Tips & Tricks Tuesday: Smart Lists for any occasion

With Remember The Milk, Smart Lists are a powerful way to view only the tasks you want. This week’s tip, shared by richard.fox (with improvements suggested by wes.foster), is a series of Smart Lists set up to always show you just the tasks you can work on based on where you are and how much time you have.

With the release of the new and shiny Remember The Milk I wanted to share the system I use. It’s probably not completely GTD or any other system you can find and can also probably be made better, but hopefully will help someone else as it has helped me.

The main premise is that you use Smart Lists to see what you can get done at that moment in time, depending on the amount of time you have free, and I hope it is of use to someone. :)

Normal Lists Used:

• Inbox - Used to hold any new tasks/projects which haven’t been processed as yet
• Tasks - Every task that has been processed and doesn’t belong in one of the below lists
• Projects - Any task which is broken down into subtasks, no matter how small
• Someday - Tasks/Projects that are parked for the time being with nothing needing to be done

Smart Lists Used:

Can Do Now - Any task which can be done now (used as a base for other Smart Lists, too):

(tag:anywhere OR locatedWithin:"500 m") AND (dueWithin:"1 week of Today" OR due:never) AND (startBefore:Tomorrow OR start:never) AND NOT tag:waiting AND NOT list:"Someday" AND NOT (list:"Projects" AND NOT tag:next)

5 Minutes - Tasks which you estimate can be completed in 5 minutes and can be done now:

list:"Can Do Now" AND timeEstimate:"5 Minutes"

10 Minutes - Tasks which you estimate can be completed in 10 minutes and can be done now:

list:"Can Do Now" AND timeEstimate:"10 Minutes"

15 Minutes - Tasks which you estimate can be completed in 15 minutes and can be done now:

list:"Can Do Now" AND timeEstimate:"15 Minutes"

30 Minutes - Tasks which you estimate can be completed in 30 minutes and can be done now:

list:"Can Do Now" AND timeEstimate:"30 Minutes"

Waiting - Tasks which you are waiting for someone else:

tag:waiting

Tags Used:

• anywhere - A task which can be done anywhere (This assumes you always have a smart phone available)
• waiting - For tasks where you are awaiting someone else to complete something
• next - Subtasks of a project that can be done now

Locations:

Add all the locations which you generally go to including your home and work, these can be added to as and when you come across them.

When creating tasks you will need to fill in either the location field each time for where the task needs to be done or add the “anywhere” tag if it can be done wherever you are (assuming you have a smart phone). Also make sure you include an estimate of how long you think a task will take (including travel time).

For all the projects, split these into subtasks to make it easier to add a location/anywhere tag and also a time estimate. To keep up to date with projects you will need to review them as and when you complete a subtask with the tag “next” or on a daily/weekly basis.

In day to day use you will focus on just using the Smart Lists, picking “5 Minutes” if you have a spare 5 minutes up to “Can Do Now” for a complete view if you have a lot of free time.

Thanks for sharing this tip, richard.fox! Thanks also to wes.foster for suggesting how to improve the Smart List criteria for this tip. You’re both Tips & Tricks Tuesday winners this week. :)

Do you have a suggestion for our weekly Tips & Tricks post? Got an interesting set-up or idea? Head over to the Tips & Tricks forum, add a new topic, and let us know how you use Remember The Milk. Each week we’ll give away a 1 year Pro account to the user whose idea inspires the Tips & Tricks Tuesday blog post for that week.