Organizing my day with @RememberTheMilk

Remember the Milk is a great tool for tracking all the stuff I need to do.  If David Allen says the brain is for thinking (not remembering), then I'm so all over that.  I put everything into RTM and then immediately forget about it.  It's surprising to see, even for me, what happens on a Saturday when I don't consult my list.

So they recently had this brilliant blog post about an amazing way to organize and plan for the day.  The writing was superb, the idea fantastic, the author utterly humble.  (I think the author has also been described as handsome, though I don't see it. But I might be biased.)

Unfortunately, by the time the article was posted, it was a bit out of date - the system has been further refined.  This process now takes me less than 10 minutes each morning and really helps me to remain sane and not get overwhelmed when my to-do list is much longer than the available time I know I'll have that day to work on stuff.

If you use Remember the Milk extensively, you might find that you have you could do in a day than you actually have time to do.  This method is designed to get you set for the day.  To start, create five lists:

Today - 0
(due:never OR dueBefore:today OR due:today) AND (priority:1 OR priority:2 OR priority:3 OR priority:none)

Today - 1
priority:1 AND list:"1 - today 0"

Today - 2
priority:2 AND list:"1 - today 0"

Today - 3
priority:3 AND list:"1 - today 0"

Today - 4
priority:none AND list:"1 - today 0"

Today - 5

list:"Today - 2" OR list:"Today - 3" OR list:"Today - 4"

Step 1 - Collect all the possible tasks for today.  

Go to "Today - 0" and type [*] [a] [1] [d] [down-arrow] [enter] [escape].

That selects all items, makes their priority1 and their due date today and then deselects everything.

Step 2 - Plan your day

Your objective is to pick the right number of tasks that you can actually accomplish today.  Go to "Today - 1"

Your goal is to empty "Today - 1"

Use j and k to move up or down the list and select to select items.

Use 2, 3, 4 to prioritize items.

Use P to postpone items to tomorrow. (upper-case P)

Use d to set a due date.

Keep an eye on "Today - 5" to look see how many are in "Today - 2", "Today - 3" and "Today - 4".  Use 2-4 in whatever way works best for you.  For me, I use 2 = before work, 3 = at work/evening, 4 = after kids are in bed.

It may take some time before you have a good handle on what you can have total for a day, and things will always come up, but it's a great way to really force youself to focus on the most important elements.

Step 3 - Get going

Eventually, you have three lists of tasks and one empty list (Today - 1).  You can start attacking your to do list.  

Bonus: What if a list is still overwhelming?

Let's say you start to work on "Today - 2" but it's still overwhelming, or it's a mix of items you can do and stuff you can't yet do (or would rather not do).  You can do a mini-sort moving some items to "Today - 1" to make "Today - 2" shorter.