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It’s the 6th month of me using one of the tasks management tools. I must say, that even if I raised several cases how the tool could be improved, the methodology of putting things in the inbox, grooming them and then executing already proved itself. Sure, from time to time a ball is being dropped, but it’s so much better than it was in the past. Let me share how I approach it.

Inbox

I use an inbox. Sometimes it’s easier to put a task in there rather than think where it belongs. These will be clarified later.

Projects

Different projects for different parts of my activities. There’s a “Life” project (I hope that this one will last for some time), which covers my personal things. There’s a “House” project that holds all the items that should be done in-da-house. There are different initiatives, like Dotnetos, that are projects on their own. There’s a list of movies to watch and a list of presentations/courses to take. For books, I use my trustworthy goodreads account.

On grooming and setting dates

I try not to spend a lot of tim e on selecting things to do. My preferred approach is to put a date on it (if I know it). On a given day, it will magically appear in my things that need to be done. Once a week I review the lists and select what to do next. Sometimes, because of setting dates, there’s not that much to do - things are assigned for the forthcoming day/week.

Burning tasks

Of course there are still task that are not closed fast enough. I spent over 30 years of my life practicing getting things done without this system, so the change won’t happen in one day :) Still, the fact that number of dropped balls is getting lower and lower (with the new approach, they are not forgotten, but sometimes might be dragging).

Tooling

It looks that there’s no perfect tool for my needs and every single one requires some bending. I might consider writing an extension to the public API, if I truly need it, but for sure, I won’t be spending time on trying “all these other apps”.

Future

The future is bright :) I’m doing more, I’m forgetting less and there’s a still room for some improvement! Let me just check the tasks for today… Oh yes, there’s one about improving the process itself ;-)

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