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So... How were you using your calender if not to plan when to do stuff?

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I have tried doing that, it doesn't work for me because my to do list is not a plan for execution, i.e. I can't always set a time for stuff.

I did however start noting the estimated time for tasks on my list, because it invites to immediate planning, and exposes if something on my list is not a task but really a series of tasks or perhaps even a project really.

It also have the added benefit with giving perspective to those things not gotten done, because I can often honestly say where in the last three days did I ever really have two continous hours to do that? so I don't beat myself over the head with it.

As a college student, having a visible reminder of the assignments I have and when they are due is super helpful for me. It also just feels good to erase them from the board once they are completed.

This is also handy for jobs that need you to log headhours spent on different businesses, like a consultant. Build out the days calendar as a record of what work was done when to easily log hours at the end of the day or week

I basically run my whole life out of Asana now. Not promoting, just fell into that one. Different Boards for Pets, Chores, Gift Ideas, Project Organization, Things to watch, things to order, things to research etc. but then get to have it all on calendar to try and figure out how the logistics of it all.

I have a reminder widget on my phone"s home screen. Everytime I open my phone I see my to-do list. Works for ne

laughs in ADHD did you just assume I'd have the attention span for that?

It wouldn't work for me anyway. I tried 😔

Microsoft To Do might be something for you.

There’s a good book called “getting things done” with a lot of great organization tips. Some tasks should be on a calendar… But not all of them. Sometimes it’s helpful to have prioritization’s, not everything is time bound.

This is the equivalent of “Use your fridge to hold your food”

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I do this a lot-when I get an email that indicates a task or project I need to block time for, I drag the email to my calendar as an appointment. It blocks other meeting requests and reminds me of the work need without digging for the email. I’m terrible at maintaining a task list so this is more effective.

Definitely :)

Asana is great !

There is a tool called Motion that uses ai to reschedule anything that you have not done yet.

It was built by a guy with ADHD to help keep him on track while developing software.

In the end, he pointed because this id such a great product on its own .

Usemotion.com

There is using a calendar for events and having a separate to do list, and then there is actually adding to do list items to a calendar to visualize when you will do them

I add tasks to google calendar as all day events. For me, adding specific times is too constricting. You don't want a schedule to be a tyrant.

A day is a fine amount of resolution for me. I use color coding and add them as red if they aren't done yet. When I complete them I change the color to green.

I can scroll back over the years and see a blur of red or green. It's interesting to correlate that with variables going on in my life.

Sometimes if I don't complete a task, I'll just drag it to the next day. Sometimes tasks start piling up red as I carry them throughout the week and I'll do them on days I didn't plan - but I at least do them.

I also track my alcohol consumption in a similar way.

One important factor is that if I go a lot of days without completing tasks I try not to get too worked up over it. The idea is that this system helps to aim me approximately in the direction of progress and I understand I'm human and will constantly slip up. I figure even if I get a +10% boost in directedness that it's a helpful practice. I think people get too worked up when they aren't perfect at stuff like this. Changing a task color from red to green gives my brain a small reward and that acts as an incentive.

A schedule defends from chaos and whim.

It’s not THAT stupid lol. Lots of people have work calendars and use them kind of passively and just for meetings. It’s a different ball game to get in the habit of using a system to plan things out, prioritize, and move things around as plans change, etc.

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Did they add a calendar yet?

I'll get around to reading it someday :)

The only time it doesn't work is when you're so depressed that you don't even want to eat, shower, or leave the house. Can confirm, since that's exactly how my last semester went. Doing a bit better now, but that's because of ADHD meds.

My thought as well, I would use my energy up on creating the list and poof it’s gone out of mind…for how long 🤷🏻‍♀️

I think you underestimate how often things change in an actual job.

Remember to fill in the sand/all the little free moments throughout the day with even more work and no downtime! That’s the lesson my managers and GTD pounded into my head, there’s always room for you to be doing more work.

I’m 35 next week and would literally catastrophically fail at life if I didn’t do this.

I’ll plug an iOS app called CalAlarm for this. It’s a calendar that has snooze buttons on the alerts! Really great if you use your calendar as a todo list. I’m not connected to the app but have used it for years.

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I do this. Then when the notification pops us I leave it unread because I'll do it soon. Later that day I postpone the task to a future date because I ignored it for too long and now I'm unable to do it. Then repeat.

