Mark and Susannah - I suspect that you are not getting all of the benefit you could out of start dates. Mark mentions due dates - for me that represents the date a task need to be done or maybe the date when it will catch fire if it isnt yet done. But that should not be the criterion for a task to show up on my short task list or else my list will be perpetually enflamed.
Example of my use of start date: There are lots of things that I do that need to be checked on later. I order merchandise, it may or may not ever arrive. I send a bill, it may require a friendly call before its paid. Whenever I find that something needs to be checked, I create a task with context = >waiting and start date = when it should be checked. due date is blank unless there is a date when this will catch fire. I have a tab "waiting" that shows all uncompleted tasks with the >waiting context, sorted by start date. Once or twice per week I flip open that tab and mark completion for any of the tasks that have been satisfied. Ideally all the green ones (ie start date has arrived) get marked off. Any remaining green ones or, heaven help us, red ones warrant looking into. If some >waiting task cannot afford to be dealt with four to seven days after the start date, it gets an Importance value higher than 102 which causes it to appear on the short list one its start date has arrived.
Start date is a key for controlling what's on the short list.
-Dwight
----Thanks Susannah - you replied nearly two weeks ago and I haven't given you the courtesy of a thank you.
You raised enough interest points that I realized the problem is only dates in a very small way. The real problem is I don't have a good mental model for organizing, MLO. I didn't 7 yrs ago and the problem is worse not better with time :-)
I'm going to attempt to catalog what I just learned- create folders or parent tasks for small issues to be completed in order- a folder for routines that promotes you to look in other queues- you give contexts different opening hours
All of these things really help accomplish an elegant goal. They allow you to have a deep/rich hierarchy with many items, yet your actions list is small.
For what I can tell my toolset contains:- Contexts with open/closed hours- Goals- Due Dates- Complete Tasks in order- Projects- Stars
I suspect my next challenge is to find ways people have used these tools to create order from chaos
CheersMark
On Wed, Jul 15, 2020 at 7:53 AM Susannah <[email protected]> wrote:
Thanks for sharing your wife's link.
Here is how I handle the weekend queue where it actually works for me. It's kind of my way of time blocking like tasks that aren't really huge projects.
I use this for my small annoying network issues that need to be fixed at work but aren't emergencies. I have a parent task called Small Network issues. In that I have subtasks of all the small network issues prioritized in whatever way according to what I want done first whether it is most important or time required. I set that parent tasks to complete subtasks in order. Then in my routines I make a task that reoccurs once or twice a week on a certain day with a link in the notes to this queue. As new tasks come up I make sure that went I add to the queue they go in with the correct priority to the others already in there. You could also hide the queue but I like the top one to show on my list in case I get a minute at another time during the week and want to finish something quick and easy.
I also see where that context closed hours would work great here and you wouldn't need the trigger task.
I also use this for things like areas I want to declutter, website updates I want to make that are not time sensitive, improvements to my system, procedures I need to document - really any kind of long term maintenance or goal task. I also use for learning - I'm trying to build out text expander so as I come across ideas of how people use it I add to the queue and then I have a trigger tasks for once a week. I'm trying to use Evernote so I have the same thing for that with a queue of tasks of things I want to add to it or something I want to learn about it with a trigger of once a week. I have one for bugs or broken links on our website or company database. I have one for MLO - right now that context closed hours is the first thing in the queue. I have these learning things each set to their own day and I try to move each one forward one day each week. At some point Text Explander will be a team rollout and that will not go out in this list but be a full blown active project. I hope that helps.
This works pretty well for me but I would love to hear some other ways people handle this.
Thanks,Susannah
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