A good old notebook is by far my favorite for recording the minute by minute stuff that inundates busy people all day, every day. It doesn’t run out of batteries, goes with me everywhere, doesn’t break if I drop it, doesn’t need to boot up, and hasn’t crashed on me yet. See my other post regarding the joys of pen and paper.
What my notebook can’t do is send me reminders. It won’t let me easily categorize items then change their categories and view them category by category or sort them by priority, date, or other contexts. When I write something down today that I need to remember two months from now my options for meeting this challenge become limited and cumbersome with pen and paper only.
Productive and efficient time management relies on three things for me:
1. Collection
2. Organization
3. Recall
When I say collection, I’m talking about the inbox. Not a physical inbox – although that is part of it, it would be too limiting as the sole means of collection. On an average day, I’m inundated with information that creates tasks of every sort. It comes from everywhere – I remember the car needs an oil change, I receive an email about a meeting next week, a technician stops by my office to update me on the status of some equipment, my boss assigns me a project at a meeting, a coworker calls about a problem that needs solved. Having a pen and paper handy to collect all this information is indespensible for me, but it only satisfies one of my three requirements. I still need a way to process and organize the information for quick and easy recall when I need it.
Enter task management applications. Examples include Microsoft Outlook, similar software, and web based applications like Todoist, IwantSandy, Toodledo, and my current favorite, Remember the Milk. I’ve tried each of the options listed as well as experimenting with others. They all do the same basic things for the most part, but each has a different feel and nuances that seperate them from the others. There’s a learning curve with each necessary to gain the efficiency using the app required to make it worthwhile. I’ll try to help you with that learning curve here.
One feature that set RTM apart from the others and makes it my favorite is smart lists. They let you generate a list of tasks by any combination of a variety of criterea including date, category, priority, and tags. This is where RTM really shines in its ability to help organize and recall. Before that can make sense, there has to be a list of tasks to organize so I’ll cover the basic process of entering tasks first.
Along the top right of the page, once you’re logged in, is the menu. By default you’ll begin at the Overview page. To enter your tasks, go to the task page.
Click on the Add Task linkType the name of your task and hit enter.
Once you hit enter, your task is automatically selected and the checkbox is checked.
Don’t let the checkbox confuse you. Checking the box does not indicate the task is complete, it selects it for an action such as setting the priority or moving it to another category. This also lets you add or change the details like due date, repeats, and notes. See the box to the right.
With the new task still selected, I’m going to change the priority to 1 and move it to the work category.
Notice the message above displays the last thing you’ve done and gives you an option to undo it. Don’t forget this if you make a mistake.
Now all that remains in the personal category is the default task “Try out remember the milk.” I checked the box and clicked complete. It’s gone.Next I click on the Work tab. There’s the task I just created with the red rectangle on the left indicating priority 1. Once I click on it, the checkbox is checked and the task is highlighted indicating it is ready for editing in the task box to the right.
The training report is due next Monday, so I’m going to change the due date from Never to next Monday’s date. All I have to do is click on the field and type “mon” and hit enter. RTM automagically does the rest. You can also hit Tab which works just like enter but also selects the next field.I like using the hotkeys. One of the first things I noticed about RTM is it requires a lot of mouse work clicking around on all the menus. This starts to feel tedious. The way around it is learning a few hotkeys.
To enter another task using hotkeys, I would start at the tab where I want the task created. You can cycle between the tabs without clicking – Ctrl+Shift+left or right arrow keys.
T (for Task) to add a new task
Type the name of the task and hit enter
1, 2, 3, or 4 to set the priority. (4 is no priority)
D (for Date) to change the due date
From here you can use Tab to cycle through the rest of the Task fields or learn the hot keys for each.
In the bottom right area of the page with the priority legend is the link “Learn Keyboard Short cuts.” It’s always a good idea to become familiar with things like this. Learning keyboard short cuts for the things you do most will make the service quicker and easier and save you time in the long run.
