A place for me to write my thoughts 2023-07-30T00:00:00Z https://heyged.dev/ https://heyged.dev/img/favicon/favicon.ico Ged 2023-07-30T00:00:00Z https://heyged.dev/posts/todoist/ <p>It's taken me a while to realise that todo lists are useful. I knew they were useful for specific occassions (such as packing for a holiday) but I didn't realise how useful they could be for everyday life. I had assumed that everyone else just remembers stuff but it turns out that a lot of people keep lists. When I first started looking at keeping lists I did my usual thing of throwing my whole attention at it and got excited about designing a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullet_journal">bullet journal</a>, but I knew from experience a physical, paper solution will ultimately not be there when I need it</p> <h3>Picking Todoist</h3> <p>That's when I started researching todo apps. My criteria was that it had to be simple, be browser-based and have API access. This narrowed my search down to a small handful of solutions and so I looked at Todoist. I initially wanted to overengineer my setup but, in the spirit of iterative delivery, I thought I'd add what I needed and keep refining. Here's my current setup</p> <h3>My setup</h3> <p>Todoist gives you an Inbox for all incoming tasks. I use this as a holding pen for my thoughts where I read through and assign tasks to the right project or section. During a working day I tend to do this a couple of times a day. When assigning a task I also give it a due date (where relevant) and a priority if it's important. Assigning a due date means that I can see what needs to be done today</p> <div class="flex justify-center my-10"> <div class="md:w-1/2 w-4/5"> <div class="shadow-md "> <img src="https://heyged.dev/img/todoist-today.png" alt="A screenshot of Todoist showing only one task for today - write this blog post" /> </div> <div class="py-4 font-bold text-center w-full">An unusually quiet day</div> </div> </div> <h3>Projects</h3> <p>I have two main projects set up in Todoist - Personal and Work. I find most things fit into one of those two catagories. I use sections within each project to help further categorise tasks</p> <blockquote> <h4>Personal</h4> <ul> <li>Family - Anything that I need to help organise the family</li> <li>DIY - This is for anything that involves maintenance or changes to the house or garden</li> <li>Housework - Recurring chores that need to be done around the house</li> <li>Health &amp; Fitness</li> <li>Some day - Ideas for things I'd like to do one day but don't have any deadline or timeframe</li> </ul> <h4>Work</h4> <ul> <li>Web Platform - Work related to the platform I'm helping to build</li> <li>Line Management - Appraisals, mid-year reviews, etc</li> <li>Personal - Appraisals, mid-year reviews, etc</li> </ul> </blockquote> <h3>Repeat tasks</h3> <p>There are things that I need to remind myself to do each week (such as household chores) as well as new habits I'd like to form (such a piano practice). Repeat tasks in Todoist are very handy for this... it means that I have a reminder for frequent tasks such as cleaning the bathroom each week as well as monthly tasks such as descaling the kettle.</p> <div class="flex justify-center my-10"> <div class="md:w-1/2 w-4/5"> <div class="shadow-md "> <img src="https://heyged.dev/img/todoist-chores.png" alt="A screenshot of Todoist showing repeat household chores" /> </div> <div class="py-4 font-bold text-center w-full">Don't tell me I don't know how to have a good time</div> </div> </div> <h3>Sizing personal tasks</h3> <p>One thing I've found useful is to assign a size to each personal task. This is a rough estimate of how long I think it will take to complete. I use this to help me decide what to do when I have some free time. For example, if I have 30 minutes spare I can look at my list of tasks that are 30 minutes or less and pick one. This is useful when you have a free day but aren't sure where to start!</p>