ForumsTips & TricksHow I use Toodledo - Your ideas for improvement?
How I use Toodledo - Your ideas for improvement?
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MirkoKBurg |
For about half a year, I am now using Toodledo as my favorite tool for task management and it increased my productivity a lot. But I am really interested in sharing my experience and receiving your comments about how you use toodledo. – I am still trying to improve my habits. :-)
My configuration looks like this: I created folders for the main areas of my life (e.g., main job, bigger projects, personal development, and private stuff) and added a few search views like "company", "tomorrow", or "next 7 days". Normally, I start the day with "all tasks", "star" my most important tasks that I definitely want to finish during the day and focus on special folders or only the starred tasks according to the timeframe that I am currently in. I constantly hide deferred, future, and negative priority tasks. I use the following fields/functions to detail my tasks: Length: I estimate the time necessary to perform the task as basis to plan the day. Timer: I record the needed time just for my own statistics to validate and to improve my estimations. Priority: I use "0 Low" for operational tasks, "1 Medium" for tactical tasks, and "2 High" for strategic tasks. "3 Top" is only used very seldom for the top urgent and most important tasks. You can read more about my priority usage on my blog on http://myloopblog.wordpress.com/2011/01/18/setting-up-task-management/ Start Date: The day I want to work on this task. Due Date: The deadline until I have to finish the task. Repeat: I use this for routine tasks that have to be done on a regular basis. Tag: I use the names of the people I have to coordinate the task with or to whom I delegated the task to as tags. This makes it easy to filter the names. Status: I use "next action" as default and switch this to "postponed" for deferred items that I do not want to delete right away. Goal: I try to assign my tasks to my goals to be able to focus on the really important tasks. This is more or less a reminder to check, if the task is necessary or not. For new tasks, I defined default values for start date (today), due date (next week – I want to be fast on my task), and status (next action). I do not use subtasks. I absolutely love that Toodledo determines the importance of tasks based on priority and due date. This makes it so easy to decide about what to do next. I have Toodledo open, whenever I am at my computer and I add new tasks as soon as they appear. If you want to know more about this, please see: http://myloopblog.wordpress.com/2011/01/19/inbox-processing/ Whenever I am not online, I mail new tasks to Toodledo via my cellphone. I use this feature quite often. Overall, Toodledo really increased my productivity and provides me additional time to focus on my tasks instead to focus on the management of the tasks. But now it is your turn! Is there something you can recommend to optimize my task management? I am looking forward to receive your comments! Many thanks in advance! Mirko |
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PeterW |
It sounds like you have everything running quite well - congratulations.
The only suggestion that I would make, and it comes from following GTD practices, is that auto-defaulting new tasks with a start date and due date may cause you more work rather than save time. Rather than set false start and due dates that you will likely have to amend later or, or may cause you work on a task that really doesn't need to be done at that time, why not just leave these fields blank and fill them in when you review your task lists each day or week and set realistic dates? When entering new tasks, I often just add the task name and nothing else. I don't have any fields set to auto-default values. Each day I process my inbox and then assign values to fields as needed. I don't give any task a due date unless it really is due that day. |
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MirkoKBurg |
Hi Peter! Thank you for your thoughts concerning my setup.
I am wondering if will ever work on tasks without due date. ;-) I remember that I had several things to work on in the past where I did not define a due date and I maintained these tasks for months on my list without completing them... Finally I simply deleted the tasks without giving a feedback to the people I had to reply to. That is why I want to be fast on my tasks instead of deleting the tasks after a few month. But I will think about this suggestion. :-) |
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PeterW |
What I do is use the 'star' field to put tasks onto my Hotlist so they remain visible. This has the benefit of keeping them on the list until they're done but I don't have to keep rolling the due date forward.
I found that constantly rolling the due date forward was not only time consuming but added to the stress by making me feel I was under-achieving. |
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garyo |
Posted by PeterW:
What I do is use the 'star' field to put tasks onto my Hotlist so they remain visible. This has the benefit of keeping them on the list until they're done but I don't have to keep rolling the due date forward. I found that constantly rolling the due date forward was not only time consuming but added to the stress by making me feel I was under-achieving. I agree w/ PeterW; I started with dates for everything but ended up with dates for only things that have actual deadlines, and using star + priority for hotlisting. |
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jasondeary |
Thanks for sharing all... this will prove helpful in acclimating more quickly to Toodledo! (new as of today)
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MirkoKBurg |
Hi PeterW, hi garyo! I tried it to work without deadlines for tasks without real due date for one week and I really like it! :-) Thank you for your advise! It definitely saves time!
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PeterW |
Hi MirkoKBurg - that's great to hear.
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fredbouwong |
Hi I am a big toodledo user.
I use it on my mobile with sync. I also use it however a lot on keyboard and monitor. I was wondering, and I apologize if the information is on the site somewhere, but I did a forum search and was unable to unearth the information glean, how does someone *save a note using a keystroke, rather than navigate the mouse of to the save button and left click save**? I have tried contrl-enter, cntrl-alt-enter, nothing, and nothing Come on, Toodle! This message was edited Mar 21, 2011. |
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VandVisX |
I am in the process of switching over to ToodleDo from RTM and have been wondering what to do with the star. Thanks for the suggestion! I really like the idea of keeping tasks more visibly on my radar that aren't due for a while or don't have a specific due date.
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vihendi |
I was about to post the same as fredatmontreal. Anybody?
@VandVisX: In my case, the list I work on is a saved search - composed by tasks that are due today, tomorrow and overdue and the tasks I have starred. This way I can add tasks with no due date (=someday) or tasks I just want to work on to my "today's list". I find the star very useful. |
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MirkoKBurg |
By the way: This is how my "Company" search looks like to have open items from several folders on the screen:
This message was edited Jun 20, 2011. |
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