As in, what types of to-do are there.
I like the feel of this, and where it could be going.
Tasks are something Iāve struggled with for a long time. I have never, in my entire life, found a system that works for me. Itās a big pain point. Things get lost, or put off (and then lost in a shame spiral) or procrastinated onā¦
I like the distinction here between MUST (P1), SHOULD (P2-P3) and MAY (P4), and how they all live in different systems, managed differently. Keep all the P4s around without the shame/anxiety of seeing them alongside your P1s and getting overwhelmed with all the things you have to do.
Iām interested to see where you end up going with the āorthogonalityā of scheduled tasks and how one works with nebulous scheduling (e.g. Feed the neighbourās cat at some point in the evening).
Iām also interested to see how it ties in with your index card system; the analog, paper, āstuff Iām doing right nowā tasks.
Basically, Iāve got a lot of task management stuff on my mind right now, swirling around, just waiting for a few more ingredients/catalysts to coalesce into something that would be actually useful.
1 Like
In a way it feels funny to be thinking about this again. Surely this is a solved problem?
But, obviously not. And I think itās a problem that adjusts with us over time. Ten years ago maybe a simple GTD methodology worked. But then we got always-with-us devices and home assistants that record anything we shout at them and literally dozens more to-do apps.
The landscape isnāt, well, a landscape. Because landscapes tend to be static. Itās more like an ocean. A swirling ocean of okay enough of this terrible metaphorā¦
Iām thinking about this a lot at the moment. Like, most of the day. I want to bring it back to basics. Itās not about the tools. I firmly believe that with the right process you could do this with a plain text file or a stack of index cards and Post-it notes.
A realisation from a walk earlier today: itās not like weāve had this surfeit of āproductivity appsā forever. And yet people seem to have managed to āget things doneā in the past.
So yeah, Iāll keep throwing ideas here, and this is all in service of making Lucy organised so itāll be in the workshop. But it is an evolving idea so please bear with me, and I appreciate all the input.
1 Like
This deserves its own 
1 Like
Funny to see this come up now. Iāve just decided to refactor my Omnifocus tasks using the Eisenhower matrix (https://www.eisenhower.me/eisenhower-matrix/) which is very similar to what you are describing.
I keep coming back to a āBullet Journalā style of doing things. In my notebook, I have a Month Ahead page for tasks āScheduledā more than a week ahead, a Next Week page for Nice To Doās (P3), a page for each Day of the next 7 days, with P1 tasks listed at the top of the page, written top down, and P2 tasks listed at the bottom of the page, written bottom up - if these ever meet then I know Iām being too optimistic, and I move some P2ās to the next Day page. I also have a couple of pages dedicated to āUnplanned Missionsā which would be the P4ās - these are ambitions I have not yet committed to do.
Reading this blog post has made me realise a few flaws in my current system.
- I have too many P1ās - even if the āprojectā is important, not every task for that project is important
- It would be better to work on ātomorrowāsā P1s than ātodayāsā P2s most of the time.
- Once a week I have to move all the P3ās I didnāt do to the next Next Week page, which just means I have to feel guilty once a week for no gain.
The advantage of keeping everything in a journal is that nothing ever gets lost. The disadvantage is that I end up looking at all the things I havenāt done proportionally more than I look at the things I have done.
1 Like
Things 3 + pen & paper has been working well for me with this. Was an avid Apple Reminders user but I didnāt like how hard it shamed you when something that you assigned a date to was overdue. Like, that thing wasnāt that important, I just wanted it on my to-do list yesterday
Yeah Iāve been trying to use Reminders just to get better at it, and thereās a lot about it that I donāt love.
Weāre a HomePod house though and damn is it convenient being able to shout at Siri and have it go in your reminders. I know you can get it to send those to Things or whatever but itās not as nice or reliable.
Thingsā Today view, where you choose what goes there ā no shame, no nagging! ā is a great innovation. Lucy uses it heavily. You can recreate it in Reminders using a tag and a smart folderā¦
1 Like
Yes, I still use reminders as a sort of capture system with Siri, but end up managing most of my project tasks in Things. Both have their strengths & weaknesses. When it all gets too much I just whip out a notebook
I use a MYN system (Master Your Now) by Michael Linenberger. Iāve never heard it mentioned by anyone online and have no idea why itās not more popular. I combine it with GTD methodology to manage my tasks and email.
To cut a long story short;
- P1 tasks are āCritical Nowā, limited to 5 (as opposed to Catastrophic, lol)
- P2 tasks are āOpportunity Nowā, which are tasks that you could do, but can wait until the critical tasks for the day are complete (max. 20)
- P3 tasks are āOver-the-Horizonā, and hidden from view until you are ready to promote them to your Today view, so you donāt feel overwhelmed by a huge backlog of things to do.
Obviously thereās more to it, and Michael has some excellent guides to set up a system using Todoist and similar apps, but I find it to be simple and I structure my actionable email the same way, using Red flags for P1 tasks on my Mac, Orange for P2s and Blue for Over the Horizon ā¦ plus a few colours for Waiting For, Read Later and Bills/Finance, that I go through every Saturday during a weekly review.
Oh thatās right, itās been a while since I was on his site. Thatās probably why itās not as popular as it could be! 
Here is the page for Todoist
https://www.michaellinenberger.com/MYN-Todoist/
And one for Things
I think I bought the Todoist course a couple of years ago so itās not too old.
The website sucks but the content is pretty good.