Tending Tasks With Remember The Milk
Remember the Milk is the backbone of my productivity system. It is what I work from, period. Today I’ll talk about my basic setup, and then in the next article I will show you how I set myself up for the week.
Why Remember The Milk
I’ve been a Remember The Milk (which I will call RTM for the rest of this article) user since the day I switched from Palm OS to iOS. Yes, that long ago.
I was drawn first by the fact that this was the most robust task manager program out there at the time. The fact that it had a cow for an icon, and that I’m from America’s Dairyland, was just a bonus. Really, I don’t select my software on the basis of the icon. Much.
RTM caught my eye because it allowed offline sync. That meant that when I wasn’t connected to the internet (and since I was running an iPod, that was pretty much when I wasn’t at home), I could still use the software and it would sync for me when I was connected. This is still a major consideration for me, as there are times when I am not connected and I still want to use my lists.
Some other features that have drawn me in include integration with GMail, Google Calendar and Evernote; reminders; subtasks (pro); custom sorting (pro); unlimited archive (pro); quick and easy entry; unlimited lists; smart lists (searching on steroids); and a kick-ass search function.
How I Set Up Remember The Milk
The setup I have in RTM is one in which I can quickly work and find tasks.
My Lists
I don’t dump everything into one big list because I want to be able to quickly find things for certain areas of my life. For instance, if I want to see what I have coming at me in Girl Scouts, I go to the Girl Scout list, and spare myself having to search through the maintenance tasks.
My basic lists are as follows:
- _12 Weeks. This is where the tasks go for my 12 week planning. I set this up at the start of the 12 week plan, and it allows me to quickly segment those tasks which are part of the plan versus those that are just “other.”
- +Blog. Where all my blogging tasks go. This is a segmentation that I need to scan frequently.
- +Girl Scouts. All my Girl Scout tasks.
- +One-off. These are the items that are single-action. Things like “pull casserole from freezer” to “renew library card” to items from my 100 Things To Do In 2017 list repose here. These items are generally just easy actions that need to be remembered.
- +Projects. These are the items that require more than one step to complete. Since they are more effort, I think about which ones I will tackle carefully before deciding to work on them.
- Maintenance. These are repeating tasks that I use to remind me of things that are non-urgent, but need to be done regularly. Items in this list include my weekly quick clean items, replacing toothbrushes, pet appointment reminders, and renewing domains.
- zHoliday. These are the items that I set up in January to help me get through the holidays in a relaxed fashion. These are generated out of my holiday task spreadsheet and will start showing up in the lists are the right time.
What’s with the weird names? My lists are named this way so that they sort automatically. With the Pro version of RTM, you can do drag-and-drop sorting, but I haven’t switched over yet. The + reminds me that this is a list, rather than a search or a tag.
Smart Lists
Smart lists are essentially saved searches that function like lists. So everything that appears on my smart lists lives in one of the seven lists above; but I don’t work from the lists above. Those are just for quickly finding specific tasks in an area, and filing the tasks.
My Current Projects
This smart list is made up of tasks “tag:..ThisWeek AND NOT tag:..Today AND NOT dueBefore:tomorrow”.
Every week I go through my saved searches (which look like lists) and mark projects with the tag “..thisweek”. This allows me to see everything I have decided to work on this week. It is carefully constructed from the 12 Week tasks, ongoing projects, and weekly maintenance projects.
Once a task has been tagged to go into the Today list, I don’t want to see it in this list. At the same time, I don’t want to see tasks that will show up in the Today list because they are due.
My Tasks For Today
This smart list is made up of tasks “dueBefore:tomorrow OR haspriority:true OR tag:..today”
This list is made up of those things that are due today, and those items I have selected from my current projects and marked with the “..today” tag. This is the list that I work from. It gives me a focused list without overload, and at the same time with daily review allows me to decide what is most important.
The smart list also picks up tasks that have due dates (either today or before today). I can also send a task to this list by setting its priority as sort of an override.
Summary
The way I use RTM consists of seven lists where the tasks live, and then two smart lists from which I work weekly and daily.
Conclusion
Remember The Milk is one of the most flexible task managers I have run across. Between the unlimited lists, which I use to store tasks, and the saved searches which act like lists, I can quickly find and set up my week and day.
Over To You
Are you using RTM? Or another task manager? How well does it group tasks? Can you save searches? Share below what your task manager is and why you like it!
Image by Assess. Licensed under Creative Commons. Text added.
