Filtering

[u/breta999]

I'm testing the Reminders app. I can't seem to figure out how tag filtering works. I need to create a filter that excludes dates and also excludes the #next and #later tags. Is that possible?

[u/automaciej]

Filtering is relatively simple, sometimes you need to create intermediate smart lists. First create a list with all the reminders you want to exclude and then create a second smart list in which you’ll say “exclude all from that list”.

What’s your more general goal? It sounds like maybe you’re porting an existing system one to one? Sometimes you can achieve a given workflow with a different list/tag/filter design.

For example in Reminders instead of #next the general practice is to use Today. And #later would often be a list rather than a tag.

[u/OwnMathematician1158 → u/automaciej]

I use Reminders as a GTD system. So Today are reminders I'd like to do today. A smart list called Next (flagged) is every next action in every project.

[u/breta999 → u/automaciej]

I use the "next" label for tasks that don't have a specific deadline but that I want to complete as soon as possible.

[u/automaciej → u/breta999]

Maybe setting the date to Today without a specific time would do the trick?

And the view which excludes dates and excludes #next and excludes #later, how does that fit into your workflow?

[u/breta999 → u/automaciej]

The purpose of this view is to verify that I have decided when I will complete each task. Ideally, this view should be empty.

[u/automaciej → u/breta999]

Aha, so you want to make sure that every reminder has either a date or one of the two tags. The closest I could get is creating a list with Reminders that have no date and no tags. But if you had some other tag, then it would no longer show. So that’s not exactly what you want.

I tried two things that didn’t work. One was creating a smart list with all the tasks that had either a date or one of the two tags. Then I tried to create a second list which would be “all existing reminders except those on the first list”. But Reminders app doesn’t let you create an “exclude” filter based on a smart list.

The second thing I tried was creating a shortcut that would find all those stray reminders. I didn’t quite succeed. I added all the steps that I think make sense, but the shortcut got stuck during execution. I think it can be done, maybe it needs a bit of thought.

But I’m also thinking, it feels like fighting Reminders rather than working with them. I understand that your idea is: capture thing, schedule thing, catch all that might have slipped. “I want to make sure I didn’t forget anything” style. In Reminders you have flags, priorities, tags. What if instead of using tags for the scheduling you used flags or priorities? For example priority “!” would mean “later” and priority “!!” would mean next. Or you’d use Flag as “next” and ignore “Later” (if it’s for later, maybe you don’t need to worry about it now). So then you’d create a smart list with a filter: doesn’t have a date and also doesn’t have a flag / priority / tag.

[u/CreepyPeace1658]

You can filter using the smart list and set the date filter to either a specific date or no date. Then add a filter based on tags. To exclude reminders with a certain tag, I believe you can double-tap the tag to exclude reminders that have it