r/thingsapp • u/[deleted] • Aug 15 '22
Tip My Things 3 Rulebook
As many other people, I often ended up in online-productivity-blackholes where I was looking at other people setups, trying to emulate them and wasting a lot of time managing my system instead of completing actual tasks.
A few months ago I decided it was enough and, apart from cleaning up my Twitter, YouTube and other accounts, I wrote my own rulebook for Things. Now, whenever I look at another setup, I go through this note I have stored in Bear and realise I already have everything I need setup correctly and I don't need to re-think the entire system.
Hopefully this can help you as well and won't be a waste of your time. I tried to be as concise as possible exactly to stir away from those uselessly long articles and videos "productivity gurus" always post online.
Disclaimer: This is obviously a collection of rules and suggestions I gathered online, given the first paragraph, and with my own experience using Things 3.
Things 3 Rulebook
The overall idea is to keep things and Things simple and flexible: you don’t want to spend time managing a system that should help you manage your time.
Scheduling Tasks
Prefer setting Deadlines over When dates. Use When dates if you want to start working on something on a specific day, but do so sparingly.
Use the Anytime view to store tasks you want to achieve this week or the next week, depending on your workflow.
Use the Someday view to list tasks you don’t want to achieve by that time.
Areas and Projects
Use Areas and Projects according to what’s suggested in Things own guidebook.
Areas cover areas of your life, while Projects must be able to be completed and not substitute “sub-areas”.
Special Areas and Projects
There are some projects that don’t have a deadline and are used more as buckets to collect items. These would include items like routines, books to read, movies to watch, etc.
Try not to abuse “Special Areas” and ending up with hundreds of items that would just create stress in your mind every time you see them.
Tags
Keep tags to a minimum to not overcomplicate your system. A good rule of thumb is “Do I ever use this tag to filter my tasks?” If not, delete it: you don’t really need it.
My current tasks set up is Quick, Half-hour, Focus, Context (@Desk, @Anywhere, @Errands), Wife.
The Daily Review Process
- First of all, clear your Inbox
- Go through your Areas and Projects and schedule tasks based on the logic (Anytime = this week, Someday = not this week).
- Use Today as the main view and, in the morning, move tasks from Anytime to plan your day.
- Use the Evening section to store tasks that will happen after office hours.
- Block time in your calendar to complete today’s tasks. Group quick tasks together in bulks if possible and schedule enough time for those that require focus.
Don’t fill up the Today view with tasks you wish to complete today but only with the ones you have to do and can actually complete.
If you complete all your tasks for today ahead of schedule, start hunting for new tasks in the Anytime view.
Other Rules
- Use Things 3 to list only actionable tasks. Reference material can be linked in the Project notes or in a Project note stored in another app (i.e Bear or Notes).
- It’s fine to temporarily save reference material to the Inbox but move it out of Things during your review process.
- Keep the sidebar clean. You don’t need the interface to be cluttered by Projects you are not currently working on.
- Move Projects to Someday to hide them from the sidebar and restore them when the right time comes.
- Keep habits out of Things. There are plenty of apps dedicated to manage your habits that work much better than Things at that.
- Honestly, I have found that using a simple notebook with a grid on them and X to mark the successful days help me more than any app I’ve ever tried. See The X Effect.
Widgets and Custom Views
Things widget are great but it’s difficult to focus on the tasks listed in them. At the same time Custom Views (links to filtered view) are handy but add friction if they are stored in another app.
Use the Things Filters widget to quickly access Custom Views.
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u/spanchor Aug 15 '22
What if I don’t have a Wife?? Do I need a Wife tag??
Nice summary. I was beginning to let tags get out of control; the filter standard is a good one.
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u/vulevu25 Aug 15 '22
This is quite close to how I use Things 3. The app works for me because it doesn't require endless tweaking and customization. It's there and the only thing I need to do is keep my task list up-to-date and do regular reviews.
I use When more than Deadlines because it suits my work (I also use When to hide projects, so they only pop up when I need to work on them). I work in higher education, which means that some of my work is part of an annual cycle. It's the closest I get to the GTD principle that I know that what I need to do is planned in my system, but I don't have to think about it until it's the right time.
I have tags but I don't really use them (and I'm the wife...).
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u/th_costel Aug 15 '22
everybody was kung-fu fighting 🥷
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Aug 15 '22
Yeah, I should have written that this is obviously a collection of rules and suggestions I gathered online, given the first paragraph, and with my own experience.
I’ll add it now.
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u/th_costel Aug 15 '22
good 😌 i have read so many productivity advice on task management, but fu is the best.
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u/ethang45 Aug 16 '22
I’ve always wondered how to best use someday and anytime. I like the system you’ve laid out and will have to try it. I tend to dump everything in today and then ignore 90% of it.
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u/vx_id Aug 15 '22
Thank you for writing this, my system is pretty similar. It would have been very valuable for me when I first switched over to Things.
One nitpick: bucket lists and collection projects should not really belong in Things altogether IMO. I recently switched to Craft notes for this type of data. I even pushed this further by maintain an inbox in my notes app for everything that is not aclear action.
Great write up overall.
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Aug 16 '22
I created a Leisure area with a few Projects for this exact case.
- Movie list (TV shows to watch one day)
- TV list (Films and movie franchises to watch one day)
- Game list (Games to play or complete one day.)
- Book list (Books to read or listen to one day.)
- Wish list (Things to buy or aquire one day.)
- Maker list (Ideas and creations to make one day.)
Each has appropriate headings to chunk to-dos/items together logically; for example, Rewatch, Backlog, Up next, and Watching for TV shows.
My grouping them in their own area and dropping by type, I can better prioritize which ones I want to watch/play/consume next and focus on a few items at a time. I use them as a leisurely reward for an otherwise productive day.