And if you use Google suite you can even put a regular todo list item straight onto your calendar without needing to make an event

I recommend the book First Things First by Stephen R Covey

GDT specifically recommends against putting things that are not datetime bound events or tasks on the calendar.

The risk is that you don’t do the tasks in the assigned blocks (because the time-pressure is contrived) and then the calendar itself loses its impact, you stop paying attention to it, and end up ignoring it to the detriment of actual time-bound events.

The foundational tool of GTD for unbound tasks is really just a running list that you crank through.

Use TickTick, people. It's so satisfying to tick off your to dos. It's almost like a game.

This is the way.

My fiancé and I do this! We also have fun stickers we can put over top the task once the task is complete. It might sound silly, but seeing dinosaur or cat stickers all over our calendar makes me feel accomplished.

I started doing this for my work tasks, and my anxiety around work has been reduced dramatically. Rather than having a to do list that goes on forever, I’m forced to find time on my calendar for specific tasks. That means that when I’m NOT working on that task, I know it’s ok because I have time dedicated to it later. It also means that other people can see I’m busy during certain times, which has cut down on meetings taking up my entire day.

I saw someone else say they have adhd and this won’t work for them. I do, too, and it has made a gigantic difference in how I do work. It’s different for different people :)

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And if you miss one or two, it only throws off your entire schedule for the day!

Isn't this just standard practice for anyone that works or has appointments??

I added everything to my calendar for about two weeks. It just gave me more notifications to ignore. And added to the general air of guilt that follows me around like a stale guff.

But it's a great tip for a lot of people. It's just some of us (ADHD folks especially) need to go 'root cause' rather than 'band aid'.

This is one step closer to an Agile methodology. I actually tried using the mobile Jira app (which is what I use at work) for my at home projects and tasks for a month using 1 week sprints. My wife (who is not in tech) did not understand the benefit of that structure and the app was too complicated to use so I couldn’t get her on board. Ultimately it became too much work for me to maintain so I stopped.
I think the concept of creating a bunch of epics for all your house projects and then breaking them down into stories with weights and due dates and then pulling them into a sprint is a good idea though. I may just need to simplify it more.

Yeah I don't deny that that tip can be helpful but not for everyone

Yikes

I like using the sticky note app on my laptop for assignments, it’s nice deleting a whole note for the assignment lol

Similarly, I put all of my bills on my calendar. Most of them are automated but this helps keep track of the flow.

I like having a visible reminder (on my phone screen), which sticks around until task is done - not just notification. And I don't want it to appear too soon, for I start ignoring it. So calendar and most to-do apps are not an option. So far have found a widget called Doer Notes which works for me.

With MS toDo you get to cross it off and hear a nice sound. Additionally, you can see all your done tasks. 695 in my case.

I tried this and it doesn't work for me. If the time for the assignement comes and I don't or can't to it, it is gone and I forget.

For me a combination of google's to-do list in combination with my calendar has worked best.

Yeah, I just imagine setting it up months ahead during a hyperfocus session (easily possible) then missing the first planned task and giving up completely because now it needs to be replanned.

At least an undated task list would still have it listed.

Just don’t forget to submit assignments like my dumb ass. Got work done early so I was like “I’ll go do something else now”. Almost missed the deadline until I had a panicked moment while laying in bed and the thought of submitting work randomly popped into my head.

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More like there’s always room to make your work time more productive, so your down time is longer, sustainable, and free of distractions.

But if this gets overwhelming which can quickly happen when everything is in one place - remember you can separate the 3 main classes of "todos":

1. Calendar: time-based appointments, when something needs to happen at a specific time/date
2. Reminders: petty tasks, repeating habit prompts. Things that shouldn't drag on and on, things that repeat and don't take much time, and things that won't affect the trajectory of your life if delayed. "Hey siri remind me to Pickup soap when leaving home". "Hey siri remind me to call the dentist on Tuesday"
3. True todos: project based tasks, the meat and potatoes of progress. Use a real todo app like Things/todoist/any.do etc. These are the things that take more time, are less likely to have a specific schedule-dependent basis, or may take a while or multiple sessions to complete (notes fields in this app can be valuable to log process). Keep this stuff clear of the petty clutter from #2 to ensure they don't stagnate in the rush to keep those little chores cleared.

