Comments on: Two Task Lists

By: Mark Shead

Mark Shead — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 15:56:51 +0000

I’m not suggesting you carry 5 notebooks. That would get a little out of hand. Your sublist idea sounds similar to what I’m describing. However, I think there is something different about a task like “pickup Joe at airport” or “refinance house” and a tasks like “exercise everyday”.

Personally I don’t think that having 1,500 to do items would be very productive for me. Maybe I’m missing something, but I have tried long to do lists in the past and I think it causes me to spend more time on trivia and less on the most important things.

My solution is to try to get the habit type stuff of of my to do list so I have a more clear picture of the really important cornerstone tasks I need to do. It also gives me the ability to see how I’m doing overall with “habits” so I can see if I’m getting behind on a particular item.

I’ll try to get the tool posted soon so you can see what you think of it.

By: How To Wake Up Early Tricks

How To Wake Up Early Tricks — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 18:37:10 +0000

Your point is correct in general, but you still can have all the tasks in one list, just using different sections of your list. There is no need to “shuffle” the tasks, right? I use “places” approach, where all my tasks belong to some “places” (or categories). That is, I have sublists “office tasks”, “home tasks”, “shopping tasks”. Personally I use MyLifeOrganized tool where I handle all my tasks (current list of active tasks is over 1,500 but well, I’m a manager :), so I actually benefit from having them all in the single list. Good software will always help you with searching/reminding etc, but even if I’d use paper-based approach I’d prefer to carry one notebook with me not five.

By: P. A. Monteiro

P. A. Monteiro — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 09:55:02 +0000

I’m looking forward to reading about the paper-based approach that you use to manage this “habit list”.

By: Rolf F. Katzenberger

Rolf F. Katzenberger — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 07:45:50 +0000

Reminds me of the timetable I had in school. Did you try, as an alternative, to set recurring reminders in your PDA or a software calendar? I find that such alarms push me a bit more than just a paper-based system. Usually, I’m choosing the time of day when I need t start preparing for the activity, opposed to when the activity itself should start.

Tracking the stats could be done by deleting the alarms that did *not* result in the desired activity. If the remaining calendar entries are too few, it’s time to exercise a little more…

By: Watershed

Watershed — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 22:23:51 +0000

I agree that one to do list just doesn’t do it. I use http://www.todoist.com and I have it set up with different lists– and sublists. I just love it.

Basically, I have all my school “to do asap” stuff in one list, and personal “to do asap” in another. Then I have separate lists for school projects, as well as lists for personal projects to do some day– like cleaning the car. Then I started a list of long term deadlines– grants/fellowships, and conference proposal due dates etc.. This works much better than having them in a calendar as I see them all time. And I put their “due date” as 2 weeks before the actually date so that they’ll show up when they need to in my master weekly list.

By: Walmar Andrade

Walmar Andrade — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 20:14:05 +0000

Well, I have a similar approach, but I use Remember The Milk to manage my tasks, so I put them all on one list (Next Actions or Calendar) and them I tag the regular tasks with a specific tag. When I want to see the list without the regular tasks, I use the smart list resource of RTM.