Todoist question

Josh, I'm one who needs to have projects & next actions linked, and after years of struggling with GTD, trying to "do it right", I've come to accept that fact. In part I think it is because of how I prefer to work, and in part because of the contexts I have. I enjoy great flexibility in how & where I work, so unless there is an errand, waiting for, or agenda, I simply work through next actions by project.

I agree that 'weekly' reviews ensure the projects & next actions are linked, particularly in the absence of software support. I do partial reviews almost daily at work because of the speed at which things move here. At home, Todoist enables views by project and by context and things move much more slowly (usually!) so bi-weekly reviews are sufficient.
 
JodieFrancis said:
Josh, I'm one who needs to have projects & next actions linked, and after years of struggling with GTD, trying to "do it right", I've come to accept that fact. In part I think it is because of how I prefer to work, and in part because of the contexts I have. I enjoy great flexibility in how & where I work, so unless there is an errand, waiting for, or agenda, I simply work through next actions by project.

I agree that 'weekly' reviews ensure the projects & next actions are linked, particularly in the absence of software support. I do partial reviews almost daily at work because of the speed at which things move here. At home, Todoist enables views by project and by context and things move much more slowly (usually!) so bi-weekly reviews are sufficient.
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Jodie, is there a specific way you keep them linked in the software?
 
Earl Richardson said:
Kelly, I'd love to see your Setup Guide when you complete it. I love Todoist and I love GTD, I've used Todoist for about a year now, but I have no brilliant ways of using either projects or next actions.

My projects are ...well, projects (..!) and I simply have a Todoist label for Next Actions. I can give any task that label, even a task that isn't currently part of a project. I can check my current list of Next Actions at any time by clicking on that label. But to me, that is far from ideal.

And the only thing I don't like about Todoist, is no automatic identifying of next actions, such as how GTDNext does it. In GTDNext, the first item in any project is automatically idenfitied as your Next Action, so that your 'Next Action' display is uncluttered - it has one and only one task. To me, it meets David Allen's criteria of being able to focus on your Next Action. And if you click 'Complete' on that task, the next task in the project list automatically pops up - again, just one task, in an uncluttered display. A very good system. I've even asked the Todoist support team if they have any future plans for automating a Next Action similar to GTDNext's method, but they don't seem to have any plans for that. Following the way GTDNext does it would seem to me to be the ideal way to do it.

Absent any automatic process like GTDNext, it seems to me anything Todoist tries to do with Next Actions will be clunky and clumsy.
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I agree.. This is one thing I really like about Nirvanahq and unfortunately, for the most part, keeps me in limbo about what system to use.
 
@Josh I use the alternate approach suggested in the Todoist GTD guide, so I can view by Project or by Context.

My projects are on the left, with one Todoist 'project' for each, and a project called '--' for the one-and-done actions. My next actions are not a list as you have them, but rather they are tasks against each project. I list as many as I need to get them off my mind, and tag only the next actions that I can do immediately with a Label for the appropriate context(s). So I can click a label to see my Errands, or I can browse my Projects.
I'll try to attach some photos:
proj.jpg na.jpg labels.jpg
 

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Josh, thank you for your reply and the screenshots of your setup. I believe you are right in that the Weekly Review will be your conduit between projects and their tasks, that makes sense to me after listening to a lot of GTD podcasts and reading the newest GTD book. The last thing I want to do is start adding a "project" keyword to the tasks or some other hack. I'm just in the process of changing my setup to the 1st recommendation in the ToDoist Setup Guide, converting from years of having all of my next actions underneath each project, with too many labels/tags creating a jumbled, non-simple setup.
Scott
 
bumpa said:
How do you connect your next actions back to your projects (or maybe you don't)?
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Since my last post here I've slightly modified my GTD-Todoist system to make it work even better for me. I now use now labels in Todoist to name all my projects. So a new label gets created for each project. Then what I do is I attach the project label to each task in my Next Actions list for that project.

So the project label allows me to track all next actions related to the project.

Here's an example I currently have in Todoist:

Project name:
Finalize new business cards

Label for this project in Todoist:
"business_cards"

Next Action (@computer):
Research a design template to use for business card.
#business_cards
 
RickKRoadTrip said:
Here are 3 screen shots of my TD Lists.

utils.php
utils.php

utils.php
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Hi,
Rick
 
Hi,
I don't understand how RickKRoadtrip got his calendar items to show up in his Todoist "today" list. I synced my Google Calendar and Todoist; the result was all my tasks appeared in my calendar (very crowded, not helpful). All I want is to get the view he shows in his screen shots. What am I missing?!?
Thank you,
Melissa
 
ssksogaard said:
I'm pretty sure your if you set your tasks with due dates (incl. a time) it shows up like RickKRoadtrip..
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I was hoping appointments in my google calendar would show up in todoist so that I can have one view of my day's schedule and tasks. It sounds like I would need to enter all of my appointments on google calendar into todoist as tasks for that to happen?
 
Hi Melissa,

Typically tasks are not time-specific. If they truly are, I would put them on my calendar just like any other appointment. I work from my google calendar, which has my 'hard landscape' for the day, then pull from my tasks in Todoist as time permits. Since the lists in Todoist are long, I focus my day's work by spending a few minutes each night pulling the 3 most important tasks for me to accomplish the next day. This way I can work from that abbreviated task list, as my calendar permits. Others have used Todoist priority to flag the top 3 tasks for the day - I find it more helpful to write them down.

If you are set on having a single view of your tasks and calendar items together, you may want to consider using Google Tasks. It may be deprecated by now (it has been awhile since I used it) but I did like that using a 3rd party tool (Calendars5 by Readdle, on iOS) I could see my tasks and calendar items together in a slick agenda-type view.

Edited to add: you can also experiment with time blocking. For example, if you need to get a report finished by Friday you could block time on your calendar between now and then to get it done. Keep the project & next actions in your Todoist GTD system as usual, just block the time as a commitment to yourself to work on that particular project. Though not 'pure' GTD, many of us find time blocking helpful. :)
 
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