do the trick, but hopefully you'll see how my way is more straightforward (with a little help with some mildly complex, but only-need-to-define-once Smart Lists).

2. I like to know how fun a task is, so if I'm in the mood to do something that's not just an errand, I can find it easily.

3. I like to know how much energy something is going to take. How much of my attention and brain do I need to commit? Another nice piece of meta-info for fun searches.

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WHAT ADDING MY TASKS LOOK LIKE
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So, what's my system? First let's define which fields I populate and what I populate them with.

Example Quick Add: Write RTM system into RTM forum. !1 @internet #iu #f1 #e1 #anytime [optional ^in 1 week 19:00] =1 hr

Let's break this down:

1. !1 -- Straightforward: In whatever quadrant it lies, how important is this task? This one happens to be very important!

2. @internet - The ever-famous context. Here's a list of the ones I use. I find that everyone has their own and really any would work in this system.
a. anywhere - Anywhere. Duh.
b. home - Something I can only do at home (like laundry or talking with my spouse about something).
c. internet - Doesn't matter where I get access, I just need the internet.
d. out - Out and about. Usually shopping/errandy things.
e. phone - I probably don't really need this context, but I like to differentiate between internet and phone since I prefer a landline for phone calls.
f. waiting <-- Very important and very useful later.
g. work - Something to do at work (although I keep 2 accounts -- 1 for work and 1 personal -- I keep "work" tasks in my personal account when referring to life things like using a scanner at work for something "personal" like emailing a picture to a friend since I don't have a scanner).

But wait! We're just through the contexts! :D

3. Tags - #iu, #f1, #e1, #anytime -- This particular task is a Quadrant-1 [_i_mportant _u_rgent task), it's very _f_un (1 out of 3), it will take great amounts of _e_nergy (1 out of 3 range), and I can do this "any time" during the day or night.

I think this is generally straightforward except I will give the possible tags for a couple of them:

a. Quadrant Tags - I add a couple extra non-7-Habits quadrants since I like to differentiate between important (bills, emergencies) and "somewhat" important, which I definitely want to do, but my life won't collapse if I don't get to it.

iu, inu, siu, sinu, niu, ninu.

b. Time Window - When can I do this?

anytime, morning, work, lunch, afternoon, evening

4. Due Date - When things must definitely happen at a specific time. This works particularly well when you have it notify you when things are due via your phone. This field is also very important for @waiting contexts. But again, we'll hear about that soon enough. Use this field sparingly, I think.

5. Estimate - Just nice for when you want to do some fun searches. Say you want an easy task that's fun, and you can do within an hour? Simple:
tag:f1 AND tag:e3 AND timeEstimate:"< 1 hr"

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DON'T BE AFRAID
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Now, if you've even made it this far you're thinking one thing: CRAZY. Well if you want real crazy, check out this guy's system:

https://www.rememberthemilk.com/forums/tips/8327/

Later my system might seem (almost) that complex, but I think using my system is actually *really* easy once all the Smart Lists are set up.

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IN DEFENSE OF MY SMART ADD REQUIREMENTS
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But even putting in each task might seem like a lot! You have to put in all those fields and remember each one! I have 3 retorts/comments:

1. At first you keep a little cheat sheet to remind (no pun intended) you each time you add a task to put in all the appropriate fields. Just a little piece of paper or txt file that says something like this:
[task] !_ @context #iu/inu/siu/sinu/niu/ninu #f_ #e_ #[time of day] ^[optionally due] =_ minutes/hours

2. I suggest you add the tags in the same order every time you add a task. That way it becomes easy to make sure you got all of them, which leads to...

2. After literally about a week or 2, it becomes so rote that it just flows out the fingers without any thinking. It takes me maybe 5 - 10 seconds to put in one task.

3. I steal an idea from the really-complex-system guy above and make an "Error" Smart List, so you know quickly if one of your tasks is missing something vital.

