Tips & Tricks Tuesday: Low-maintenance GTD with Smart Lists
GTD (Getting Things Done) is a super method for keeping things out of your head, but it can be a lot of commitment.
Enter this week’s tip, shared by mjh_sakh. They maintain the periodic review of your short- and long-term tasks but keep a very clear and simple process.
I am the kind of person who doesn’t write down every small task, track time for completion, or measure productivity of a single day; as well, I don’t like to “snooze” tasks again and again. I learn that all that puts too much stress on me and discourages me from using task managers long term. So eventually I came up with an easy-going, low-maintenance (thanks to RTM Smart Lists) time-management based on GTD (Getting Things Done).
Bird’s eye view
As usual, there is a normal inbox for things to write down. Then there are 4 levels: monthly, quarterly, someday, scheduled.
• Someday bucket of tasks is reviewed once a quarter. Those tasks are not expected to be completed any soon.
• Quarterly bucket is reviewed once a month. Tasks here are desired to be completed this quarter.
• Monthly bucket is reviewed once a week. Tasks from it are selected for action this week.
Tasks are moved between buckets based on load, plans and desires.
Scheduled tasks have a specific day when completion is expected, e.g. maintenance tasks like “check smoke detector”. I use the repeating feature of RTM heavily, and prefer “repeat after x period" to “every x period”.
Routine
Every morning I review my tasks marked for action and scheduled this week. It helps me to plan my day, e.g. pick something from home to work so I can complete errand during a day. I come back to the list several times per day, as time permits, to select tasks to action now.
Once a week/month/quarter I review the monthly/quarterly/someday bucket and plan what I want to try to complete next week/month/quarter. Move tasks between buckets accordingly.
RTM set up
I mark Someday bucket tasks with “.someday” tag, and Quarterly with “.q” tag. I have “review .someday” and “review .q” tasks that repeat every quarter and month respectively.
I have a “Monthly” Smart List with following search query:
NOT(tag:.someday OR tag:.q OR tag:na OR isLocated:true) AND due:never AND start:never AND isSubtask:false
I tag tasks with “na” tag, when selecting to action it this week.
I have an “Action” Smart List with following search query:
tag:na OR dueBefore:Monday OR startBefore:Monday OR locatedWithin:“1 km”
This way I have 5 things in my Favorites tab:
• Inbox (sorted to other lists on occasion)
• Action (default view and reviewed several times per day)
• Monthly (reviewed once a week)
• .q tag (reviewed once a month)
• .someday tag (reviewed once a quarter)
Results
I’ve used this system together with RTM for more than a year now. I have about 100 open tasks at any given moment, but only 10 to 20 are in my attention every day. I close about 60 every month (thanks to RTM’s connection with IFTTT, I can track it in Google Sheets).
Thanks for sharing this tip, mjh_sakh! You’re our Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner this week.
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