Tips & Tricks Tuesday: Organizing your tasks in blocks of time

Organizing your tasks can be a complicated balance: one way and you don’t have things in place, and the other way and things are incredibly fussy.

This week’s tip comes from cek1227, who lays out a thorough way to organize your tasks around blocks of time with streamlined and straightforward results.

I’ve been through several RTM schemes - they work for a while, and then either I get bored or the weaknesses of the system drive me to rewire everything. Here’s my latest rewire:

Only 5 Lists (including Inbox):

• Inbox: Tasks that need to be dispositioned into another list, reviewed daily (see “Open” Smart List below).
• Active: Tasks that I’m working on (or are scheduled)
• Queue: Tasks I want to get to, reviewed weekly.
• Someday: Tasks I might consider, reviewed monthly.
• Delegated: Tasks I’m tracking with others, but not responsible for (using tags so that I can see all tasks that are delegated to Bob the Monkey, for example).

Locations for context:

• Work
• Home
• etc., as needed

But many Smart Lists:

• Open: Tasks in the Inbox OR have no location set (i.e., need to be dispositioned, reviewed daily)
• Tasks: Tasks that take less than 5 min (or have no estimate)
• Jobs: Tasks that take 15 - 30 min
• Projects: Tasks that take more than 30 min

Then location-specific Smart Lists, as needed:

• WkActive: Location = work, list = Active
• WkTasks: Location = work, Smart List = Tasks

And so on, but only as needed for what follows.

Then my working Smart Lists, tagged as “favorites” - these are the only lists I work from:

• 1WkActiveTasks: All my work tasks that are active and take less than 5 minutes, sorted by Priority and Due Date, grouped by Due Date.
• 2WkActiveJobs: Like previous, but 15-30 min.
• 3WkActiveProjects: Like previous, but > 30 min.
• 4HmActive: No need to break this out for home stuff into tasks, jobs, and projects.
• Whatever else I need like this. The number prefix keeps them sorted in the favorites list.

The sorting and grouping put the No Due Date items first, then dated items grouped by day in order below. Each group is sorted by priority. I can quickly see what needs attention first.

I use BLOCKS of time at work - some for tasks, some for jobs, and some for projects. So, I use the Favorite Smart Lists to keep visible only what my current block of time is for, so that I can focus. I’m not staring at long projects in a list of other things that I can knock out in minutes. My Smart Lists shows only what applies to my time block.

If there are too many Jobs or Projects in view, then I need to change something in the task to get it out of view - I don’t need to look at it.

I don’t care that my 1WkActiveTasks Smart List shows a hundred tasks, because of the sorting - the no-date, priority, due-now tasks are what I see, no matter how long the list actually goes down the scroll. If too many are due today, then I change the date to be realistic with myself.

I use tags to collect like tasks, either by to whom I’ve delegated, a given project, a department at work, etc.

Details of Smart Lists:

• Open: isLocated:false OR list:Inbox
• Tasks: timeEstimate:“<6 minutes” OR hasTimeEstimate:false
• Projects: timeEstimate:“>29 minutes”
• Jobs: NOT list:Tasks AND NOT list:Projects
• WkActive: location:Work AND list:Active
• WkTasks: location:Work AND list:Tasks
• WkJobs: location:Work AND list:Jobs
• WkProjects: location:Work AND list:Projects
(etc., as needed for each location)
• 1WkActiveTasks: list:WkTasks AND list:Active
• 2WkActiveJobs: list:WkJobs AND list:Active
• 3WkActiveProjects: list:WkProjects AND list:Active
• 4HmActive: location:Home AND list:Active

• Daily: review Open
• Weekly: review Queue (true list)
• Monthly: review Someday (true list)

The key is to view only the list that corresponds to the block of time you’re working.

Delegated items are reviewed by tag at whatever interval makes sense. Just create a task to remind you when for each one, with the same tag.

Thanks for sharing this tip, cek1227! You’re our Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner this week.

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