Productivity Automation Part I: The Repeating Task List

Posted on November 18, 2010 by LJ Earnest
Categories: Productivity

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How many things that you do are actually things you do repeatedly? I’m willing to guess there are quite a few.

Much of my daily activity is comprised of repeating tasks. Whether they are household, computer, or work related, the majority of my tasks on any given day are the little things that make life run smoother. If I forget, there might not be major consequences…or not.

One of the things I like to do is to automate things in my life. The less I have to think about things, the less likely it is that I will forget to do it.

Tomorrow I will tackle automating computer tasks.

Part I: My Repeating Tasks

I love using an electronic task system because it will remind me to do repetitive things at the right time. While none of these things is particularly earth-shaking, they are things that can have consequences if left undone.

I’ve used repeating tasks since I first went electronic with the DayTimer Software, and I would never consider using a system that doesn’t allow for that.

In Remember The Milk, the majority of my “stuff” lives in two lists: “weeklies” and “monthlies”. Weekly tasks are ones that recur every week. Monthly tasks are things that recur on a monthly basis (like the 3rd Thursday of every month).

For example, I know that every other Friday I need to pay my daughter’s allowance. My task list automatically puts that on the list for that day, so I have a reminder that I need to do it. I also know that every four months I will need to look at my credit report, and the reminder pops up on the first of the month in November, March and July.

Setting Up A Repeating Task List

You don’t need an electronic task list in order to make repeating tasks work. In fact, I had a backup of my repeating tasks in a text document as a safeguard after my PDA died and I found myself missing repeating tasks. (see “Living without my PDA”)

I have a very detailed explanation of how I do this in the article “Replacing Redo With Bonsai”. I used this method when I moved from a PDA to Remember The Milk, and I still keep it up to date against the possiblity that I might not have access to RTM.

This first level of automated reminders saves me a lot of effort in trying to remember little things that, if left undone, can cause problems.

Photo by Andrew Turner. I know the photo has nothing to do with the post, but I love these little rabbits!

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