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My GTD Setup

(closed account) says:
For anyone who might be interested:

After spending a few hours combing the forums and tinkering on my own this is what I've come up with.

Six Lists:
Inbox
Lone (for lone tasks that are themselves next actions)
Project (project tasks listed as PROJECTNAME TASK# description)
Specific (my hard landscape for appointments and such)
Someday (my someday tasks)
Sent

Four Tags for Context:
@any (can be done anywhere - home, work, etc.)
@home (must be done at home)
@out (while I'm out and about)
@work (must be done at work)

I tag Next Actions as "na" on all lists EXCEPT "Lone". Since I treat the items on the "Lone" list as next actions themselves there is no need for additional tagging.

One Smart List for all my Next Actions as follows:
(list:inbox)OR(list:lone)OR(list:projects AND tag:na)OR(list:Specific and dueWithin:"7days of today")

Using the google homepage plugin to pull up the one Smart List gives me all next actions, all hardscape scheduled events for the next seven days, and everything from the inbox so nothing sits unnoticed. I suppose you could leave off the inbox from this Smart List, but I have greater trust in my system this way.

The ONLY way this could be even more perfect is to be able to sort tasks by name. This would keep my project tasks in order as I went down the list looking for next actions.



Posted at 1:47pm on June 19, 2007
roofone says:
My system is similar, but I break out projects into their own smartlists, and I haven't figured out how to implement next actions ( I wish we could create task dependencies).

Are you continually retagging things "na" as you complete prerequisite tasks?
Posted 16 years ago
(closed account) says:
Yes. Part of my processing routine is to tag the next action on each project. It's not time consuming at all, really. I actually appreciate how it makes me evaluate each project. Sometimes what I originally though was the next action turns out not to be.

Didn't think about smart lists for each project. That would provide some clarity, at least for larger projects.

Dependencies would be great to be sure. Then we're approaching project management software vs task management. I'd understand if that was out of the scope the developers had in mind. I'd truly settle for sort by description to keep my project tasks in order.
Posted 16 years ago
roofone says:
I suppose sorting by description works for task dependency/order (assuming you number your tasks).

I'm just afraid as new things came up or I reevaluated the dependencies/order I'd have to stick things in and end up with a list like...

task 1
task 2
task 2a
task 2ab
task 3
Posted 16 years ago
roofone says:
And...

I think I'm going to try using prioritization to designate next actions.
Posted 16 years ago
(closed account) says:
That's a good point. I'm just starting with RTM and haven't put any projects in that were so robust as to require many additional tasks like that.

If the additional tasks were in the same project and context i've just been editing the name to include the new task with the old. But that could get awful cumbersome.

I shall place my order then for sorting with a side of dependencies, please.
Posted 16 years ago
tvjames says:
I have several basic lists defined as . and .. just so they're short. For my setup, they represent "home" and "work"

I created smart lists called "home" and "work" to identify items due today or overdue. And then I set my default to go to one of the smart lists.

The smart list settings are:
list:. dueBefore:tomorrow

I'm still getting into more of the GTD concepts, but this has been a great start for me to show only what needs to get done now and not worry about the respawned events due later.
Posted 16 years ago
ranbarton Power Poster says:
I've been trying to bite my tongue, but I just cannot hold it - the desire and enthusiasm for user-configurable sorting is so strong.

Code, Bob, code!
Posted 16 years ago
jsellen says:
I've been trying to bite my tongue, but I just cannot hold it. The capaiblity for user-configurable sorting is available through the API.

This means that any of a number of different people who can program a little bit could accomplish this request. Have you asked for sorting here?:
http://groups.google.com/group/rememberthemilk-api/

Not to mention that this user configurable sorting is actually pretty difficult to implement given the current state of the site and would take significantly more effort than other requested features. Some of these other requests require back-end changes that can only, exclusively be done by Bob & the team.

So, what I'm trying to say is, maybe you'd be able to get this from another way?
Posted 16 years ago
zukanov says:
>> Not to mention that this user configurable sorting is actually pretty difficult to implement given the current state of the site and would take significantly more effort than other requested features.

How's that? I'd guess the biggest sort request is just: Sort by due date, then by priority instead of vice versa. Above is a request sorting by name. How difficult would it really be to add a "Sort" tab to the Settings pane, and either provide a choice of a few pre-defined sort options or 2 or 3 drop downs for "Sort first by: " "Sort next by: " and possibly a "Sort 3rd by:".

Custom Outlook-like sorting applicable to any Smart List/Search you wanted and/or "click this column header to sort by that" would be nice, but hardly necessary for most people's needs. I think most people would be plenty happy with a globally applied "sort everything like this" setting (especially at this point, more than 18 months after this basic feature was requested). Heck, I'd be willing to bet that a majority of people would be happier if the currently unchangeable sort order was by date then priority.
Posted 16 years ago
ranbarton Power Poster says:
Jsellen - please see here for my comments re your API suggestions.
http://www.rememberthemilk.com/forums/help/2248/
Posted 16 years ago
benjamine says:
Tasks dependencies would be an important feature to me!

It's not task priority, setting Tasks dependencies, would allow me to filter tasks that I can't start yet!

That would allow me to:
- see only tasks that I can start doing next (with all dependencies completed)
- for a certain task knowing which tasks are going to became enabled when it's completed.
- to know which (ordered) tasks must I complete to enable de start of certain task.
- etc.

as said, it start becoming close to project management, but It's a lot of features with the simple adding of a little (and optional) task information.




Posted 15 years ago
andrew.burgess says:
FWIW, I use priority 3 to designate next actions; it's quick (keyboard shortcut : 3), and I'm not using priorities as "priorities," but rather as project headings, and p 1 for project title, p2 for sub-project. I'm using the RTM Projects Greasemonkey script, although the script doesn't depend on that use of priorities.

Andrew
Posted 15 years ago
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