Tips & Tricks Tuesday: Keep calm and Remember The Milk

Keeping a list can be reassuring, but it can sometimes get ahead of you. This week fant shares three tips for preserving some sanity and calm as you juggle all the things!

First Tip: The Sane Inbox

Derived from the principle of “Do it Tomorrow” by Mark Forster, and my experience of always getting seduced to look at the whole day again and again in the inbox, I introduced a Smart List called “MyInbox” with the following search:

addedBefore:today AND list:Inbox

So, I see tasks coming in today only tomorrow.

Same day urgent items get “priority 1” or “due Today” or get “starred” (see below) so they will show up in the Today list or in a corresponding Smart List.

Second Tip: The Pin

The PIN is a tag which is part of every Smart List. So, when I temporarily “pin” a task it will be shown in every Smart List and can be easily accessed. If the task is no longer needed, the pin is removed.

(your Smart List) OR tag:pin

Third Tip: The Star

I introduced a tag “X” (looks nice with an emoji, e.g. “⭐”).

Because I only assign dates if really, really required (to stay sane ;-) I build my lists context-related (home, hive, out, etc). After processing my inbox and bravely accessing my today section, I look in my appropriate context list. I work through this list and “star” items which I “want to do in the next hour” (sometimes I change this depending on time available and mainly according to my mood).

Smart List: “⭐ STARRED”
Search: “tag:X” (simple as that ;-)

I hope that these simple tweaks could reduce your blood pressure and keep you sane.

Thanks for sharing these tips, fant! You’re our Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner this week.

Do you have a suggestion for our weekly Tips & Tricks post? Got an interesting set-up or idea? Head over to the Tips & Tricks forum, add a new topic, and let us know how you use Remember The Milk. Each week we’ll give away a 1 year Pro account to the user whose idea inspires the Tips & Tricks Tuesday blog post for that week.