I am that kind of person who does not write down every small task, tracks time for completion and measures productivity of a single day; as well, I don't like to «snooze» task again and again. I learn that all that puts too much stress on me and discourages me from using tasks manager long term. So eventually I come up with easy going, low maintenance (thanks to RtM smart lists) time management based on GTD (Getting Things Done).


*Bird's eye view
As usually, there is normal inbox for things to write down. Then there are 4 levels: monthly, quarterly, someday, scheduled.

Someday bucket of tasks is reviewed once a quarter. Those tasks are not expected to be completed any soon.

Quarterly bucket is reviewed once a month. Tasks here are desired to be completed this quarter.

Monthly bucket is reviewed once a week. Tasks from it are selected for action this week.

Tasks are moved between buckets based on load, plans and desires.

Scheduled tasks have specific day when completion is expected, e.g. maintenance tasks like check smoke detector. I use «repeats» feature of RtM heavily and prefer «repeat after x period» to «every x period».


*Routine
Every morning I review my tasks marked for action and scheduled this week. It helps me to plan my day, e.g. pick something from home to work so I can complete errand during a day. I come back to the list several times per day, as time permits, to select tasks to action now.

Once a week/month/quarter I review monthly/quarterly/someday bucket and plan what I want try to complete next week/month/quarter. Move tasks between buckets accordingly.


*RtM set up
I mark Someday bucket tasks with «.someday» tag, and Quarterly with «.q» tag. I have «review .someday» and «review .q» tasks that repeat every quarter and month respectively.

I have "Monthly" smart list with following search query:
NOT(tag:.someday OR tag:.q OR tag:na OR isLocated:true) AND due:never AND start:never AND isSubtask:false

I tag task with «na» tag, when selecting to action it this week.

I have "Action" smart list with following search query:
tag:na OR dueBefore:Monday OR startBefore:Monday OR locatedWithin:"1 km"

This way I have 5 things in Favorite tab:
- Inbox (sorted to other lists on occasion)
- Action (default view and reviewed several times per day)
- Monthly (reviewed once a week)
- .q tag (reviewed once a month)
- .someday tag (reviewed once a quarter)


*Results
I use this system together with RtM for more than a year now. I have about 100 open tasks at any given moment, but only 10 to 20 are in my attention every day. I close about 60 every month (thanks to RtM connection with IFTTT, I can track it in google sheets).