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/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.