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THE FUN BEGINS. SMART SMART-LISTS
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So that's all you need to know to input stuff into the system. Now you need to make all the yummy Smart Lists for easy viewing and then a little explanation on what you'd do every time you look at RTM.

I'm a computer programmer, so I like things to be easy and clear to read. Very quickly searches start looking insane -- just look at really-complex-system guy's system:

(tag:@daily AND dueBefore:"today 23:59") OR (tag:@browsing AND due:never NOT "Chapter") OR tag:@quickie OR (((list:Inbox AND isTagged:true) OR list:Miscellaneous OR tag:@research OR tag:@job) AND (added:yesterday OR added:today)) AND (NOT list:"(98) Errors" NOT list:"(99) Exclude")

Holy crap! How can we make this a little more easy for a human to digest?

The idea is very simple. Make some very small Smart Lists that you won't actually use in your day-to-day, but represent some meaningful group of tasks. This will become much more clear with the ones I give below. Come along!

1. important - Easy-peasy.
tag:iu OR tag:inu

2. not_important - The underscores are important so it's easy to select them with a double-click.
tag:niu OR tag:ninu

3. somewhat_important
tag:siu OR tag:sinu

ALRIGHT ALREADY. WE GET IT. Patience, young Padawan. It will all come together soon.

4. due_now
dueBefore:tomorrow

5. not_yet
Here's where some of the @waiting magic starts appearing. This list will only show things you're waiting for until it's actually "due" (read: the task is ready to do, my friend. Get to it!). This is also when you start seeing the "sub-lists" magic. You, as a regular human-being, can easily make sense of what this list means by the search itself. This search finds things that you should "not yet" do: you are waiting for them and they are not due yet. Simple.

location:waiting AND NOT list:due_now

6. important_can_do - See how easy this search is -- and for a reasonably complex search. Fun!
list:important AND NOT list:not_yet

7. somewhat_important_can_do
list:somewhat_important AND NOT list:not_yet

8. not_important_but_due - I don't really care about "can do" not-important tasks, but I might be mildly interested if there's a non-important task that's *due*, though. Just in case. But if you're a full-on 7 Habits Superhero, then you don't need this list.
list:not_important AND list:due_now

9. general - The main foundation of your everyday-use Smart Lists. Basically everything you can do or not important things that are due. Again, see how easy the search query is!
list:important_can_do OR list:not_important_but_due OR list:somewhat_important_can_do

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THIS IS THE MEAT. EAT THE MEAT (EVEN IF YOU'RE A VEGETARIAN OR A VEGAN. IT'S NOT REAL MEAT.)
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You will (generally) never look at the above lists ever again.

Now is the time to create the lists that you will look at every day (assuming you like this system). I will explain your "work flow" at the end -- I hope you have the time and patience to meet me there!

1. 0_due_soon
dueBefore:"1 week" and list:general

2. 1_urgent_important
tag:iu and list:general

3. 2_urgent
list:general AND (tag:iu OR tag:siu)

4. 3_important
list:important and list:general

5. 4_somewhat_important
list:general and list:somewhat_important

6. 5_error
NOT (list:0_due_soon OR list:1_urgent_important OR list:2_urgent OR list:3_important OR list:4_somewhat_important OR list:not_important OR location:waiting)

So that's it. Everything is set up and you're ready to go. The only other manual searches you might want to do on your own are ones that look for specific kinds of tasks like those mentioned at the beginning (eg. really fun ones that are really hard! -- tag:f1 AND tag:e1).

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WORKFLOW
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So you wake up and the first thing you always do, because you're a go-getter, is to load up ol' RTM. What do you do when it loads up?

Simple! Start from 0_* and slowly make your way down to 6_error. The highest priority things tend to show up in 0, 1, 2. Once those fires are put out, you can move on down the line.

That's it! Go have fun and never worry about missing anything ever again! Below is an example of what I think upon opening RTM if you, like me, learn by example. Thanks for reading this exceedingly long post! You're a real trooper.

