Tips & Tricks Tuesday: Catch your Siri tasks with a Smart List

Dictating tasks with Siri is exceedingly convenient, but can disrupt your carefully managed list of tasks. This week’s tip, shared by cnolsen, suggests catching those tasks in a Smart List so you can add any other properties as needed before moving on with your day.

I’m totally addicted to adding tasks using Siri - while I’m driving, when I’m rushing around the house right before I have to leave, or any other time that I don’t want to take the extra time and brain power that it requires to type up a task. The trouble with this is that I can’t add tags, notes, priorities, or anything else for which I would use Smart Add if I were typing, so I end up with a whole bunch of gray tasks that are missing the info that would sort them into the relevant smart lists. Additionally, I don’t like to clog up my today list with stuff that isn’t actually due today, so my default due date is never, which means these bland tasks will never automatically show up without me looking for them.

To fix this, I added a Smart List that I call Triage, for which I use the criteria:

isTagged:false AND list:Inbox

I’m a compulsive tagger so this works for me, but you could also list a different criteria if you always add start dates or locations (for example) when categorizing tasks. This way when I’m trying to focus on stuff that I really need to do today, I’m not distracted, but I can check this list every day or two to make sure that my Siri tasks don’t get lost in the shuffle of everything else.

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

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