Keeping Track of Recurring To-Do's

[Grey1618]

Hello Everyone,

I'm wondering what systems people use to handle their recurring to-do items. How do you keep track of the daily, weekly and monthly to-do's? Or even longer recurring to-do's that may only happen every few years (renewing licensing agreements, etc)?

 

[aaresca]

• Daily: they are part of one of my routine.
• From every 2-3 days to every 2-3 months, without a specific due-date: using a specific software http://sciral.com/consistency/
• 2-3 times a year or more: tickler file.

Hope it helps.

Andrea

 

[Pav]

recurring all-day events in Microsoft Outlook does that for me for any perspective in time.

 

[Linada]

OmniFocus has built in repeats which i use for habit building and rarer maintenance tasks.
Both of those also go on my paper calendar. Date specifics on the date of course, softer targets go in a monthly note field.
Larger sets of tasks, usually home related, go on their own check lists in a special paper planner.

 

[Oogiem]

How do you keep track of the daily, weekly and monthly to-do's? Or even longer recurring to-do's that may only happen every few years (renewing licensing agreements, etc)?

I've got a Flylady type control journal for recurring housekeeping stuff and a recurring task in Omnifocus to spend 30 minutes a day on control journal cleaning. My journal is a printed checklist I put in clear page protectors in a 3 ring binder. I use a dry erase marker to check off the things I've done. However, I must say that I frequently do not get even 30 minutes of housework done a day. But things are getting better and it is working if I just do it.

For longer term stuff (yearly federal flock inspections, trademark renewals and the like) I'm entering them into Omnifocus as I come across them. I had that stuff in al sorts of places and a few things got lost. It's been a multi-month process to find all the places I stashed notes about what to do long term and pull them into my inbox for processing.

I also have a single sheet of paper with certain things that have to happen over the next year on it. It goes in the month of the next due item as a tickler. As I finish those things I cross them off the paper and add them to omnifocus for the repeat. Eventually it will all be in my omnifocus system

 

[Brent]

I use a tickler, just as described in the Getting Things Done book.

For daily reminders, I have a few post-it notes in a drawer in my desk, one for mornings and another for evenings.

 

[Cpu_Modern]

For daily recurring items I make them a habit. I start a project of making that habit stick. The power of routine.

Other recurring items I group them together as projects for a given time-frame. For example I have a project to fill my storage of beverages for this month. When doing my review it is easy to determine if I have to add a (scheduled) NA to my lists. I like it that way because it makes my projects list a complete all-to-do list and it also gives me the yeah!-project-completed gratification.

 

[radioman]

I have used ReDo (by Rick Huebner) on my PalmOS PDA for about 11 years now. It is very cheap (about US$12 as I recall) and worth many times that. ReDo maintains a separate database of recurring tasks that get inserted into the ToDo database on the assigned date.

For instance, I know that my tax returns are due every year on April 15 and I would want to be reminded about that every February 1, but I don't want to stare at that Next Action from April 16 through December every year. So, I put "file US and state tax returns" in ReDo, with due date of April 15 every year, a "pop-up" date 60 days before the due date, and in the "In-Basket" category. On the assigned date, it shows up in my "In-Basket" category on my ToDo list. I process it as normal from there.

I have about 180 reminders in my ReDo database, with durations ranging from 1 day (log something on a Web site) to 10 years (renew US passport). It's great for those monthly or quarterly chores for the house or car, as they don't show up as NAs until they need to (usually the morning that they're due).

ReDo is a really great program. Try it out to see if it works for you.

Joe

 

[ScottL]

For people using paper

e.g. take a tiny post it, write "Do weekly review" on it, put the post it on the Friday page of calendar, and after I do the weekly review, move post it to the page in calendar for next Friday.

 

[tjhoo]

recurring all-day events in Microsoft Outlook does that for me for any perspective in time.

I've taken the above approach (recurring calendar item). Also use MS Outlook (OL) plug-in "Reminder Manager" which keeps a nice running list of these items, flagged emails, etc.

In OL, have thought about recurring task instead of calendar item..Has anybody tried both and can speak to pros/cons comparing the two?

 

[Dan Owen]

Recurring calendar item in Outlook. It is relentlessly effective.

I've started putting my library book due dates in my calendar.