Remember the Milk is one of the most popular online “To Do” list web applications. In 2008, it won a Webware 100 reward in the productivity category. I’ve been using RTM to keep track of my daily tasks for about 7 months, so I thought I’d explain a bit about how I use it.
You’ve probably heard about David Allen and his book “Getting Things Done.” Although I haven’t read “Getting Things Done,” I’ve gathered quite a bit of info about Allen’s methods from around the web, and have learned a lot about how to build a personal productivity system just by browsing through the Remember the Milk user forums. Although there are other online task applications that offer more features—many that are even geared towards GTD—the “general-purpose-ness” of RTM has a certain sweetness to it that makes it my current choice. RTM doesn’t have many special categories to label your task with, but that’s okay: my system heavily relies on tagging. Not only does this make it easy to use and maintain, but it also gives me the ability to build an entirely new system without worrying about the application’s constraints, if I ever wanted to.
There are three foundations rules to my system:
- Every task in my system is either a lone task or a part of a project.
- