My 2024 Simple, Focused Todoist Setup. 

That's fantastic! Thank you and I'm so happy to hear I've been able to help.

Hey dude, carl is a racist guy. Be aware . He never respond to asian comments . But he always responds to non-asians comments 🤣

Hahaha glad to help Roman. 🙂

Always happy to help 🙂

Thank you 🙂

That's fantastic to hear. So happy to know it's helped you.

You're welcome.

That's what it's all about; keeping it a simp,e as possible.

You're very welcome, Mayuresh. Thank you for watching 🙂

Thank you. Glad you liked it 🙂

Thank you.

Maybe pin a comment of you explaining the difference between "routines" and "recurring". Cheers!

Aww, thank you.

Hahaha I usually do it in May and Nov 🙂

@@Carl_Pullein I know! Longtime subscribers like me expect these updates like clockwork. 🤣🤣

A routine is a low-value task that just needs to be done. Things like cleaning your home, taking the garbage out, washing the car, writing your grocery list etc. Your recurring areas of focus are important to you. They also include your "core work" -- the work you are employed to do and the tasks you need to do to achieve your goals.

Routines are low-value tasks that can be skipped if there is a lack of time. Taking the garbage out, washing the car, tidying your living room, etc. Areas of focus should not be skipped. that is were you core work and important activities go.

Mostly they will be on my calendar. Things like passport renewal or my residency permit are all on my calendar.

I still use them the same way: P1 Must be done today, P2 tasks for the morning, P3 tasks for the afternoon, P4 evening, and everything else.

That's right. Todoist needs to show you a realistic list of tasks. Too many and you'll stop using it.

Yes, there is a reason. Over time, categories will change, and new ones may be added. When you do a task, will not change.

Hmm that's a good one. It was something I realised was causing a big drag on my system, so I looked at the cause of it. Why did I need to follow people up? What I discovered was it was caused largely by my communication (I wasn't clear enough about what was expected and by when) and so I changed my communication style. This almost completely eliminated the need to follow up. For the rest, I will add a task labeled "Communications". Another one to watch out for is incomplete tasks disguised as a "follow-up". If you need to receive a presentation from a colleague, the task is not complete until you have the presentation. If you ask your colleague for the presentation file, that's not completed the task. Instead, you would reschedule the task (and perhaps add a note that you asked your colleague)

Yes, that's a critical part of the process: manually moving tasks to their respective folders. It forces me to think about the task: Do I really need to do it? And if so, when can I do it?

If you have any grouping or sorting set up in your inbox, you won't be able to move anything. Turn those off (or reset them to default) and you will be able to move tasks by drag and drop.

Hi Gary, that’s done when I do the weekly planning-something I never miss. That’s the time when I slow down, and carefully consider whether a task genuinely needs doing the following week or not. If it doesn’t, it does’t move. If it does it moves and is dated.

@@Carl_Pullein Thanks Carl. That makes sense, thanks. It looks like that is what I need to be doing better. Spending time checking in with myself rather than expecting my life to be run 100% by tooling.

@@Carl_Pullein Thanks - sometimes things dont need to be done a particular week but they maybe important or have been on your to do list forever - at some point they need to be done. Guess if its been there a long time, you can just make it next week regardless.

@@raia9 I pick those tasks up when I do my weekly plan. I had "sort out my credit cards" on my list for a long time (2 years!). It was in my Next Month folder, and each month, I needed to look for a two-hour block where I could go to the bank and sit for that time filling out forms (it's a nightmare in Korea). Last month, I finally determined to go and sort it out and brought the task forward to this week and did it. (I enjoyed a glass of bubbly to celebrate afterwards hahaha)

Routine tasks are low-value and just need to be done type tasks (take garbage out, wash the car, do the laundry, etc) that have no impact on your goals, projects or even life. Areas of focus are the important things in life. Your core work, your relationships and the tasks that bring meaning and value to your life. I separate them because on days when it's been busy, I'm tired and am unable to make clear coherent decisions, the decision is about what to do next is already made (never a routine task, always an area of focus.)

No. I will reschedule them for the next available day I have time to work on them. With my book project, that was a daily recurring task every Monday to Friday as I needed to write for at least an hour a day for twelve months.

