It kinda follows a structure from the book and metodology "First Things First":

Dividing your tasks up based on what category they fall into
Quadrant I - urgent, important
Quadrant II - not urgent, important
Quadrant III - urgent, not important
Quadrant IV - not urgent, not important

I think it's great idea.

This also reminds me of Life Balance, which doesn't have a time feature per se but does have settings for importance and effort. (My wild dream is that one day RTM and Llamagraphics will join forces and create an international to-do list conglomerate that rules the world.)

Oooh, you've just given me a brianwave:

Setting up Smartlists (Quadrant I, II etc) based on "First things first" would be a great idea! Can just use priority and due date. :)

Here's the searches you need to create the smart lists:

Quadrant I - (dueWithin:"1 week of today") AND (priority:1 OR priority:2)
Quadrant II - (NOT dueWithin:"1 week of today") AND (priority:1 OR priority:2)
Quadrant III - (dueWithin:"1 week of today") AND (priority:3 OR priority:none)
Quadrant IV - (NOT dueWithin:"1 week of today") AND (priority:3 OR priority:none)

Obviously you might want to doctor how soon you think "urgent" is.. and what constitutes a high priority or not. But it's a start :)

Ange.

Yeah - I totally agree with Ange, this can already be accomplished with smart lists. I would be against integrating a feature like this into RTM though, because it follows a certain school of thought, or methodology of managing time / tasks. GTD, for example, de-emphasizes the prioritizing of tasks, but RTM is flexible, scalable, and robust enough to accommodate both Stephen Covey's and David Allen's systems.

I had another think on these smartlists.. These include overdue tasks in the "Urgent" Quadrants.. which makes more sense. :)

Quadrant I - (dueBefore:today OR dueWithin:"1 week of today") AND (priority:1 OR priority:2)
Quadrant II - (NOT dueWithin:"1 week of today") AND (priority:1 OR priority:2)
Quadrant III - (dueBefore:today OR dueWithin:"1 week of today") AND (priority:3 OR priority:none)
Quadrant IV - (NOT dueWithin:"1 week of today") AND (priority:3 OR priority:none)

Angela,

I thought I saw that you were using GTD with RTM. Do you use Prioirities as well?

I thought that was not the way GTD is supposed to be done. Any feedback on how that has worked?

Paul,

I'm a bit eclectic. I have many different systems. I have the @computer @phone @home GTD lists, but I also use the priority system.

Basically, I want to make sure everything is getting done. So the priority system makes sure I have that under control.

If I'm at home (which is a rare thing) or stuck in town without a computer (but I can still make phone calls) I use the GTD lists to get as many things of that type done.. so as not to waste time.

It works for me. It came from using a palm pilot with GTD lists.. but making sure I looked at the "ALL" list regularly just to make sure nothing got overlooked.

Ange.

I also try to have as many systems in place as possible angela.

So me and you have suggested urgency/importance, ascaaear complexity/effort(sort of), and castiron importance/effort.

Giving some thought about it, I realized I already deal with Urgency, using my standard Today/Tomorrow/Overdue/This Week smart lists. And complexity and effort are kinda too related together, to the point I don't find it useful to separate the two concepts in RTM.

Castiron's system (Life Balance) seems to be the most relevant in this situation, for me.
Even more so because:
* I don't currently use Priorities because it's too broad a concept (what does it stand for ? Urgency, complexity, importance ? All together or a combination of two ?)
So I could start using it with a clear focus: Determining importance to use in the Quadrants system.
* I sometimes time estimate a task, but not always and I don't actually take advantage of that setting through any smart list (I have a Quick list but I seldom use it)

So this is going to be one of my systems (importance/effort):

Quadrant I - important, quick
Quadrant II - important, long
Quadrant III - not important, quick
Quadrant IV - not important, long

Quadrant I - (priority:1 or priority:2) and (timeEstimate:"< 31 min")
Quadrant II - (priority:1 or priority:2) and (timeEstimate:"> 30 min")
Quadrant III - (priority:3 or priority:none) and (timeEstimate:"< 31 min")
Quadrant IV - (priority:3 or priority:none) and (timeEstimate:"> 30 min")

Just thought I would share it =)
And thanks everyone for the ideas, t'was a nice brainstorming!

Great list suggestions on this thread.

Is there anything smart lists cannot do? ;->

Ranbarton, I'm sure there are a few things then can't do.. but smart lists are what sold me on RTM over other task managers. Sooooo good. :)

bzpilman, I like your quadrant system with time estimates. You might convert me yet!

Just to clarify, 'Important' in my system above isn't depedent on urgency.

So 'Attend military induction' happening next year would be priority one just as paying some bills within a week. By sorting by due date, though, the task wouldn't bother you at the quadrant untill much later.

I'm a Steven Covey fan and actually used to use PlanPlus for Outlook. This is an awesome idea. Thanks for sharing!

Thanks for the smart list settings!