A couple of weeks ago, following Brie’s advice, I switched my todo lists from text files to Things. The transition has been so successful that today I converted my 14 days trial to a full license. I got the app on my MacBook, on my iPhone, and on my iPad. The synchronization works flawlessly, and it’s good to have the possibility to add and consume todos everywhere, from every device.
These are my three main workflow changes that improved my productivity since I started using Things:
Emails 2 todo
Until a couple of weeks ago, I used to keep pending emails in my inbox. Every time I was getting an email that required some work I was keeping it in my inbox as a reminder. It was not efficient, and it was bloating my email clients.
Now, every time I dedicate time to emails (yes, I don’t follow emails in a sync fashion), my inbox must go to zero. That means that emails are turned into todos. No exceptions. Then they get immediately archived.
Recurring events
Every Friday I need to do financial assessment. Every Monday I need to do sprint report. Every month I need to change my contact lenses. Etc.
With Things, I configured recurring todos that automatically populate my lists. Super handy!
Tags Tags Tags
Tags are great. I can easily mark a todo as “reading” and quickly transform a notification email into something I will read later, and won’t forget. I can also define the severity of a task as “Hot” or “Not”. I can also automatically tag todos according to their area of responsibility.
If you have a peculiar workflow for your todos, don’t hesitate to share in comments below. I look forward to trying new things!
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