This week, I am revealing my new Todoist
setup. And I'm really excited to show you
this.
Hello and welcome to another
episode of my Working With Todoist
series. My name is Carl Pullein and this
week it's all about a new organisation
structure that I have set up in Todoist.
Now, I did reveal this a couple of weeks
ago in my Working With Apple series, and
if you didn't see that, there is a link
up there for you. But this week, I wanted
to show you how I'm actually using this
in my very own Todoist because that's
the application that I'm using every
single day. Now, the reason behind this is
because when I did my end of year review
last year, I discovered that, first of all,
I wasn't using labels--not in the
strictest sense, at all. And I certainly
wasn't getting the most value out of
projects. So that got me to
question some of my assumptions about
how I'm organising my actual to-do list
manager. And, in the end, I discovered that
really the most important thing is first
of all I have to identify what tasks are
important--which ones are going to have
the biggest impact on my day--and
secondly which ones need to be done this
week, or next week, or perhaps this month
or next month or maybe a little bit long
term. And that's essentially how I came
up with this structure. Now I'm sure it's
not unique. I'm sure there are other
systems very similar to this but I've
been testing this now for over a month
and I have to say it works brilliantly.
It's really speeded up my system. So
without further ado, before I take you
into my Todoist, I would just like to
ask if you do get any value from this
video then please hit that like button
below. And if you haven't subscribed to
my channel yet and you want to get the
latest tips, tricks
news about Todoist, then, please
subscribe to the channel. And one more
thing before we do go into Todoist, if
you have any questions about this system
I will be most grateful if you would
just add them to the comments section
below and I will get around to answering
them as quickly as I can because I think
this system really could help you. Okay,
it is now time, finally, to take you in to
my very own Todoist.
Okay so here it is.
Here is my new organisation structure.
Now a couple of weeks ago, I explained
why I had stopped using labels and
labels as I will show you right now are
empty. I have no labels. Labels are no
longer part of my whole system. But like
I explained in that video, it does depend
on the type of work you do. If you're in
sales and you have a lot of calls to
make and follow-ups, then labels are
going to be very useful. But for me, I
don't have any of that kind of work to
do. So in my case, labels are just not
useful. But today's purpose is to explain
my new organisation structure
that I've been working on since October
last year. But I wanted to make sure it
worked properly and effectively before I
announced it or told people how I am
organising things. Now I'll go into more
detail in a future episode about my
purpose and objectives I have covered
this in a video anyway. But I that is
still there. This is an essentially a
project that contains my weekly
objectives, my monthly objectives and
purpose that I'm trying to accomplish in
this monthly. So to end up like a
dashboard view to keep me focused on
what I have decided is important to me
right now. And I will put a link
to the video that I covered this at the
end of this video. What I really want to
show you is this area here. This Week,
Next Week, This Month, Next Month,
Long-Term and Routines. Now these
projects. Let me start with Next Week
because... let me start with Next
Week because this is just the simple
project this is basically
the tasks that I have decided I will do
next week. Now there's a reason why I'm
not showing you this week right now is
because that's a little bit more
complicated but for now this is
basically how I throw in tasks. So if I
collect something in my inbox and I
decide, ok I cannot do that this week, I
just do not have the time, then I am
going to just throw and drag and drop
that task straight to this next week. I
don't need to date anything. Obviously
I'm not using labels, I certainly don't
need to flag anything because we're
talking about next week and next week is
not something I am concerned about right
now. I am only concerned about this week.
So this is these are four tasks that I
just decided I'm going to do next week. Now,
of course we're right at the very
beginning of February that I'm doing
this, so what about tasks that I think
well I need to do this month but I don't
need to do next month? Well that's why we
have this month folder. And I can do this
in here and just throw in the tasks that
I really want to get completed this week.
Now you'll see here that I've got a
reminder task. I still use my reminder
tasks. My gym membership is due. Every
three months I pay my gym membership.
Every three months and that's due on the
25th of February. Now whether I pay that
on the 25th, I might pay it on the 23rd, I
might pay it on the 22nd, I might
actually not pay it until the 26th or
27th so what I will do is I will change
the date. I don't need to complete this
task but when it comes up I will just
change the date to three months in the
future and it'll just still come up as I
reminder tasks. So essentially because
this is a project view, I can drop that
down to the bottom and this is basically
why I don't need my tickler file anymore
either because my ticklers can just come
up in roughly around about the time that
they are due and I can make a decision.