By far, the key to making the most of Remember the Milk is proper use of the smart lists. Were it not for the smart lists, I likely would not be using Remember the Milk. Being limited to sorting tasks into various categories, even unlimited numbers of categories, without being able to see them in other contexts would be too restrictive. Smart lists fix that.
Smart lists allow you to to view any set of tasks you can imagine. You can have a smart list in Remember the Milk that shows you everything that is due within the next 3 days except the items on your shopping list, birthdays, and club meeting schedule. You can have a smart list that shows only the things due related to work. You can narrow any of those down to items with certain tags. Let your imagination run wild. Seriously. If you don’t invest a little time thinking of the best way to tailor Remember the Milk to your needs, you won’t take full advantage of its power.
The smart lists in Remember the Milk work based on the search feature. You come up with a search, as if you were going to search through all your tasks, then save that search as a list and it becomes a tab next to your other categories.
Select any and all of these you like. Notice that you can only select one list, one priority, etc, if you don’t select “any.” No problem, there is an easy workaround. This is good because I like having a smart list that shows only items with a priority while omitting the ones I don’t select a priority for.
Once you select some criteria, click the “Search Tasks” button.
Over on the right, it will say something like Searched for: list:Inbox and priority:1 and dueWithin:”3 days of today”
But you want your smart list to show tasks from your work list, personal list, project list, and both priority 1 and 2. Simply edit your search in the search box like this:
list:Inbox or list: Personal or list:Projects or list: Work and priority:2 or priority:1 and dueWithin:”3 days of today”
I put the stuff you need to add in bold. Notice the use of and and or operators. Now just click the Save tab and Remember the Milk asks you to type in a name for your new smart list.
I’m a big fan of getting important things from all directions, so I subscribe to Remember the Milk’s Atom feed for my favorite lists so my current to-do items show up in my RSS reader. Of course, you could use that functionality to make the list appear on a Netvibes or Google desktop RSS widget too.
Making the most of Remember the Milk
Making the most of Remember the Milk
A good old notebook is by far my favorite for recording the minute by minute stuff that inundates busy people all day, every day. It doesn’t run out of batteries, goes with me everywhere, doesn’t break if I drop it, doesn’t need to boot up, and hasn’t crashed on me yet. See my other post regarding the joys of pen and paper.
What my notebook can’t do is send me reminders. It won’t let me easily categorize items then change their categories and view them category by category or sort them by priority, date, or other contexts. When I write something down today that I need to remember two months from now my options for meeting this challenge become limited and cumbersome with pen and paper only.
Productive and efficient time management relies on three things for me:
1. Collection
2. Organization
3. Recall
When I say collection, I’m talking about the inbox. Not a physical inbox – although that is part of it, it would be too limiting as the sole means of collection. On an average day, I’m inundated with information that creates tasks of every sort. It comes from everywhere – I remember the car needs an oil change, I receive an email about a meeting next week, a technician stops by my office to update me on the status of some equipment, my boss assigns me a project at a meeting, a coworker calls about a problem that needs solved. Having a pen and paper handy to collect all this information is indespensible for me, but it only satisfies one of my three requirements. I still need a way to process and organize the information for quick and easy recall when I need it.
Enter task management applications. Examples include Microsoft Outlook, similar software, and web based applications like Todoist, IwantSandy, Toodledo, and my current favorite, Remember the Milk. I’ve tried each of the options listed as well as experimenting with others. They all do the same basic things for the most part, but each has a different feel and nuances that seperate them from the others. There’s a learning curve with each necessary to gain the efficiency using the app required to make it worthwhile. I’ll try to help you with that learning curve here.
One feature that set RTM apart from the others and makes it my favorite is smart lists. They let you generate a list of tasks by any combination of a variety of criterea including date, category, priority, and tags. This is where RTM really shines in its ability to help organize and recall. Before that can make sense, there has to be a list of tasks to organize so I’ll cover the basic process of entering tasks first.