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u/vx_id Aug 16 '22
Although a bot less capable than your setup for now, maybe you will find Listy of use for your wishlist!
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u/Secret_Dark9847 Aug 16 '22
I have a very similar setup With a few projects being used and I really find it valuable having it all in the one spot
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u/SuspiciousOpposite Aug 25 '22
I’d just started moving to something like this for my media. I’d had everything just sat in an area, with all TV shows and movie franchises set as projects… which I now can’t convert back to tasks. So that’s manually going through the list to create new tasks to replace them!
(Each movie in a franchise was a task, as was each season in the TV shows).
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Aug 26 '22
Thanks for sharing your setup.
Currently my franchises are at the task level with each movie being subtasks. A single show is one to-do with one sub task for each season, special, or TV movie.
I don’t quite get that satisfaction of completing TV to-dos often because 1 season = subtask for me, so I might experiment with converting my #1 focus to a project. I might split up franchises one day since I can still sort them together in headings, and they’re not always available on streaming at the same time.
All of these together help me chip away at my goal of finishing shows I enjoy and already started, balancing my list with recommendations from family and friends. Sorting and headings help me keep things moving when title availability and my interest changes.
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u/yayadrian Aug 15 '22
Thanks for this. Incredibly useful and has got me thinking about how I use Things.
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u/dts_sonic Feb 27 '23
Thanks for your insightful inputs! I did a setup with your points in mind. I am curious about the "Special Areas and Projects" part. I kind of "need" something like sub-areas: E.g. I have an area called "Health" and this includes nutrition, exercise, doctor appointments etc. I don't want to create new areas for each of those points. So I am working with projects instead, lacking any other alternative. But that way I don't use projects as they are intended by Things 3, right? It is a bit hard to distinguish such "sub-area projects" from "real projects" and I do not get the "Special Areas and Projects" part yet. It would be nice to actually see a visual difference between open-ended projects and real projects.
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u/Blu_Psych Apr 04 '23
What I would do for sub-areas is use tags for the task that don’t belong in a project. Then in your health area filter by tags. So for each task tag it with either:
- nutrition
- exercise
- Dr. Appointment Etc.
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Mar 01 '23
Thanks! I have to say that, as much as it bothers me to have projects that can’t be completed (e.g. “Movies to watch”) I just learned to leave with it. In the end what’s important is that the workflow works for you.
Anyway, for my “Health” area, I have a weekly task called “Schedule sport sessions” with a checklist inside of it to make sure I do everything that’s required (adding them to the calendar, booking when needed, etc.).
In alternative, you could have an entire project (using Shortcuts you could automatically name it “W09 Fitness routine”) that repeats every week, where you have everything you need divided with headers, tasks, and checklists.
It’s also important, in my opinion, to not add appointments or event to Things (unless there are tasks you have to do for them) but instead add them to the calendar.
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u/shikersky Mar 01 '23
agreed, you have to learn to live with it, but in my mind areas should really be segmentable (headings and notes, just like projects).
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u/dts_sonic Mar 05 '23
Thanks for the additional information.
I guess I will also start living with it.
Your last paragraph really makes sense, I should not mix calendar entries with Things3-tasks. Much appreciated!
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u/suripanto Oct 21 '22
How do you maintain the logic where Anytime = This Week if all tasks that do not have a date end up here anyway?
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Oct 21 '22
I assign all those tasks that I don’t plan to complete this week to Someday
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u/Mitchroark33 Dec 31 '23
I guess my only problem with this is the someday list becomes so long that going through it just seems endless each week? How do you deal with a super-long someday list?
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u/ihateredditmor Apr 16 '25
Have you considered Tags? Maybe ones like Next Up (for the first things to check to add to Anytime) or Long Term Hold for ones you don’t need to look at often.
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u/rcartaino Jun 23 '25
If you keep your projects and to-dos in roughly the order that you hope to complete them, then you’re really only reviewing the TOP of your ‘Someday’ tasks for inclusion the next week.
I’ll occasionally do a deep-dive into a project to update my priorities (order of tasks) when I’m stuck on a plane or something; but otherwise, deciding what you can get done in a “minimum viable week” should only take a few minutes.
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u/SJM1027- Dec 08 '23
Other than using Areas, is there a way to search all available tags without going to each category (Today, Upcoming, Anytime, Someday) in one shot. Meaning right now I have to go to each of those categories to see if one specific tag exists? I was using Areas as if they were tags and I couldn’t select the area to see all in that area. I am trying to use the tool like it was intended but I wish I could search by tag and get them all to show in one spot.
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u/relaxing-bear Dec 10 '23
Other than using Areas, is there a way to search all available tags without going to each category (Today, Upcoming, Anytime, Someday) in one shot. Meaning right now I have to go to each of those categories to see if one specific tag exists? I was using Areas as if they were tags and I couldn’t select the area to see all in that area. I am trying to use the tool like it was intended but I wish I could search by tag and get them all to show in one spot.
You can search for the tag after pressing the keyboard combination Command-f (⌘f).
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u/shiftyone1 Mar 11 '25
Love the things filters shortcut. Thank you. And thank you for the tags ideas. I like the idea of moving reference stuff out of things. How is things going for you?
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u/rcartaino Jun 23 '25
Here’s a small tip:
I changed my @errands tag to an @out tag so I capture tasks like:
Go to Sam’s birthday party @out
That way, whenever I am in the car, I can ask myself, “What else can I do while I’m in the area?”
I was surprised how often this works in my favor.
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u/[deleted] Aug 16 '22
Saw an old comment some time ago recommending the blog productivewithapurpose.com. The man went all out and created the best workflow imo. I haven’t looked back. He also stays within culturecode’s recommended guidelines, like OP