And say I have actually dated this
because this is a genuinely dated task.
And then we've got next month and that's
for things at the moment right at the
very beginning of February, so I've not
added anything for next month yet but as
the month progresses I'm sure they'll be
tasks that I think I don't need to do
this month. I will do that this next
month and I just throw it in there. And
then I have long term. And these are the
tasks that I really... These would be like
some day maybe if you
things that I really want to have a look
at. And again, once a month I will
actually have a look at this and I will
see do I really want to do these tasks
or not? And if I do, I can actually bring
them into this week, next week or this
month depending on the time. And of
course, I've got my routines. My routines
haven't changed because I don't want to
be messing around with those daily tasks that just need to be done. They're going to
come up and I'm going to start moving them
forward when and I just don't want them
filtering into this and confusing the
whole system. So I've kept my routines
they are all still there, just down at
the bottom of my task list. So
essentially now let's move into This
Week because I want to show you this one.
This week is kind of important. These are
all the tasks that I've decided going to
do this week and what I've done is here
they are all dated and they are all in
for this week. However, when I was doing
my when I was doing my cleaning up and
changing Todoist, I did have a load of
areas of focus and areas of mastery but
what I noticed in there was there was a
lot of tasks that were just recurring
because these were the things that are
moving me forward. This is why they're
different from routines. Routines do not
move me forward. Routines do not help me
to improve. To achieve my goals. They
just have to be done. they are admin tasks
if you like. But areas of focus, the
recurring tasks on areas of focus, are
important. These things do move me
forward like writing my blog post,
writing and preparing my Learning Centre
Learning Note, preparing next week's
podcast and taking a picture of my body
transformation because I'm doing some
testing with some exercise and diet
programmes at the moment. And then some
posting this week's blog post and
editing this week but these things move
me forward and I want them coming up. So
they are important and they come up
every week. So I have kept these in. They
are already dated and as they are
important tasks they are already flagged
their pre-flagged, so that means when I do
my Focus 10, what used I used to call the
Golden 10, when I do the Focus 10
everyday I can see immediately the areas
of focus that I want to make sure I'm
doing. Plus anything else that I've
scheduled for the week also where I
been able to do and I've done here is
I've used this as a section, as you can
see, it's a section where I know there are
13 regular tasks. What I find is is if
this week once I've done my week review
has more than 25 tasks, I'm in trouble, I
am going to really struggle to complete
more than those tasks. I just over the
last six weeks or so, that I've been
running this system that is what I found.
Once it gets to 30 tasks, it becomes
meaningless because I know I'm not going
to complete all those tasks this week. So
I'm being very careful monitoring this.
How many tasks are in this area here
because these are additional tasks that
I have decided want to be done this week
some of which have to be done this week
and that is why I'm being very careful
with this number. I'm checking that
number when I do my week review on a
Sunday because I don't want that to go
above 30. If it goes above 30, I know I am
going to really struggle. Now this system,
I must point out, will probably not work
for everyone. If you work in a
project-based environment and you're
working with other people in a
collaborative sense, this probably will
not work for you. You will need to
organise by projects. But for a lot of
people out there, if you just stop and
ask yourself how how often do I go into
my project folders and work from them? If
you find that you very very rarely do.
This might be a system that could work a
lot better for you. It's working
brilliantly for me, it's saving a lot of
processing time and my weekly review, which
used to take 40 to 50 minutes, now only
takes about 20 minutes because I'm just
moving things forward and
double-checking that they are still
relevant. So there you go I'm going to cover
some more of this over the next couple
of weeks just to give you, and also
answer any questions. I'm sure there's
going to be a lot of questions about this
and I will cover that those in some
future episodes and this to show you how
it works. How it operates on a day to day
basis. But for today, I just wanted to
give you an overview of how this is
working, how I use it and why I have
changed over to this system. Well thank
you very much for watching this episode.
It just remains for me now to wish you
all a very very productive week.
Thank you very much for watching this video.
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