Todoist – Getting Organised

todoistTodoist is a Task List (ToDo) organiser. It has a web page interface as well as Android and Apple apps. It is really easy to use, and allows you to categorise your tasks into separate projects. So, for example, these are my own projects:

• Personal – appointments, music practice targets, reminders to call people etc.

• Cooking – meal planning, prioritising my recipe box meals by use-by date.

• Housework chores – repeating reminders for when I’m due to strip the bed, blitz the bathroom, which bins go out this week…

• Two work projects – one for my routine work tasks, and one for my new role in business development.

This detail might seem unnecessary to many, but I find it really helps me – not in terms of remembering jobs to do, but in facing them and not procrastinating. Plus, a sense of achievement when ticking a task off.

It doesn’t bog you down with future events, only those that are imminent. My default display is today and the week ahead.

It doesn’t compel you to a fixed regime. I was due to change my bedding yesterday, but I didn’t get around to it because of visitors. So it simply comes up onto today’s tasks as well (marked overdue), and will continue to do so until I tick it off.

One of the things I like about my Housework project is that it took me about 30 minutes to work out my basic plan, and then I have my regular chores nicely spread out, so that no single weekend is full of jobs to do, and I am not going to have jobs sitting queuing for the washing machine. So sheets one week, towels the next. Seems trivial and logical, I know, and who on earth needs an app for it? Based on the number of times that I have faced a “free” weekend, and then realised it was going to be full of chores I had ignored and were all well overdue; it seems that I do.

Amazon Echo (Alexa) integration is brilliant. All tasks scheduled through Alexa go into a default non-project “Inbox”. So I can add things to my tasklist as I think of them during the day – post that package to a friend, remember to pay this bill, order a new prescription. So that the next time I am in front of my computer (or phone) any new tasks are in the Inbox, and I can either action them immediately, or move them into the correct project.

Anyway, this will definitely not be for everybody. But I really like it.

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