Dumping everything into one giant list or a single app risks overload, stuff gets lost in the growing lists and it quickly leads to notification fatigue where everything gets ignored.

I'm testing out some sort of outlook task list today. I added four things to it at the end of work yesterday, and it will give me reminders in the time frame I estimated each task would take. If I'm successful I'll task up Monday. However, I have a training the rest of next week so then I won't be in practice for this and everything will probably fall apart, but whatever at least I know how I'll fail...

Time blocking is very helpful in tackling your todo list and refining the process. Be sure to schedule recovery, sleep, and relaxation as well.

Hey there, try Todoist or Shortcut, much less overhead and more efficient tools for the same thing Jira does - Todoist lets you set recurring tasks so you can have an automatic monthly "Clean this filthy shit" list that's easy to plan for, and when it's the same list, you can start speedrunning it and trying to get better times to completion. It integrates with Google calendar in a really simple and smart way too, big fan

It's also way less work to organize work in either tool than in Jira :)

Tasks that require dedicated time to complete, should land on your calendar, where you've made a commitment to complete that task on a specific date or time, or during a 'Focus Time' period where you're doing a number of tasks to completion.

Using a tool like Motion, you can have it automatically decide where the best time is to complete those tasks, so you don't have to over-think it. It's basically an AI assistant for managing your calendar.

Todoist does this too but without the roadmap lanes, plus it has great widgets for all common phones, desktop apps so you don't have to keep your browser open, and recurring events so it's easy to schedule chore lists

I’m at the age where if I don’t write it down, I’ll likely forget it. Anything I need to do soon I email myself. Future stuff I create a google calendar event with email reminder. My inbox becomes my to do list.

This is also how I created my first budget. Seeing what days bills were due helped me wrap my dumb 20-something brain around how much money I needed to be setting aside from paychecks so bills got paid properly; and from there I was quickly able to actually start saving money.

I use the Structured App and its the best.

I would like to recommend Sunsama also :) their concept is to put the task into your to do list, then estimate the time and only then to find a time for it in your calendar. And it's also very good to see whether are you trying to squeeze too much tasks into your day (it gives the hint, if your workload is more than 8 hours).

But their prices seemed unreasonable to me ($20 a month), so I've switched to cheaper (and even free, if you don't need premium features) alternative Morgen. But I would highly suggest for everybody who's struggling with setting time for tasks try Sunsama's free trial to see the hints for planning, and switch only then. Or stay, if the price works for you :)

I have no idea how to make it not look like an ad, but yeah, just honest recommendation. Mostly for OP in this thread though

Edit: grammar, hopefully... I'm not sure if it actually improved, but I've tried :)

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That’s where the 2min comes in. If it takes 2min to get it done, get it done.

Deadlines and time duration events are calendar bound.

It's because it takes longer than 2 minutes to park it in the calendar or todo list and retrieve it. The 2 Minute Rule of GTD is cutting out the overhead.

Too real

Sounds neat. I'll look into that. My girl and I have had our Google calendars synchronized, along with the shopping list for years, now. It's made so much of life easier and freed-up time to enjoy life without always stressing about what we forgot to do/get/whatever.

are you me?

I've been using a free app (for personal use) called Reclaim that prioritizes tasks based on its deadline and puts it on my Google Calendar.

Created a task that will be due 3 days from now? Automatically higher priority.

Created a task that will be due 5 days from now? Automatically lower priority.

That task from 3 days from now changed to 10 days from now? Automatically lower priority.

Repeat this for like a hundred tasks with different deadlines and it will automatically put it on your calendar based on their deadlines. No need to manually do Tetris-like calendar shuffling.

Search on Youtube to learn how it works.

I'm all about that Focus To-Do

This is great, but what if you have someone in your life who you know will not respect that time you set aside for yourself? Like they think your time could be better spent on whatever impulse they conveniently came up with a the exact same time?

This is how you end up writing the same things on every day, before ditching the calender.

I'd say the related 'x-effect' is more useful.

To add to this if you have a Calendar that pops up you can give yourself reminders on tasks rather that timebox for them although both are effective.

Sometimes you know something is important but you’re already on something important so you remind yourself about it in a few days so its not lost.

Scheduling things like this does not work for my neuro divergent ass. I have 'The List' it's a $0.97 USD sprial bound notepad with a line down the middle of the page.

