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Stop your new task from disappearing from your smart list when you add them

raymond.bergmark Power Poster says:
Normally, if you have fairly complex smart lists, and try to add tasks to them, they will not meet the smart list criteria and therefore they will disappear from view. The reason for this is that RTM can't figure out what tags, locations, due date etc to give this new task (it tries to copy all the fields.) Having no success in adding all this info, RTM gives up, resulting in a task not meeting the smart list criteria, hence it disappears.

The idea is to create a new smart list that does all the necessary checks (in this case that the task has a tag, a location and a duration):
¤Check:isLocated:false OR NOT timeEstimate:">0 min" OR isTagged:false.
Many reading this already have such smart lists, checking that all is added as needed by your system.

This list should then be used in all the smart lists where you normally add tasks. I have one for work related tasks:
Work:(location:@work OR location:@pc OR location:@phone)
By adjusting this to
Work:(location:@work OR location:@pc OR location:@phone) OR list:¤Check
the new task will remain on screen as it meets this last part. You can then add tags, location etc and suddenly it will not meet the ¤Check criteria but the original criteria for Work and remain on screen. Rather slick if I may say so ;-)

Posted at 5:49pm on January 16, 2008
ranbarton Power Poster says:
Very clever - I like that.
Posted 16 years ago
jeremyholton says:
Yes its clever but at first try I didn't get it working and I just don't have time to fiddle around with it.

In my view this produce RTM is insufficiently mature for realistic use.

I mean is supposed to save you time not waste it
Posted 16 years ago
bzpilman says:
It's not constant time spending, not if you don't want to. It may take some time to settle first, and then monthly you may change something like this, but then it's an investment. At least from my point of view. Besides, the more you like your system, the more you will use it, and that is priceless.
Posted 16 years ago
bzpilman says:
I just wanna add that I don't use complex hacks (or even RTM) for daily or trivial to do's and appointments, rather for managing all my inventory of goals, projects and their next actions, aka GTD's core. It's important to note most people don't even do it, much less in an organized and personal way. Spending time having a clear view and giving a clear direction to your life, and keeping that on a weekly basis, is no useless spending in my opinion.

And oh, great idea, rajjan! I'll surely implement it soon on some parts of my system.
Posted 16 years ago
(closed account) says:
I'm thinking about doing something similar. I have 3 lists. Inbox, Personal and Work. I never want anything in the Inbox list. If it's there, it hasn't been processed. What I may do is add "or list:Inbox" to each smart list. This can potentially be a problem if I don't keep my Inbox clean. I don't want to look at a Smart List and see 10 extra tasks and later realize, oh, I don't want these here, they're just stuck in the Inbox...
Posted 15 years ago
joseph.sanders says:
we.kanes-

Here is how I avoid the "inbox clutter showing up in my quicklists" problem.

Set my Check list (I call mine aChk) to find any task that has no tags in my case:

isTagged:False

When I add a task to the inbox I always give it a tag, even if the tag is just "inbox". This keeps it out of my aChk list and thus out of my inappropriate quicklists


I tried to set up my check by time:

addedWithin:"the last 5 minutes"

but the addedWithin operator only seems to work with dates... bummer. it would have been a graceful solution.
Posted 15 years ago
mildfuzz says:
Can't make this work at all

criteria : dueWithin:"2 days of today" or dueBefore:"today" OR list:¤Check
Posted 14 years ago
raymond.bergmark Power Poster says:
Well, you get all tasks either:
1 Due today or tomorrow
2 Overdue
3 In the list ¤Check
The result depends on the criteria in your list ¤Check
Posted 14 years ago
nah.why says:
rats.

this doesnt work for the following type of smart list:

priority:1 OR priority:2

obviously, "priority:1 OR priority:2 OR NOT (priority:1 OR priority:2)"

will "work" in the sense that the tasks will stay, will not work in the sense that it will include all my tasks, not just the hi prio ones.

My soln, if you can all it that, is for every OR i have in my smart list, i have another smart list that removes the OR, ie i have:

priority:1
priority:2

and i just switch to this list when adding tasks. So, basically, i have lists who's only purpose is to add that particular set of attributes automatically to a task. This is annoying, and results in lots of lists, but it works better than having to track down the task by search or in the long list.
Posted 14 years ago
raymond.bergmark Power Poster says:
One way to find newly added tasks is to have a New smart list:
addedBefore:today
could do the trick.
Posted 14 years ago
raymond.bergmark Power Poster says:
Sorry, meant something like:
addedWithin:"1 day of today"
Posted 14 years ago
phaustin says:
for the record, the syntax requires that "day" be "days"

addedWithin:"1 days of today"
Posted 14 years ago
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