Tips & Tricks Tuesday: Review your tasks automatically with the updated date
Reviewing your tasks can be helpful, but it can also be tedious to stay on top of. This week’s tip, shared by fizzyice, brings some automation to reviewing your tasks in a Smart List using the updated date—you don’t even need to rely on start or due dates! :)
I don’t want to clutter up my today view or other lists by giving projects and tasks unnecessary start or due dates when they are ‘someday’ or on ‘hold’ etc. Often these projects/task are out of sight, overlooked, or forgotten.
This is a review system so these projects and tasks pop up on a regular basis (after a specified time) in a review list so I can decided what to do with them, or review them again later. Once the system is set up only a tag is needed.
Step 1
Create a Smart List, mine is called: r-s
Use the query editor, paste following:(tag:r-1d AND updatedWithin:"1 day of today") OR(tag:r-2d AND updatedWithin:"2 days of today") OR(tag:r-3d AND updatedWithin:"3 days of today") OR(tag:r-4d AND updatedWithin:"4 days of today") OR(tag:r-5d AND updatedWithin:"5 days of today") OR(tag:r-6d AND updatedWithin:"6 days of today") OR(tag:r-1w AND updatedWithin:"1 week of today") OR(tag:r-2w AND updatedWithin:"2 weeks of today") OR(tag:r-3w AND updatedWithin:"3 weeks of today") OR(tag:r-1m AND updatedWithin:"1 month of today") OR(tag:r-2m AND updatedWithin:"2 months of today") OR(tag:r-3m AND updatedWithin:"3 months of today") OR(tag:r-6m AND updatedWithin:"6 months of today")
(I’ve placed this Smart List out of the way at the bottom of the Smart section as don’t need to see it.)
Step 2
Create another Smart List, mine is called: 😎 Review
Enter following query:tagContains:r- AND NOT list:r-s
(I’ve placed this Smart List near the top of the Smart section where I can easily see it.)
Step 3
Create final Smart List, mine is called: No start/due/r-
Enter query:start:never AND due:never AND NOT tagContains:r-
(I don’t want to see subtasks so I’ve added: AND isSubtask:false)
This will capture all projects/tasks that don’t have start/due dates or a tag that contains r-
These are the projects/tasks to tag.
Result
To review a project/task in 3 days time, tag it: r-3d
…3 days later it will automatically show up in Smart List: 😎 Review
NOTE: Amending the projects/tasks with the r- tags will reset the review date.
Remove tag when no longer need to review; or re-set review date by amending task in some way.
(I use a - tag that has no function, and just add/delete it).
I have not tested it for long but it seems to work, let me know if any different.
Hope this is of use.
Thanks for sharing this tip, fizzyice! You’re our Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner this week.
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