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Managing long lists

lars_m says:
Hi

I thought I'd share my way of sorting tasks in RTM, since I've used a bit of time optimizing my workflow here. Perhaps it could be useful for some.

As a PhD-student and teacher at University I have a lot of tasks, and viewing them all at once can be overwhelming. Basically I have two lists, 'uni' is for work related tasks and I also keep one for personal tasks. This post is about the 'uni' list.

To navigate my tasks more easily I use tags and smart lists. Right now I have 59 tasks in my 'uni' list all connected to different projects like teaching, chapters in my dissertation or papers I need to write etc. I have a tag for each project, and each project-tag is prefixed with a dot. For instance, chapter 3.3 in my dissertation is tagged .3.3 and my teaching in Studium Generale is tagged .sg. I also use '+' as a prefix for tags to signal an action. So '+read' is the tag I use for stuff I need to read, which, by the way, works really great with the Evernote integration where I can keep linked articles, meeting agendas etc. I use the tag cloud to pick the relevant tag.

This works well for different tasks or projects but to structure my day I rely on two smart lists. One is simply called '5min' and it holds all my tasks that have a time estimate of 5 minutes or less regardless of list, project, type etc. In this way, I quickly get a view of all the small tasks that can be done when I don't have enough time to start working on a project. This smart list is very simple:

timeEstimate: "<6minutes"

The smart list I rely on for my workday is called 'uni_today'. It's a list that picks from my uni list what I need to do today (using deadlines) or what is most important (using priorities 1 or 2) and filters out certain tasks that I don't need on this list like repeating tasks, the ones on my '5min' list or, in my case, the tag for articles I need to check out). I tend to use deadlines for the overall project (finish chapter '...' by the '...') and assign priorities for sub-tasks to help me focus on the important aspects of a given project instead of just a deadline. The list looks like this:

dueBefore:tomorrow AND list:uni NOT timeEstimate:"<6 minutes" OR (list:uni AND (priority:1 OR priority:2 NOT tag: +check_art NOT isRepeating:true) NOT timeEstimate:"<6 minutes" NOT dueAfter:tomorrow)

(I use 'dueBefore:tomorrow' instead of simply 'due:today' because it shows tasks with overdue deadlines, which I do have some of...)
I used to have another list called 'uni_week' that showed the tasks I needed to do within this week, but now I just use the sorting options to sort the "big" 'uni' list by deadline.

This way of sorting my many taks has made RTM easier and more reliable to use: I can quickly add new tasks with tags for the right project (I use the 'inbox' if I am in doubt) and my tags and smart lists reliably picks out the relevant tasks for me.
Posted at 9:22am on November 4, 2013
emily (Remember The Milk) says:
Hi lars_m,

Thanks for sharing your tip! I like the use of time estimate criteria in your Smart Lists; it's a nice way to separate tasks. By the way, you're this week's Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner, so we've added a free year of Pro to your Remember The Milk account. :)
Posted 10 years ago
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