Along the top right of the page, once you’re logged in, is the menu. By default you’ll begin at the Overview page. To enter your tasks, go to the task page.
Click on the Add Task linkType the name of your task and hit enter.
Once you hit enter, your task is automatically selected and the checkbox is checked.
Don’t let the checkbox confuse you. Checking the box does not indicate the task is complete, it selects it for an action such as setting the priority or moving it to another category. This also lets you add or change the details like due date, repeats, and notes. See the box to the right.
With the new task still selected, I’m going to change the priority to 1 and move it to the work category.
Notice the message above displays the last thing you’ve done and gives you an option to undo it. Don’t forget this if you make a mistake.
Now all that remains in the personal category is the default task “Try out remember the milk.” I checked the box and clicked complete. It’s gone.Next I click on the Work tab. There’s the task I just created with the red rectangle on the left indicating priority 1. Once I click on it, the checkbox is checked and the task is highlighted indicating it is ready for editing in the task box to the right.
The training report is due next Monday, so I’m going to change the due date from Never to next Monday’s date. All I have to do is click on the field and type “mon” and hit enter. RTM automagically does the rest. You can also hit Tab which works just like enter but also selects the next field.I like using the hotkeys. One of the first things I noticed about RTM is it requires a lot of mouse work clicking around on all the menus. This starts to feel tedious. The way around it is learning a few hotkeys.
To enter another task using hotkeys, I would start at the tab where I want the task created. You can cycle between the tabs without clicking – Ctrl+Shift+left or right arrow keys.
T (for Task) to add a new task
Type the name of the task and hit enter
1, 2, 3, or 4 to set the priority. (4 is no priority)
D (for Date) to change the due date
From here you can use Tab to cycle through the rest of the Task fields or learn the hot keys for each.
In the bottom right area of the page with the priority legend is the link “Learn Keyboard Short cuts.” It’s always a good idea to become familiar with things like this. Learning keyboard short cuts for the things you do most will make the service quicker and easier and save you time in the long run.
By far, the key to making the most of Remember the Milk is proper use of the smart lists. Were it not for the smart lists, I likely would not be using Remember the Milk. Being limited to sorting tasks into various categories, even unlimited numbers of categories, without being able to see them in other contexts would be too restrictive. Smart lists fix that.
Smart lists allow you to to view any set of tasks you can imagine. You can have a smart list in Remember the Milk that shows you everything that is due within the next 3 days except the items on your shopping list, birthdays, and club meeting schedule. You can have a smart list that shows only the things due related to work. You can narrow any of those down to items with certain tags. Let your imagination run wild. Seriously. If you don’t invest a little time thinking of the best way to tailor Remember the Milk to your needs, you won’t take full advantage of its power.
The smart lists in Remember the Milk work based on the search feature. You come up with a search, as if you were going to search through all your tasks, then save that search as a list and it becomes a tab next to your other categories.
Select any and all of these you like. Notice that you can only select one list, one priority, etc, if you don’t select “any.” No problem, there is an easy workaround. This is good because I like having a smart list that shows only items with a priority while omitting the ones I don’t select a priority for.
Once you select some criteria, click the “Search Tasks” button.
Over on the right, it will say something like Searched for: list:Inbox and priority:1 and dueWithin:”3 days of today”
But you want your smart list to show tasks from your work list, personal list, project list, and both priority 1 and 2. Simply edit your search in the search box like this:
list:Inbox or list: Personal or list:Projects or list: Work and priority:2 or priority:1 and dueWithin:”3 days of today”
I put the stuff you need to add in bold. Notice the use of and and or operators. Now just click the Save tab and Remember the Milk asks you to type in a name for your new smart list.
I’m a big fan of getting important things from all directions, so I subscribe to Remember the Milk’s Atom feed for my favorite lists so my current to-do items show up in my RSS reader. Of course, you could use that functionality to make the list appear on a Netvibes or Google desktop RSS widget too.