Tips & Tricks Tuesday: An easy list for all your tasks

Organizing your lists doesn’t have to mean an ongoing commitment to over-organizing your tasks. This week’s tip comes from ashley.banks, who suggests a Smart List that catches tasks of all types, whether they have a due date or not!

Several years ago, I shared a Smart List for capturing upcoming events without deadlines, along with other near future to-dos. Now I’m back, with a few tweaks to share!

The new search terms I’m using are:

((status:incomplete) AND (due:never OR due:today OR dueBefore:now OR (dueWithin:"1 week" AND NOT tag:recur))) AND (startBefore:tomorrow OR start:never)

This captures all stray items that either have no due date, or a nearby (or overdue) due date. I’m not caught by surprise on upcoming deadlines and I also don’t let smaller things that don’t have strict due dates fall through the cracks. Adding NOT tag:recur allows me to use tagging to filter out recurring events that I don’t want to keep track of (like submitting my timesheet, which is unlikely to take me by surprise), but makes sure I still capture recurring events that may need to be on my radar, like seasonal events.

Similarly, the start exclusions help me filter out tasks which are small and need doing but simply can’t be done until a specific time. These combine to ensure the list is clear of any tasks that you can’t take immediate action on or at least begin preparation for.

Note that you could also add a location or list parameter to the search terms, allowing you to have a filtered to-do list for work, one for home, and so on!

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

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