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Managing Discretionary Sub-Tasks using Evernote and RTM

yosri says:
I use Remember the Milk for all tasks I need to remember, including ones that recur. In some cases though, I have a list of tasks that I want to bundle together, each task may or may not need to be completed. For example, I know that I want to do some yard work this weekend, and I have a list of tasks in mind that count as yard work, say "Mow the lawn", "Seal the driveway", and "Trim the hedges". I may decide to do all the tasks, just some of them, or none of them. I also don't want to clutter my RTM with such discretionary tasks as I may have ten or twenty of them. Here is where I bring Evernote in. I basically have my RTM account linked to my Evernote account. I create a note with a bunch of to-dos in it and then add a reminder to that note; so the note now appears as a regular task in RTM.

I'll walk you through the steps:
1. First, I need to have an Evernote account and connect to it via RTM. The instructions on how to do this are here: https://www.rememberthemilk.com/services/evernote/
2. I go to my Evernote account and create a new note in any of my notebooks. Let's say the note is called "Yard Work"
3. In my new note, I list my tasks. I can list the tasks any way I like: using bullets, hyphens, numbers, etc..., but I really like to use check boxes because I can easily check off tasks when they are complete
4. Last, but not least, I add a reminder (the little clock icon) to my Evernote task. This will cause this note to show as a task in my Remember the Milk account. So if I want do yard work this Saturday, I will see a task called "Yard Work" due Saturday in Remember the Milk. I can also change the due date for this task/note from Remember the Milk, postpone it, or even "complete" the whole task, which will remove the reminder, not the note, from Evernote.

Now, as I complete yard work tasks, I check them off in Evernote. If I don't finish all the tasks, I can postpone the the whole set of tasks, from within RTM, until the next weekend. In Remember the Milk, I also have a link to easily bring up the note in Evernote for viewing and editing the tasks. In the end, I'm still using Remember the Milk, but I'm keeping the clutter out where it makes sense.
Posted at 2:35pm on May 7, 2014
metagrapher says:
This is brilliant.

I was trying to come up with a logical way to manage and even take advantage of the syncing between Evernote and RTM. I love RTM, and I love Evernote, so I was struggling to decide when to put what where. Your method makes perfect sense, especially since I'm already managing projects and clients through Evernote. Thanks!!
Posted 9 years ago
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