ForumsQuestionsideas about organizing life with toodledo
ideas about organizing life with toodledo
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wallmjunk |
I'm looking for help on how to properly sort all this stuff out and take full advantage of toodledo.
I get easily overwhelmed with many features that can be used many ways. As you will see below I really would like to check off a lot of trivial things and big stuff. I have color post-its everywhere. I utilize the booklet and take it with me and use my phone all the time to keep reminding me of things. I'm not looking for someone to organize all of this below. Just some of it to get an idea on flow. Am I making the main topic (i guess this is the folder) correctly? or should it be a Context | Goal | Tag |. How and when should I use | Due-Date | Priority | Status | Location So looking how you organize your whole life not work...my work is pretty inconsiquential task wise. so thanks for any help. so here it goes: Finances: research re-mortgage Daily: wash clothes fold clothes iron clothes put away clothes clean kitchen empty dishwasher pick up house check mail ToDo today: A. M. Call mom Aftrnn visit r. W. @lunch do transportation for work P. M. P/U chantix. Find paperwork on Cap. Gift for Tanner. Call to kill auto subscription. Paypal Hospital bill Make ad for apartment, post it. Fine out if we have towing plan for cars Gym. todo week: shopping for food visit post office research origin of Halloween todo month: rake leaves work: decorate for holidays find out what clients like to do for fun. pets: get greta flea medicine greta heart med on first of month V.K.& appointments. off nov 1 vk from 11/19-12/5 What to do for vacation research places for ideas contact friends to stay at. |
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alexandremrj_2 |
This is a bit hard because every system is a system.
What I would recommend is you check around a bit by Management Systems to see if it is worth finding more about any of them, and, after that organize your own system. I recommend checking GTD but I know it is not for everyone. If everybody gives advice in how to organize and starts talking about next actions and stuff you will only get confused. Read a bit, try out a system, deactivate most functions and only activate the ones you really need to organize yourself. |
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wallmjunk |
yeah im trying to get through that book, but it is so business oriented. there is definetely lots of stuff in the business chaff...
It just seems like things get piled up and go from one day /week/month to the next.. I'm just wondering if going by topic or by time or importance works better for others... Just looking for forum users to give a small sample of your daily/weekly..etc lives and how you plan life with toodledo |
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PeterW |
GTD is meant to be a 'whole-of-life' thing rather than just work oriented, so you should be able to apply it to your situation.
If you are having trouble getting through the book, Google for some online summaries, e.g: http://www.wikisummaries.org/Getting_Things_Done:_The_Art_of_Stress-Free_Productivity Essentially you need to create some 'buckets' in which to file your tasks according to their status, e.g: - next actions (single-step tasks you can do that don't need any input from anyone else) - projects (tasks that require a number of steps to complete) - waiting for (tasks that require a response from someone else before you can do them) - someday (tasks that you'd like to do but really aren't crucial at present). In Toodledo, I've found it best to use folders as the buckets with these names. You've already written a lot of your tasks down so you have made a good start. You may need to go through the tasks to determine if they are single-step next actions or multi-step (projects). You've already done that for some tasks, e.g What to do for Vacation has a few steps defined. Make sure you do that for the others - if you don't think about what a next action is and define it clearly, you might find yourself procrastinating about it and never doing it. E.g. 'Gift for Tanner' could be complex unless you already have decided what you're buying and know where to get it. However it could be a small project, e.g. decide what gift to buy, phone local outlets to determine availability, etc. If you haven't already done so, I'd suggest subscribing to Toodledo so that you can use the subtask functionality - this will be useful for your 'projects' and the checklists you've already defined (e.g. Daily). Note also that Toodledo has the ability set tasks as recurring so your daily list can be set to repeat the next day after you've checked it off today. You should also define some contexts to get the most out of your lists. Some examples may be: work, home, errands, online, etc. This gives you the ability to filter tasks by context so you can get more done while in a specific context. There's lots more that could be said but I'd suggest you Google as mentioned above so that you're clear about how to best set this up. If you dive in without doing that you might find it just becomes another mess you have to deal with. |
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Salgud |
There are a lot of different systems out there. I would do a little research online for different time managment systems and find one that suits me, which I have. (You many not want to put in that kind of time or effort.) The one I like best is:
http://zenhabits.net/ You don't have to be Buddhist or practice zen to use the method. It's just about simplifying your life and getting to the essentials, something I wish I had done more of when my kids were little. As for using TD, it helped me to figure out how to use the various features by just jumping in and trying them out. It took me a couple of weeks to figure out how to use Folders, Contexts, Status and Tags. I give my system only as an example, not a solution. You solution should be uniquely yours, and TD is so flexible, you can do that. Folders - Major projects at work plus Home, Personal, Spiritual, Biography (I'm working on a personal video autobiography), etc. You may want to use folders entirely differently, as to the GTDrs, or some other way. Context - Where, which is related to when, I'll be doing it. So I have Contexts like Work, Home, Out, Phone. Notice, I have a Folder for Home, and a context called Home. I use the Folder to tell me what aspect of my life this task is relevant to, and the Context to make it show up in a Saved Search for where I am. For example, I have to call the insurance company about a claim, but this is a home related thing, not work related, so it goes in my Home folder. But since I'll actually make the call from work, it's context is Work, which is what I use to filter in a Saved Search for just this reason. "Call insurance company" will show up in my task list at work because it's context is Work. Again, you can use Contexts in anyway that suits you, or not at all. Status I use to tell me if I can do a task right now or have to wait. There are a lot of statuses to choose from, mostly pretty obvious what they mean. You can search these forums for Status for more details if you need them. Tags I use for everything else that I might like to Search for that isn't covered by my Folders and Contexts. I have tags for the people I do things for at work because there are a lot of them. I also have tags for "Health", things I do for my personal well-being, and for my major responsibilities at work which aren't big enough to warrant a Folder. My system reflects my basic life view of seeing things as cyclic, shades of gray, so my folders and tags sort of blend. My experience of GTDrs is that they tend to see life as black and white, and want definitive buckets to identify their tasks, so they break them down into is-or-isn't kinds of things. TD does both well. I suggest you ask yourself a few questions before you try to design a system. Am I a black-and-white thinker, or shades-of-gray? How to I divide up my life in my mind? What kinds of tasks do I remember easily? What do I tend to forget or overlook? (this is where your task manager is most needed). I don't put down brushing my teeth every day, because I've been doing it so long I don't have to remind myself. (I've seen others post that they do have a "brushing my teeth" task!) One last suggestion. If you're new to task managment systems, start slow, baby steps. Don't try to use all the features right away. Pick a couple that make the most sense to you, and work with those until you're comfortable. If and when you feel the need for something more, add features as needed. Many users don't use many of the features of TD, they just don't need them all. Keep coming back to the forums and asking questions. There are a lot of very helpful, knowledgeable people here, and the developers are never far away. Best of luck! |
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Zanna |
Salgud
I really like this! I found pretty much the same. GTD is black/white, Zen Habits is shades of gray. Wallmjunk As an aspiring novelist, home educator, parent, fulltime support staff at a residential home, the edges of my life inevitably blur into each other at times. I find I need "pictures", mandalas and/or themes to really get the crux of my life IN ORDER. I use Covey's goals, values & Priority Grid to orient myself, GTD to train myself in PROCESS (stress-free productivity using a system you can trust), and Zen Habits to keep it real. So--I'm new like you--I'm trying to determine the same. So far I plan on having a Routines folder--just for routine tasks I do all the time (or delegate). If you query (search) for this: "how do you use your folders", I've found some really good forum posts on what everyone uses the Toodledo features for. |
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