That's an interesting one. I've been managing my projects in Evernote for years and the scenario you mention has never happened. It's not that you are keeping a separate projects task list in your notes app. Todoist tells me to work on a given project, and all the information I need to work on that project is contained in a project notebook. If I need to write a report, update my boss on the status, contact an engineer or follow up with someone, it's all there in the project master note. I can see what's missing instantly from the master project note. Today, for instance, my publisher sent me a final list of a few things that need to be checked and corrected in my book. I copied the list (six items) to a new note in the book's project notebook, created a task in Todoist that says "Fix these errors" and linked to the note in Evernote. Then I looked at my calendar to see when I would be able to find 90 minutes to do the work (tomorrow morning), blocked the time out and told my publisher I would have those corrections completed in the next four days. If an emergency happens or for whatever reason, I am unable to do the work tomorrow, I still have three days to finish what needs to be done and meet my commitment.

@@Carl_Pullein So glad I asked! I had misunderstood, you’re right. I guess it was based on prior videos where I saw beautiful tables that tracked the stages, if you will, of a project. But I still take your point. It’s not an excruciating *list* the way it ends up in Task Managers that are trying to do the work of full PKMs. I really like your thinking here, particularly because most of us are never taught to wonder if we happen to be one of those people who finds those long lists totally intimidating and demoralizing, not inspiring or clarifying. Since I do happen to be one of those people, I’m gonna start looking at how to move toward the way you do things! Thanks so much for the generous reply. 🙏🏼

@@Carl_PulleinThat’s a great reply. Thanks for taking the time, Carl, as it really clarified the point for me too. Really helpful, as the OP says.

@@marktodman Your welcome, Mark.

Lamentablemente no conozco Amplenote. Lo siento

Hi Ritchie, I'm afraid I don't know. I would suggest reaching out to Todoist for help. They may be able to diagnose the issue.

Hi Aaron, I don't recommend allowing tasks to enter your system directly. Instead, I recommend throwing everything into your inbox directly to slow down and think before you let something in. Processing your inbox is a critical part of reducing the number of tasks that enter your system.

@@Carl_Pullein Great way to think about it. Will see how it goes!

The Time Sector System is about managing tasks by when you will do them. In Todoist, I have my own particular way of organising my tasks that Todoist allows me to do. If I were following the Time Sector System in Apple Reminders, I would not be able to use labels in this way. So, this set up, while using TSS, wouldn't be relevant to the course.

@@Carl_Pullein I use ToDoist too and been following your system but my question was if there would be an updated version when you switched to labels, but maybe it doesn't matter.

@@modestbukowski, I don't have any plans to do so at the moment, as it would only relate to Todoist. That coul change if Apple enables this feature in Reminders, though.

Dashboard is something I no longer use. It showed my today and my inbox in one window. The over 90 and 365 days is a way to filter tasks to show only those that have been sitting around for a long time and have not been done.

@@Carl_Pullein Much appreciated - Its amazing how responsive you are to peoples questions - a testimony of our well your system works.

@@raia9 Aww thank you, Raia.

I have, I don't need all those notifications and going back to my analogue watch I no longer have to worry about battery life.

Yes. Using "!" before the project name will eliminate the project from your filter. A workaround would be to use a service such as Buffer and do all your social media posting in one go for the week. (Saves a ton of time)

Evernote's fine. (and getting better each week under their new owners). If Apple Notes was as good as it was today ten years ago, I would likely have used Apple Notes.

@@Carl_Pullein okay thank you 😀

There always needs to be some flexibility. As I already know I will do that task next week. I don't need to create more work for myself by removing the date and then moving the task to Next Week. Then when I do my weekly planning re-add the date and move it back to This Week. If I didn't know when I would do the task, I would then remove the date and move it to another folder. The whole point of this system is to slow you down and encourage you to think about what you will do. Those steps are by design.

@@Carl_Pullein Oh ok in that case my system can somehow relate to yours.. I have an "Actions" project where everything needs to have a Date (Your THIS WEEK project), and a "Later" project where I put everything that I dont know when I'm gonna do it (Your other folders). Cheers!