Get Everything Done

I've been using a variation on DWM for few weeks and have started to come unstuck.

I started with a paper system, a page-to-a-day diary, but I started to get fairly lost with it.

A few days ago I discovered GQueues, which is a web app designed to integrate with other Google apps and services. The big advantage of this is that it is incredibly easy to enter new tasks. In particular, I could send them via a chat client using a syntax very similar to RTM's, meaning that I could get something off my mind and into the system without getting distracted with a whole lot of other information unrelated to the task at hand.

The disadvantage of GQueues is that, while its smart phone interface is OK, the same design principles on the desktop involve a lot of big clutter with very little information. But even if it was better laid out, there is still the fundamental problem that you have a list, and given the nature of DMW, that list becomes very long. and hard to get a handle on.

One nice feature, shared with RTM, is the ability to expose your tasks in Google Calendar. What you then see are a sequence of daily lists side by side. Since each list is a different length, what you have a distinctive visual arrangement that makes it much easier to remember what your tasks are and where they are, as well their position relative to the deadline. Unfortunately this calendar view is read-only, making it useless for managing tasks.

Google Tasks, on the other hand, does enable you to tick off tasks within the calendar view. The trouble is that it is very difficult to create new tasks – too many mouse clicks and page loads.

RTM runs up against the same kinds of problem as GQueues. I've tried various desktop applications, but they haven't worked for me. Some didn't even allow you to categorise your tasks, which is pretty essential if you want to be able to look through what you've got and make sure you haven't missed anything.

One thing in GQueues's favour is that the developer is very responsive to suggestions; he implemented the RTM-style syntax in response to a suggestion I had made on the forum only the day before. Nevertheless he hasn't implemented full GCal sync, and I don't think it's on his roadmap for the moment.

So my question is, is there any software that will enable me to look at the tasks of the month ahead in a brain-friendly, probably calendar-like diagrammatic form, but which also allows you to submit tasks with the minimum of effort and distraction?

Toodledo is pretty good for this (toodledo.com). It has a nice calendar view and you can e-mail tasks and I believe use chat or sms as well to do so.

Yeah, what Veg said. Toodledo is the best app I've found it terms of flexibility.

It sounds like you and I have gone through pretty much the same search for software. I tried all the ones you mention and more.

I believed that I wanted the list on a calendar too. Most of the web or Mac task programs will sync with iCal. On Mac, there's an iCal alternative called BusyCal which has the best presentation of tasks I've seen. The tasks just appear on the calendar days, just as they would in a paper planner. BusyCal also gives you a list of tasks down one side, separated by due date.

All that said, in the end, I found I didn't care about the tasks being on an actual calendar.

I've been using OmniFocus and simply loving it. I wind up with just a list sorted by due date, but I have can switch views at any time to look at only certain projects or certain categories. I have the desktop and iPhone versions. I mostly enter on the deskop but work from the iPhone.

It's probably overkill for the simple needs of DWM, but it works great for me. Oh, and--OmniFocus will do the whole sync-with-iCal routine if you need it.

Thanks for your suggestions. I had a little play with Toodledo, but I think I'll still have problems with it.

I have found some tricks for making Google Calendar work more nicely. One of them has been to open it simultaneously in agenda mode in two or three narrow browser windows laid side by side on the desktop. That way I can get a better overview of what is ahead of me.

Another has been to treat a small handful of tasks that don't fit very well in the system as appointments. So putting the bins out appears on my calendar as an all-day appointment in the same colour as my doctor's appointment. That just takes a bit of clutter out of the DWM list.

The third thing I have done has been to take most activities to do with looking for work out of the system. Looking for work is basically a sales activity and needs to be approached as such. In other words you've got to be bloody minded and work through your contacts systematically in the order they come, which is a bit different from DWM. I've created a very simple database in OpenOffice Base that automates this a bit. This means that "read job sites" and "apply for xyz" or "phone agency abc" have gone and been replaced with "work through database".

What I've ended up with is starting to be more manageable.

I was playing around with creating a DWM list in Google Calendar. Here's something that might work.

Each task is an all-day appointment.

Set the "custom" view to be "4 weeks" in the calendar settings. This will show the next 4 weeks on the calendar and will encompass the entire list.

Enter the DWM tasks as normal. As you work, it is easy to drag the tasks to the next week. New tasks are, of course entered 1 month ahead. It seems very lightweight - just click on the date and start typing.

Once a task is complete, it may be deleted. If a record is needed, a separate calendar for done tasks can be used.

One thing that seems to be a real benefit is that it allows me to see my schedule and tasks in the same system and gives me a good overview of my time commitments. If I need to schedule a task for a certain time, that is easy too.

Google can send me an email daily to show me my priorities, and it seemlessly syncs with wireless devices.

I found this thread that talks about using Google Calendar, so I thought I would add a post about an experiment I ran over the last month or so with using Google calendar.

I use Google calendar, not for its calendar function for appointments, but rather as a list manager that I have used both for Autofocus or FVP at times. What I like about Google calendar is that it is easy to drag and drop items into new timeslots and also add notes to the calendar entry to record any relevant information. I can also change the colour of a calendar entry to show if it is dismissed (grey) or completed (green)....{or if I use FVP, I use the yellow colour to show that it is selected when I read through the list with the FVP question....}

Basically, what I did was create tasks as 1 hour events in Google Calendar...I can get up to 24 tasks to a day.. I treat a day (24 tasks) the same way that Mark uses a page in a notebook for AF. Often, I can see my entire task list using the weekly view.

To start the list, it doesn't matter what week I choose within Google calendar, although I use a week in the past.

I will cycle through the list of tasks shown on a day and work on the tasks that I feel like working on...if I complete the task, I change the colour of that particular calendar item to green. If I do not complete the task, I move it to the end of the "notebook" - ie which could be a timeslot in another day in the calendar. Over time, a day ends up having fewer and fewer active tasks, until I complete them all for that day OR if I end up dismissing all the tasks, I just change the colour of the tasks for that day to grey.

One issue I ran into was that over time, I would have large gaps between days, so periodically I consolidate the active tasks on the lists onto a new weekly view. It's not too time consuming to do this with a free utility called GCalExtras.

For recurring tasks that occur daily, I put them on the current day and then move them to tomorrow as I complete them.

Incidentally, I do use the Google calendar to schedule future appointments (like dr appointments) as well...I just use another colour (blue) to remind me that it is an appointment.

This new system works for me, and I find that it is very good visually.

I'm not sure I have written coherently for my system to be understood, but the basic point is that I use Google Calendar as a list manager.

Cheers.

Paul - I like this. I'm going to play around with it a bit. I wonder how it would work with Mark's Do It Tomorrow (DIT) system. Thanks for the idea.

Hi Tomcal - I imagine it will work great with DIT.

I used the Do It Tomorrow methodology at work for many years. Then when my son began his career, I gave him a copy of Do It Tomorrow and he used the ideas in the book to get on top of his workload. He remarked to me that after he eliminated his backlog, he was able to identify to his team that he had capacity to help them with their workload.

Now that I am retired, I don't use DIT any more. I have switched to Autofocus most of the time, but I switch to FVP if have any time-sensitive work to complete.