Tips & Tricks Tuesday: A more encouraging 'Today' Smart List

Sometimes it can feel like you’ll never get through today’s tasks or, even worse, that you haven’t gotten anything done all day! To help with that, this week’s tip, shared by taylor.andrew, suggests a quick addition to your Smart Lists to keep your day in perspective.

Ages ago I set up my Smart List for Today’s Tasks:

due:today OR dueBefore:today

Dead easy, and nothing wrong with it. But a friend introduced me to Ben Franklin’s philosophy of getting things done, and as well as “What Good Shall I Do This Day?”, he asks “What Good Have I Done This Day?”. So now my Smart List is this:

completed:today OR (status:incomplete AND (due:today OR dueBefore:today))

It’s exactly the same – except that if I click the “2 completed” link at the bottom, I see the list of things I’ve done today. It’s encouraging when it’s 5PM and I still have a bunch of things to do, and it’s good for taking stock at the end of the day, if that’s how you roll. (Personally, that part doesn’t do anything for me but I hear it’s a thing.)

The nice part is, it does it without creating an extra list – I have enough lists already – and you can apply the same basic idea to almost any Smart List you use.

Thanks for sharing this tip, taylor.andrew! You’re our Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner this week.

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