Small Tasks vs Large Projects
stevenheidel says:
Hi everyone,
I switched from Google Tasks to RTM about 2 months ago and am absolutely loving it. I set it up fairly basically, with lists for every aspect of my life (school, work, etc.) and a "Today" list as described here: http://blog.rememberthemilk.com/2011/10/tips-tricks-tuesday-running-to-do-lists/
It's working great for me, I get a lot more done that I was supposed to do, the due dates are easy to remind me of things, and my total tasks usually stays under 100.
However, the problem that I'm having is that this only seems to work for small tasks. I'm always ahead when it comes to emails, errands, etc. but the system fails when it comes to large projects such as assignments or presentations.
Does anyone have any tips on how they use RTM to manage large projects that have many facets, are ongoing, and take much more time to complete than a simple to-do task? Thanks!
I switched from Google Tasks to RTM about 2 months ago and am absolutely loving it. I set it up fairly basically, with lists for every aspect of my life (school, work, etc.) and a "Today" list as described here: http://blog.rememberthemilk.com/2011/10/tips-tricks-tuesday-running-to-do-lists/
It's working great for me, I get a lot more done that I was supposed to do, the due dates are easy to remind me of things, and my total tasks usually stays under 100.
However, the problem that I'm having is that this only seems to work for small tasks. I'm always ahead when it comes to emails, errands, etc. but the system fails when it comes to large projects such as assignments or presentations.
Does anyone have any tips on how they use RTM to manage large projects that have many facets, are ongoing, and take much more time to complete than a simple to-do task? Thanks!
Hi stevenheidel,
I'm curious to hear answers from other users as well, but I wanted to mention this blog post if you hadn't seen it already. This post describes using Remember The Milk for GTD, and suggests creating a new list for each project (that is, anything requiring multiple steps) that you have.
Hope that helps!
I'm curious to hear answers from other users as well, but I wanted to mention this blog post if you hadn't seen it already. This post describes using Remember The Milk for GTD, and suggests creating a new list for each project (that is, anything requiring multiple steps) that you have.
Hope that helps!
If you use the GTD (Getting Things Done) approach as descibed in the excellent book by Dave Allen, you actually complete large projects by doing one (small) task after another. He defines a project as something that needs more than one action to complete.
Always focus on the Next action which is the next task in order to complete the project. When you have completed that task, make sure you have a new Next action for the project etc.
When you work on projects like this, there is no need to define all the steps necessary to complete the project, only the Next action.
Always focus on the Next action which is the next task in order to complete the project. When you have completed that task, make sure you have a new Next action for the project etc.
When you work on projects like this, there is no need to define all the steps necessary to complete the project, only the Next action.