Left column is "do today" the right column is "not today". The list lives on the coffee table directly infront of my favorite spot to sit. I keep a running list of every. single. thing. I have to get done on the right. Every day I pick what I feel like getting done today. I flip to the next page and rewrite the list with the updated tasks, including rewriting the entire right column to try to commit it to memory.

Then I go and do a dozen things that aren't on either side of The List. I add them to 'do today' and cross them out for the dopamine hit. Everything gets done eventually. The most important thing is that the list CANNOT move from its place on the coffee table. Even when it was a glass top table with a shelf underneath where I could SEE the list sitting on the shelf. If it's not on top and in it's place, it might as well not exist.

GTD is another book that has been weaponized by middle management but lionized by owners and executives.

Agreed. If your work time is sheer burnout chaos, no amount of better non-work time will offset that.

I’m going to add to this:

Don’t be afraid to move things ahead of you run into speed bumps in your current task list. You’ll get to them and there’s no shame in getting one thing done today and move three tasks to tomorrow if it’s more likely that they’ll get accomplished.

Use Todoist and integrate with you calendar so you can tell siri "remind me to do x at 2 pm" and it will auto sync to your calendar.

I pay for the premium subscription, it's great. Never be afraid to pull the trigger on a purchase that makes you more productive / organized.

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This would require me to remember to look at my calendar

FWIW the author of Getting Things Done advocates only adding time sensitive items on your calendar. In other words, only stuff that needs to get done at a specific time / day. Other stuff should be going on a master to-do list.

Now that I'm retired all that pounding they applied gets directed to my personal projects, not imaginary KPIs in an all-too-real capitalist hellscape.

Is there some app that combines a standard checklist and an hourly agenda? As in, I would like to be able to make a checklist, but give each item a duration, and then block them out into my calendar. Everything I find either uses fixed 30-minute blocks on the calendar (Google Tasks), or has no integration with a checklist at all. All of my tasks can be in a checklist, but not all of them necessarily fit onto a calendar or need to be scheduled right away, and having the two lists separated drives me crazy.

I cant schedule my life like that. Stuff gets dome when I feel like getting it done.

What's the point of living if everything is scheduled. Is that even living?

I would recommend something I found even better: use Google reminders and the Google calendar widget on your home screen. The undone past reminders will stay on top in and below are future calendar events. The reminder will disappear only after you manually mark it as done. If I don't do the reminder at the actual time I had it in the calendar, it will still stay and visible until marked done

I will definitely give these a shot, thank you

When I was getting started in my career, an older coworker on mine in his late 40's shared with me some tricks of the trade, and he said to me "My calendar is what I live and die by, and if you're like me and can't remember shit, use your calendar on your phone".

To this day, any and every appointment to the most mundane tasks, goes in my phone. It's helped me stay more organized, and saved my ass more times than I can count in terms of reminding me about appointments I would've otherwise totally forgotten about.

"Use a planner" Wow, really worked hard to come up with this one huh? Lol

LPT: you can import calendar events into outlook and Google calendar. At work I've got the same workflow for each project, and with some excel, I can generate an entire year of workflow calendar events with a few clicks.

For example, in Excel, you can subtract 7 from a date and it'll spit out the date a week prior. Then you just make columns for all the calendar fields to be imported and fill it out accordingly.

Likelihood***

But I agree! I did this throughout my bachelors when I was getting assigned tasks and readings left and right. I out every little thing in my calendar and it really kept me up to speed without stressing me out

Don't underestimate the power of taking them regularly! When I'm not working I sometimes think, "meh, I don't need to focus today", but for brains like ours, they affect much more than that - they help with the whole range of executive function. 💛

I have a list of unbound tasks as reminders on my Google calendar. It's helpful because every time I take a look to whittle at the list it remains as a constant reminder of pending tasks

Underrated advice...

more power to you if that's what works for you.

The GTD methodology separates these two things. Rather it opts for one bucket of 'next actions' that one is meant to use as their only source of "what do I do now." That can be refined with various contexts (location, time of day, etc), and then there is a separate activity meant to refresh new tasks onto the list based on incoming sources.

So in the case of GTD you'd just always have a todo list with you giving you those same pending tasks without having to port them over from day to day.

