Most of the things I put in my tickler are not next actions or projects. They are what David Allen refers to in the GTD book as amorphous stuff. I'm putting them in my tickler so I can defer making a decision. This means when a tickler's time comes up, it is not on any context list. Instead, I have to process it as if it were an inbox item.
Some examples are:
- 2020-08-31 Music school payments only scheduled until September.
- 2020-08-01 Arrange new dentist appointment (Dentist says they will be in contact after COVID 19)
- 2020-07-17 Does grass need cut?
The date is the date it will be brought to my attention. In each case, there is a decision to be made. This is true even for the Dentist one. Realistic choices are calling them or re-tickling.
Other than that the important thing is that the ticklers are out of sight, out of mind -- although I can obviously choose to delve into them as I have done just now.
In terms of the tool I use, I consider that to be less important. Right now I use Todoist to organise my lists. I have a list (a project in Todoist's parlance) for ticklers. Each tickler has a scheduled date which is the day it will be shown to me. Todoist shows it to me by putting in in the Today list. I only use scheduled dates for ticklers so this combination of a Tickler list, scheduled dates and the Today list works well for me.
In the past, I have used 43 cardboard folders, pieces of paper, ordered text files where each line is a tickler, a similar setup to my Todoist on Toodledo.