Comments on: How to Effectively Manage Your (Huge) Todo List

By: vl

vl — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 10:39:00 +0000

You can check Swift To-Do List Professional to see what is capable of. It has an easy to use interface, all you need to manage and track todos, create recurring tasks, attach notes, external file to them.

http://www.dextronet.com/swift-to-do-list-software

By: Kolorowanki

Kolorowanki — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 10:22:00 +0000

I just go from one item to another. Crossing them off one after one works more effective than starting couple at once and then doing everything at the same time.

By: Seanna

Seanna — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 21:51:11 +0000

These are great tips to getting organized. It's like I know what to do, but am just reluctant to take the time to do them or I get distracted doing something that should be on the list. Anyway, I think I will definitely work on getting more organized, so I don't feel so overwhelmed.

By: sohbet

sohbet — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 10:57:31 +0000

thanks admin good post

By: Raymond Abril III

Raymond Abril III — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 07:02:11 +0000

I'm rather fond of Process on OSX myself!

By: Banat

Banat — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 06:41:49 +0000

Hmm.. You can manage it by making a complete list of the things that you wanted to do then, done! just yo it!

By: liona1

liona1 — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:14:32 +0000

i like the get two done before you read your email. I tend to use gmail tasks.

By: kinghunter

kinghunter — Fri, 29 May 2009 08:03:21 +0000

It is necessary quickly has got to all that in the list. Not to postpone on then.

By: Metropolice

Metropolice — Thu, 28 May 2009 09:30:57 +0000

yah, email sucks when you do your listings of to dos. especially when you used the email sites that are usually used by many people.

By: harry

harry — Wed, 27 May 2009 17:34:20 +0000

I belive the best way to tackle your "huge" todo list is just to make it shorter, by identifying what on the list aren't that important, won't move you any closer to your goals, then just remove those. You may want to check out http://www.GoalsOnTrack.com, a very nicely built web app designed for tracking goals and todo lists, and has time tracking. It's clear, focused, easy to navigate, worth a try.

By: harry

harry — Wed, 27 May 2009 17:34:00 +0000

By: Synergy Space

Synergy Space — Mon, 25 May 2009 23:22:40 +0000

Great post, don't suppose there is a PC equivalent to Things?

By: Davor

Davor — Mon, 25 May 2009 14:37:25 +0000

Most of the time results come from proper use and understanding of 80/20 rule. Ant the fact what gets measured gets done. Nice post. Last but not least don't spend too much time on Facebook;)

By: Mark Richards

Mark Richards — Mon, 25 May 2009 03:31:54 +0000

Great advice and daily follow up to make your life more productive. If you want a similar software that is free and helps you plan your day, check out Simpleology.com or Google Mark Joyner. This is a free item that gives you a clear focus on finding what is important in our daily lives and helps us to curtail or streamline the non-essentials.

By: Michael Troy

Michael Troy — Mon, 25 May 2009 03:29:37 +0000

I find that sometimes you can afford to 'cut corners' and also It's OK to sometimes leave other things to the last minute.

Also consider simply not doing some things on your to-do list.

By: Chris

Chris — Sun, 24 May 2009 23:59:45 +0000

Great post Ryan. I'm always getting distracted by emails that just happen to pop up and once you've read them you kinda feel obliged to make that small tweak or send across the quote the client is asking for, next thing you know is it's 5pm and you've spent all day stuck in outlook/thunderbird/generic email client.

Personally I think having a white board is a good way of organizing things if you're not the sort of person who likes using a to-do list on your pc/mac or just because you like to keep track of the bigger to do items. Or is this just me being really really old skool?

I do also keep track of things using 37 Signal's base camp and tasks within Thunderbird on my mac, but I do like being able to write quick notes on the whiteboard next to my desk and add small tasks. :)

By: best diet supplement

best diet supplement — Fri, 22 May 2009 21:25:13 +0000

yah, email sucks when you do your listings of to dos. especially when you used the email sites that are usually used by many people.

By: Gradualist

Gradualist — Fri, 22 May 2009 08:32:56 +0000

Thanks for sharing how you manage your to dos Ryan. I've been using Omnifocus for the last year or so and I don't know how I'd get anything done without it now! I had just made an assumption that it somehow knocked all the other apps (like Things) out of the water, but I can already see some places Things might win over Omnifocus just from your post and the screenshots: the Areas grouping is an example – I just have projects that are never ending, but it would be nice to be able to differentiate between those ongoing and those that will end someday soon!

You talk about tagging things as This Week and Today – can you not set date deadlines? That is how I schedule my to dos. I use OmniFocus to log any task that comes in via email or from elsewhere that I can't do immediately, using a quick shortcut so I don't have to leave the application I am working in. In combination with Mail.app I clip parts of emails that are actionable tasks and again send them over to Omnifocus (assigning project, context and due date). This way I can keep my inbox down to zero as I can file emails away without worrying that I will forget about what I need to do. I think of it like my personal assistant – I tell it to remind me to do things by a certain time and then can 'forget' about it until it alerts me nearer the time, or until I next review my tasks.

One general point I think worth adding and emphasising here is allocating a decent amount of time to do the review. It will take a while -i'm curious to know how long you spend?- but less time if you do it regularly. The weekly review is SO important, but it is something I struggle with -I have a habit of overlooking it- and then your whole task management system becomes redundant without this.

I'd also recommend an end of week review. Save some time at the end of the week to review what you did, and didn't get done. Congratulate yourself for your achievements and ask yourself why you didn't get those other things done – perhaps you were unrealistic about how much time some things would take? It's only with taking stock of where you might have gone wrong that you can learn how to improve your system.

I'd suggest you should be allocating *at least* 30 mins at the beginning and end of your working week to review your projects, and don't forget to keep checking in with the list and managing it as you go along, which will also take up some time.

like @jussi said it's "a working habits issue" you really have to make a habit of keeping to a system to be effective in your task management.

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By: online kaszinók

online kaszinók — Thu, 21 May 2009 14:17:01 +0000

"The biggest killer to your productivity is email. Here’s the trick to making sure you don’t get sucked into the email blackhole:" – why?

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By: Dan Griffey

Dan Griffey — Thu, 21 May 2009 13:09:41 +0000

Also, another thought, this would make a great screencast. Using Screenflow it could be done really easily and quickly, and would be a very effective demo.

I, for one, would love to see more of this on sites like ThinkVitamin.

By: Dan Griffey

Dan Griffey — Thu, 21 May 2009 13:09:41 +0000

Also, another thought, this would make a great screencast. Using Screenflow it could be done really easily and quickly, and would be a very effective demo.

I, for one, would love to see more of this on sites like ThinkVitamin.

By: Dan Griffey

Dan Griffey — Thu, 21 May 2009 13:09:00 +0000

Also, another thought, this would make a great screencast. Using Screenflow it could be done really easily and quickly, and would be a very effective demo.

I, for one, would love to see more of this on sites like ThinkVitamin.

By: Dan Griffey

Dan Griffey — Thu, 21 May 2009 11:43:38 +0000

Great tips Ryan. Things.app is the leader in the to-do market, pure and simple GTD principles, and a killer iPhone app. It would be interesting to hear how you, and the commenters, mix this with team delegation and collaboration, through tools such as Basecamp and 5pm, and how this works with the GTD policy.
Having worked with both tools, and spoken to Tim Ferris about it, it's hard to pick the line between personal GTD and business collaboration.

By: acaiberries

acaiberries — Thu, 21 May 2009 02:01:15 +0000

I use things for my to do list. Here I know many features in 'things' and also I know many other related to do sites. Thank you to all for sharing your thoughts here.