I don't know if I'll have time. Maybe I'll see if I can find another book on how to find time to read that book

Ha literally started doing this earlier this week

This is exactly what happened to me when I tried using this technique in the past. I love using my calendar, so I had the bright idea to merge my to-do list into my calendar so I could get more things done.

That was a terrible mistake lol. My calendar became cluttered and stressful/distracting to look at. I ended up ignoring my tasks and then almost missing actual deadline/events. After a couple weeks of this, I deleted all tasks except for repeating tasks and then using Microsoft To-Do.

That may explain some things about why I needed a while to get back in my groove after a vacation

Interesting, and I've never heard of GTD until now, thank you!

I’ll plug the app “structured” on iOS for this. I break down all my to do items and assign specific times to complete them during my white space of a day. I can also see what I’m doing the next day and plan ahead to make use of time! Great app

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Seriously. LOL. I bought it a few years ago and only finished the first chapter.

It's called time boxing

It’s culty for sure but middle management would be like that whether or not it was ever written. Their job is to steal your time. If you want to fix that attitude, we’re still waiting for your book to come out.

Meanwhile, if someone wants to defend their time effectively and spend more of it doing things that make life worth living, they can swallow their pride and use some of the book’s insights for an immediate improvement.

TickTick can add tasks to a calendar but is not a calendar manager so won't do events. This is what I primarily use, the devs push frequent updates which I appreciate.

Opus One does tasks and events in calendar.

Fantastical can also integrate with Todosit to do tasks in the calendar but I found the sync to be slow.

I love the estimate vs actual time feature of sunsama. But yes its too expensive. Another cheapest alternatives that i’ve found are ellie planner and Akiflow.

Yeah increased productivity should be rewarded with a slice of the pie. If an organization is trying to conceal that increase or not reward it, that’s obviously bad, but most likely part of an attitude that’s baked in regardless of whether things are improving or deteriorating.

Bullet journal for tasks and calendar for appointments is the way but you must build both into an unconscious habit.

Don't forget to make your event with a notification

Somebody might have undiagnosed executive function issues. This is me, and I do. It's purely the guilt that keeps me even relatively on track.

I definitely agree on the distinction between the "todos". However I do find that I need to see it all in one place for me to function. Even reminders and tasks have dates and times that interfere with calendar appointments. Still looking for an app that integrates everything flawlessly. Right now I'm using ticktick for tasks (and can see my calendar with the tasks at least). Reminders I do on Google calendar (through smart speakers mainly). Works pretty well.

Cheapest to priciest: Ellie planner, TickTick, Akiflow, Sunsama

Trello is what you want. It’s Atlassian’s simplified version of Jira

Same problem. I tried this approach for a while and it didn’t work for me. Eventually I switched to a To Do app and for some reason that seems to work a bit better for my habit and routine.

I have a method taught by a man who went to one of Canada’s top business schools with really good grades. I create a deadline for myself, and then take a picture of myself in an embarrassing situation, which I then authorize a notary to mail to family and friends in the event that I do not provide proof of my completed task.

Physically crossing things off the to-do list when they are done is a dopamine hit.

I do this with reminders to follow up on an email. Just keep snoozing it

Adds a lot of pressure :/

I actually use my calendar as my diary, too. Therefore, I can go to specific days to see what my thoughts were. The Notes app gets unorganized quite fast.

Yeah…unless you don’t do the thing at the assigned time. For me, it is lost forever at that point.

Especially good for less-frequent tasks. "Clean the dishwasher filter" is set for the 5th of every month.

I've been doing this professionally and privately for roughly 20 years. So relaxing knowing I have scheduled time to do the task.

Had a coworker once whose calendar always looked so busy. It was hard scheduling anything with him. Funny thing, we were basically a two-man team working on the same stuff. How was he so busy all the time when I didn’t have comparable busy slots? And then one day I happened to get a look at the titles of all the stuff on his calendar. He just put his own reminders on his calendar in the default 30 minute blocks. He wasn’t busy at all, just filling up his calendar with useless shit and making things difficult for me.

I let him burn a few times for it when I could’ve intervened.

Edit: Thought I’d add the guy was a piece of work for other reasons, as well. And, the lesson he taught me - don’t let full calendars make you think someone’s really busy and productive. Judge that from how much shit they get done.

Todoist is great for this. Hive for bigger projects.

