Also, I ruthlessly delete tasks I no longer plan to do, and try to avoid entering tasks on the list I don't plan to do. Those tasks may never materialize, so it is not worth tracking them in my personal system. Some of these tasks will take me a few minutes to complete, while others may take me several hours (though typically not longer than one day).Īny task I am not going to do more than a week or so from now is either written down in a "someday" list (in my Notes and Drafts folder or is stashed as a tickler entry in my calendar. I do, however, break down multi-step projects into multiple tasks that are clearly actionable: for example, instead of writing "write research paper for client", I would break it down into several tasks: "begin online research", "write outline for report", "discuss outline with boss", "write first draft of report", "edit report", and so on.
In practice, I do not write out every single step of a process such as building a spreadsheet report or writing a research paper.
(The only near-exception to this rule: I do store "waiting for" tasks in Todo.txt for deliverables I need from other people in order to get other tasks on my list done, too.)įor me, a task is a " next action", which means that is (a) the something that can be physically done (such as, "begin online research on Project X"), and (b) a single step in a process or project, not a project or a goal (such as "Project X" or "write research paper for client"). Next actions, or what is a to-do list for? Rule #0: My to-do list is only going to contain tasks I plan to do in the near future.įor those tasks, all of them get entered into my list, and all of them get captured right away, as soon as I can type them in. Once I set these rules for myself-especially how I would use priorities-Todo.txt went from being a nice idea to the most quick and powerful to-do organizer I ever used. Todo.txt allows you to organize your tasks using projects (" +ProjectName"), priorities (A-Z), and contexts (" did not like using Todo.txt until I set a few rules for myself as to how I would use those three features. I think a successful adoption of Todo.txt depends not only on the software implementations you choose, but also on how well you use the features the Todo.txt file format offers you. Include only current tasks in todo.txt, sort them by priority, and reprioritize often.
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