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BONUS BELOW!
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Look way at the bottom after this example for some additional things I do that are just extra candy and gravy. You don't need to do them, but I find them to be very helpful. I'm just gunna give a short description of what they do and if there's a pile of people who ask how I do them, I'll post the details.

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EXAMPLE: THIS IS WHAT I DO WHEN I WAKE UP AND OPEN UP RTM.
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1. 0_due_soon.

Hrm. There are a few things that are overdue. I really should do those. I'll be sure to do them later today.
Eek. That really important thing is due tomorrow!
That errand that I wanted to do in 2 days is there. Good to know.

2. 1_urgent_important

Oh man, that really important thing is due tomorrow! Now that I've seen that twice, I'll be sure to get off my ass and do it!

3. 2_urgent
Here is a list of about a dozen tasks that are urgent (including AGAIN the really important task from 0_due_soon) or are pretty important and urgent, but not life and death things.

4. 3_important
If you're a diehard 7-Habits Guru, this is your bread and butter. Not necessarily urgent things, but they're really important to you. And yes, again, the really important task due tomorrow shows up. See the pattern here?

5. 4_somewhat_important
Same as 3_important, but a little less important. This is where the majority of my tasks are (I have 199 tasks of my total 266 tasks sitting in here). It is really important to have this category's tasks appropriately prioritized. Try to only keep a few Priority-1 things that really *are* pretty important things, and maybe even bordering on actually important over somewhat_important, but not quite.

If this list is really unwieldy, you might even use a fancy, little-known search option "addedBefore". So if you search for:

list:somewhat_important AND addedBefore:"2014-04-08"

you'll get some tasks that you made quite some time ago, so maybe you should do something about that.

6. 5_error
Look in here just to be sure none of your tasks are not showing up in one of the lists above. Don't want one of them hiding.

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BONUS FUN TIMES! (AS PROMISED)
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Phew! That's a lot to ingest. I suggest you go do the above for a bit (at least until adding a task takes only a dozen or so seconds) and see how you like it. If you love (or maybe just like) it, maybe you're curious about some of my other little things. Here are some of my little fun things that I can explain in more detail in the future if anyone shows interest.

1. I keep some "reference" regular-lists (not Smart Lists) for reference information (eg. parents' medical history), to-do/to-read/to-watch things (eg. Books, Ideas, TV, Music, etc.)

2. I keep all my chores in a separate regular-list "Chores", and have them *repeat depending on the task (eg. I like to clean my bathrooms every week; the bedroom can be cleaned every other week, I think). Maybe you think that's gross, but I don't judge you, so don't judge me!

3. I keep a regular-list "Gifts" to keep tabs on gift ideas. When someone's birthday comes up, I have a (hopefully) large list to choose from! I'll seem so considerate.

4. I have a moderately complex system for knowing when/what to buy in a more decent way that just having a task "Buy batteries". So if I'm in a grocery store, I can easily find the things I can buy there. I even keep 2 separate lists: 1 for functional stuff and one for fun stuff that I probably don't need, but I want them anyway.

5. Just like someone else in the forum, I use the Notes area for "next tasks". I just put in the text-area the dependant-task in Quick Add form, so when I finish the task I just copy and paste it and it's there. Just now, I got the idea from someone else in the forums to use the tag #next when there is a next task so you don't miss it when you complete it. I love that! I'll probably start doing that.

6. Lastly, there is some major synergy between my Google account and my RTM. I use RTM in conjunction with GCal and also keep my Gmail inbox at zero by changing them into tasks (if they warrant it), putting the url of the specific email on the task, and archiving the email. Woo! Nothing in my email inbox! Awesome.

That's it! That's everything I got. Exhausting.

Someone else in this forum made a GDoc of their system with screenshots. I really like that idea so...

Create GDoc version of RTM system. !2 @internet #sinu #f1 #e1 #anytime =40 min

Yeah, that's right. I just added it.