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Two Years of Remembering the Milk got me this System

(closed account) says:
So, almost two years after my first completed task, I finnaly converged to one task management system that is based on everything I read and used about task mangement.

Sources I have to mention are the great blogs and GTD posts from Lifehacker, Lifehack and this forum and also the once-free-beta-but-now-paid-application Tudumo that introduced me to a basic GTD implementation.

To keep this post from getting too big I'm just going to list how I use RTM main features and maybe inspire some other uses.


::Priorities

In my system, priorities aren't really priorities, the are used to move tasks (actions) through my workflow.
meaning:
1 (red) next/current action
2 (blue) action
3 (light blue) deferred/waiting
4 (blank) someday/maybe

Since I use RTM's priorities for tasks, I have 3 priorities for tasks: normal (things I want or should do), important (thing that I have to do) and important and urgent (can't/really should't be posponed). Normal tasks don't get any special treatment, important tasks have a ! suffix on the task name and important whereas important and urgent takss have a !! suffix.


::Regular Lists

Lists are used to divide the major topics of my life, being: personal, work for company a, work for company b, college, football team I help manage. The division shold be clear, since tasks and projects should not move from one list to another.


::Tags

Tags are used to:
1) map contexts (@ prefix): resources for completing a task, but can also be @online or @movies (kind of a resource, right?)
2) map projects,
a) + prefix for important/work projects
b) - prefix for personal projects
c) . prefix for enternainment projects (games checklists, books, tv/web series episodes, ...)
d) _+, _-, _. prefix for projects on stand-by
3) list major goals and topics of my life, Ex: family, friends, money, professional, conquertheworld...


::Locations

Since location groups, the one feature I suggested, wasn't implemented I divide locations on two types: exact locations or neighbourhoods.
1) exact locations have a ~ prefix. Ex: ~moms, ~dads, ~girlfriends
2) neighbourhoods have a # prefix. Ex: #copacabana, #downtown


::Projects

Projects allways have a # prefix on the task name and belong to one of the main lists and should have a due date, it's actions are kept in the inbox so they don't get in the way when I'm in list view.
Big projects may need to detail sub-projects, in this case I create special tasks to describe the project step using as many # characters as the sub-level.
Sub-projects/project steps should also be on one of the major lists and have their own due dates.
As of this moment I'm not using an special tag for project steps so I don't spend too much time managing the tasks or risk mixing things up.


::Smart Lists

Smart lists are the big deal and I have more than a handfull of them, the main ones are:
1) !, important
2) !!, important and urgent
3) +, added today/uncategorized (almost unused now there's smart add)
4) ?, tasks that won't be found using clicking on the tags or lists or should have a due date (priority 1 or 2 not in the inbox)
5) projects, list of projects/sub-projects
6) review, lists the task completed on the last week
7) next (default), tasks for the next two weeks


::Tag Cloud

Using this system I don't spend much time managing the system and can easilly see my tasks using the tag cloud. One more thing is that, using these preffixes, the tag cloud items gets "sorted" and grouped in this order:
1) Neightbourhoods (#),
2) Important/Work Projetcs (+),
3) Personal Projects (-),
4) Entertainment Projects (.),
5) Needed Resources (@),
6) Stand-by Projects (_[+-.]),
7) Goals/Lists,
8) Exact Locations (~)


That's pretty much it, if anyone sees how I can improve this or something I can do differently, please comment.
Posted at 12:59am on October 28, 2009
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