13/11/2016

My To-do List: Item Types

I wrote about the way I use lists some weeks ago and said that I basically use two different lists to organize myself:

  1. A list of open projects
  2. A to-do list

If you looked at the second one, you would basically see three kinds of items:

1. One time (or a few times) tasks

They belong to a specific project and, once they are completed, I forget about them. Some examples of my current open projects are:

  • Resource center
  • Trip to San Diego
  • Digital competencies framework
  • MOOCs
  • Winter vacation

2. Items that doesn’t qualify exactly as a task

I create categories for this kind of items, so maybe I should call them sublists. Some examples:

  • Products I need to buy
  • Books I would like to read
  • Things I have to discuss in a phone conversation with someone
  • Topics I could cover on my blog

3. Recurring tasks

Here I put stuff I want to do in a regular basis as part of a category you could call My life. For example:

  • Run three days a week
  • Play tennis twice a week
  • Check email twice a day
  • Read every day
  • Control family finances once a week
  • Plan my week every Monday

When I complete one of these tasks, Todoist is set to create a new instance for the next due date. If I miss a workout or some other recurring task (and, with my busy schedule, it happens more than I would care to admit), then I postpone it manually.

I should talk about the risk of planning too many tasks. It will be another time, though, because I have some other stuff to do today

Picture: IMG_0712 (Copia) (Luigi Mengato)