My ideal task management system

todo-wishlist.md

My Ideal Task Management System

I’m not asking for much, really. I just want a task management system that provides me with the mechanisms I think I need in order to organise my life. Most of these are based on features I currently use in OmniFocus, and those I’ve wished were there at one time or another. In no particular order, they are:

• An inbox which easily allows me to capture new tasks without thinking about organising them. I should be able to enter items into the inbox through a global shortcut on Mac OS X (ctrl-alt-space being my current one) and through a seamless interface on iOS (an obvious, always-available button in-app and importing Reminders from the native iOS app, so that I get Siri integration). And I should be able to capture emails into the inbox in such a way that it’s straightforward to get back to the original email (for replying).

• It should be straightforward to work through the Inbox, moving individual tasks into the right place inside existing projects, or creating new projects and fleshing out the necessary actions, then pushing that project into the right place in the system’s overall structure (roles, areas, etc). It should also be simple to add metadata to these tasks/projects as I’m fleshing them out.

• The ability to capture additional context/detail for the task. This can either be enough information to complete the task without referring to another source and/or a URL link back to the source material for further information. Often I’ll capture a link to a web URL, an email, or a note in Evernote. Ideally, these links should work on both Mac OS X and iOS if the appropriate apps/URL handlers are installed.

• Offline support on Mac OS X and iOS. I should be able to work with my task lists offline, and know that the data will be quickly, reliably synchronised back when I go online again (even if the app is not in the foreground).

• Breaking down tasks into enough detail that each individual action is achievable in a reasonable time. More than one level of nesting is often useful here.

• Being able to group tasks and projects into roles, areas of focus, etc. Grouping projects into folders works well here, and allows me to ‘focus’ on individual roles at a time, while still not losing track of everything else. Combined with the previous point, arbitrary nesting of folders/projects/tasks is awesome. Following “strict GTD” often means I have 100-odd small projects on the go, so a flat list is … daunting.

• Flexible repeating tasks that recur reliably. I need weekday, daily, monthly and quarterly recurrences, at least. Being able to set the time a recurring task becomes available on a day (e.g. the task reminding me to take my bed time medication) is very useful. Sometimes I want to recur single tasks (e.g. take medication), but other times I want to recur entire projects (e.g. submit quarterly VAT return).

• Task dependencies. Some projects can’t be started until others are completed. Some projects are linear in nature, while others can have tasks running in parallel. Being able to keep track of these dependencies, and only show available tasks (i.e. those that are not dependent on the completion of something else) is invaluable in making my todo list seem less daunting. Tasks can also be dependent on a start time (e.g. I can’t submit this month’s payroll until the 6th of the month, so there’s no point showing me the actions of that project until then).

• A “today” view, where I can I can see a list of tasks (or the next action of projects) that I have committed to doing today during my daily planning session. I would like to arbitrarily rearrange this list so that it’s roughly in order of how I’m planning to tackle it, with the most important item at the top.

• Deadlines for tasks. I tend to use deadlines sparingly, and only if there really is a hard external deadline. But for such tasks, it’s important.

• Full text search. Even with regular reviews, I still duplicate/lose tasks and sometimes even entire projects!

• Tagging, maybe, though in practice I find tagging a better idea in theory than in practice because I’m terrible at applying a more constrained system to an unconstrained space… Perhaps some of the above can be implemented by sensible application of tags.

• Easy review, so that I can be confident that every project has an achievable next action, that I’ve captured everything I need to, and that everything in the system is still relevant.

• The ability to capture, but defocus someday/maybe tasks & projects, so that they don’t clutter up my day to day use of the system, but they’re still visible during review.

I’m not asking for a lot, really.

Hey Mathie,
Thanks for sharing how you feel Wunderlist could be made better for you. Using our Mac app, you can create a custom 'Global Quick Add' shortcut, to do exactly that - quickly add to-dos and thoughts to the Inbox. You can find it under the Shortcuts tab in the App Preferences. As for Siri integration, unfortunately hasn't opened up access to it yet, but you can 'hack' around it by creating a contact called Wunderlist, then send an email to 'me@wunderlist.com' which will add your dictation via our Mail to Wunderlist feature. Plus you can always forward your emails to your Wunderlist straight from your inbox. If you use Chrome, Firefox or Safari and Gmail or Outlook on the web, adding the Add to Wunderlist browser extension will place a button directly on the page for even faster adding.

Once you're ready to move those to-dos out of the Inbox, it's as easy as clicking and dragging them to their respective lists. Both our iOS and Mac apps offer offline support, although right now it's best to manually sync to make sure all changes show up across your devices. We'll be taking the latter step out though in our next major update, Wunderlist 3, with real time sync. That means that most of the time, you'll never have to think about it. Another part of the update will be #tags and search for all our platforms (currently only available on Web, Mac & Windows). A little later on in 2014 we also plan on tackling a way to group lists as well as improve our reminders feature.

At the core of Wunderlist is simplicity. We're big believers that we should spend more time doing and less time organising what we need to do. But I do see how features like nested lists and to-dos can be helpful for the way you like to work — I'll bring it up at our next team meeting.

Cheers,
Simon from 6Wunderkinder