I use TickTick. Both for tasks and for calendar blocking. I got my BF with ADHD to use it too and it helps him tremendously.

This! I started doing it couple of years ago, has made life a little better. Especially canceling those free trials for subscriptions!

I know that neuroscience agrees with you. Individuals with ADHD often have worse depression/higher chances to get it.

I have been doing this for 2 years and it really works!! Thanks for taking the time to share this OP!!

So like most folks with some flavor of ADHD I rocked GTD for a month before the newness wore off, I started failing to update it, and soon backslid to my default productivity state: unmitigated chaos.

Before that happened, though, I genuinely liked GTD. It's the most flexible out of all the productivity/task management systems I've tried in that it can be readily adapted to support work or personal life and it doesn't require an investment in any particular tools to get started. It'll be the system I return to when I start feeling overwhelmed again and declare that I've got to get my life sorted out.

Learning about the concept of executive function/presentations of ADHD that aren't hyperactive completely changed my relationship with myself in a good way. While my official diagnosis is 50/50--meaning I'm either "normal" but a mess or on the lowest end of the ADHD spectrum--I've found that following tips and structures targeted towards folks who DO have ADHD has helped me a ton in understanding why I behave in certain counterproductive ways and taking steps to set myself up for success.

All of which to say that even if someone reading this doesn't have an official diagnosis yet, you may find great value in following tips targeted at those who do.

Does it have nesting subtasks? Been looking for a google todo replacement.

Does it have nesting subtasks? Been looking to replace google's todo

Yeah, but snooze/delete exist. Checkmate.

Yes it does.

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I think this person meant more actually scheduling in time to fold laundry (e.g. 630-700) that can technically be done at anytime, but the idea in theory is that carving out a specific window should make that task more likely to be completed.

It's not about scheduling time for work or appointments, as those are not things that can be done on an arbitrary timeline (usually).

You can create multiple subtasks within a task but its not a project management tool. I use it to track simple tasks but also to gather ideas or information as a reminder. There is also MS planner which can be used to deal with more complex tasks while being very intuitive.

GTD is not about this at all. It's a great way to organize your life, I use it's methods pretty much exclusively and it's definitely not about work work work.

This works for some people. There is never a one size fits all for organization and productivity. Some people do better with open to-do lists.

not if you’re a mastor procreastinator

Add “Learn how to spell ‘likelihood’.” to your calendar for tomorrow.

What are some techniques that have helped you get things done?

Asana is amazing. I use it for work and love it. Would want to die if I had to use it in my personal life though.

Outlook + MS Todo has been working splendidly

Apple's Reminders app has changed my life. I add EVERYTHING I need to do as it comes to mind - to get it out of my mind (spoiler: this is the whole point of Getting Things Done - now you don't have to read it). You can sort by priority (low, medium, high or none) AND by date. So I can make things high priority, and say it must be done today - or high priority without a date. You can also add flags, create multiple lists, etc. It's by far the best list/to-do manager I've ever used. And it feels SO GOOD to delete tasks after you complete them...

And also, if you sleep through a time band you had dedicated to a task, since it's not on a list, you just now don't have to do it anymore And will never think about it again. Bonus win!

I used Todoist app for something similar. Assign a day and usually a time as a "deadline"

The #1 for me has been to be gracious with myself. Things don't have to be perfect, they have to be done. And as long as I'm making progress towards "done," I'm good.

This applies to cleaning in particular. Ex: if my end goal is "wipe the bathroom counter" but there's stuff on it preventing me from doing that, in the past the presence of that stuff would make the task feel too big and I'd put it off indefinitely. Now, my new goal might be "move that one bottle off the counter," which can easily be done after I wash my hands or when I'm walking by on the way to/from my closet.

Usually moving the one bottle overcomes my mental paralysis because, hey! Moving one bottle wasn't hard at all! I bet we can move two! And three! And four!

And just like that the counter gets cleared. And now my new goal is "wipe the empty counter," which I facilitate by keeping Clorox wipes on the counter so that I can snatch one and wipe everything in a few seconds.

Which brings me to the 2 minute rule, another thing that's helped me. If a task has no blockers (like bottles on a counter I want to clean) and it takes less than two minutes, I do it as soon as I think of it. Ex: making my bed in the morning. As soon as I notice that it's messy, I get up and make it, which only takes a minute or two.

