How To Let Your To Do List Decide What’s Next

I stumbled across a nifty little tool in the to do application that I use that I just have to pass along. 

I am currently using Toodledo (affiliate link) for my to do list. I have been using this application for a long time, so it’s always surprising to find new features that I wasn’t aware of existing. 

In Toodledo, you can go into the Scheduler Tool and you can tell Toodledo how much time you have and in what context you are working in, and it will give you a list of tasks you can accomplish right now.

For example, if I find myself with a five minute pocket of time between meetings and I am at home, I can pull up the Scheduler feature, put in 5 minutes and that the Context is home and it will give me a list of tasks I can accomplish in 5 minutes or less at this time. 

What??? 

This is very helpful for me because my to do list is soooo long that it can be hard to filter it correctly to find the quick tasks I can get done now versus tasks that will take longer or that I can’t do now (I’m at home and can’t complete and errand at the store, for example) 

What are some gotchas? One is that you have to have your tasks flushed out to include the estimated time it will take to complete so that the tool can find those tasks by estimated time to complete. It’s also helpful to have a Context applied to the task so you can filter by that field as well. 

Once you have the right details completed, here are some ways I have used this tool: 

I’m at home and I have 5 minutes before I need to start something. I can pull up a list of 5 minutes (or less) tasks that are under the @Home context. I can complete those tasks that can only be done at home. 

I am on my lunch hour and I have 60 minutes to make some phone calls. I have a Context called @Calls and I can pull up a list of calls I need to make. I can make some doctor appointments, return some messages, and batch those calls to get them off my list. 

I am out running errands and I have 30 minutes. I can pull up the Scheduler tool, tell it I have 30 minutes and that I’m looking for errands, and it will suggest errands that I can complete (returns, bill pay, etc) 

If you’re not using Toodledo, you could do something similar by using filters or creating filters to pull up your most-used scheduling ask. 

Anything that helps me to determine exactly what I can do in the pocket of time that I have in the location that I am in is a big win. Would this help you?

Call to Action: In your own to do app, do you have a similar feature or a way you can filter or search to help you choose tasks that best suit the current time and location?