Third has been structuring my environment in a way that facilitates success. For example, I hit a real slump in cooking, and I realized it was because I had a ton of ingredients/tools and it made me feel like I could never easily find things I needed. So I did a thorough pantry clean out, labeled all my ingredients/cabinets/drawers so I'd never have to stop and think about where something might be, and organized everything in a way that makes it quick and easy for me to grab while I'm cooking. I also committed to making simpler meals because I realized that I don't like hours-long cooking marathons. Those two things simplified my life so much that I actually look forward to cooking again.

So, in summation: be patient with yourself, follow the 2 minute rule, and set up your environment for your success.

I've found it only works as sub-sets of time.

Getting a random alert to do something? Fuck it.

But if I put 2 hours for "focus time" and then put a couple smaller 15 chunks in there for specific things - it works.

At least for me.

I do the same thing but also make the "event" repeat daily until I delete it.

This is a excellent life pro tip. This suggestion helped me to keep my family and business interactions and appointments in line. Never forgetting a birthday or a appointment, even small task such as washing clothes or repairing something around the house was easy to remember and to complete in a timely manner.

Just have to make it work for you. Hard to separate from using it at work though Im sure.

this is why I use google tasks and the google calendar itegration

Tomorrow, 9am: Learn how to spell "likelihood" 😄

I recently started using an app called Habitica that gamifies your to do list and goddamn has it had a huge effect on my productivity. I highly recommend it if you haven't given it a shot.

I use my Calender for My bills and finances I get paid weekly so I have my bills broken down for the weekly cost so by the end of the month I've got it all ready and normally a bit more as some months with run into 5 weeks

I’m a huge proponent of GQueues

There’s also a phenomenal video that shows you exactly how to use the system with GQueues. Gqueues absolutely runs my life and I couldn’t recommend it higher. GTD and Gqueues

I found the idea is actually kind of the opposite. It’s about making use of times when you have energy to prioritize and create flow in your life so you can get by with as little stress as possible on days when you have low energy.

That’s not a reflection on yhe GTD system. That’s like saying there’s no sense staying hydrated cause sometimes water is used it for water boarding,

Saved it for later

>695 in my case.

As a fellow Microsoft to-do lover ...I got chills reading this. Haha!

Work in legal, can confirm everyone I know that treats their calendar like a to-do list ends up relying on support staff to remind them what /actually/ needs to be done. I calendar datetime events and use a reminder app for everything else broken up by priority (high priority - reminder pops up around 8:00 AM when I get to the office and start my day, mid-priority pops up between 11 AM and 2 PM, low priority pops up after 3 PM).

I do this. Some of the items are overdue by 400+ weeks... someday I'll get to them.

acreom does exactly what you described and more. You can have your notes there together with tasks that can be scheduled for any time interval or just a single point in time (it also supports repeating tasks) using either calendar or by just typing it out in note using natural language (e.g. do yoga every other day at 7am). You can then group them by note they are in, labels or date. It also has daily note and a review feature where it shows all the overdue tasks plus the tasks for today on top of the daily note.

I just use the reminders app on my phone. Set the time and whatever info I need and it’ll pop up and alert me. I won’t clear it until I finish it. That way, if I forget to do it or I’m busy when it comes up, it’ll always be on my Home Screen until I mark it as done. You can share them with anyone too.

Bullet Journal might be a good alternative. It's less "rule-based" than GTD.

I have used Fantastical 2 with Google Calendar and reminders for years to do this and it works amazingly. It does exactly what the LPT suggests.

Reminders are set to a certain time float to another day if not completed. They are shown alongside Calendar events and can be sorted by list and different sets of lists / calendars can be activated at different locations.

I like the quick-add feature, too, if you type “lunch with mom” it automatically sets time to 12pm.

Shit I’m trying this tomorrow, thanks

There are tools out there like motion and skedpal that do this exact thing automatically for you.

This and your alarm clock set at specific times/dates. It's super annoying and sure to catch your attention

I tried Bullet Journal for about 3 weeks, but dropped it because the journal itself was so much work to maintain. Also, my ideas/tasks tend to come to me randomly, so it was hard for me to force myself to keep to one "topic" per page for the index.

I appreciate the suggestion though! It's definitely a system that works for a lot of people; it just didn't help with me.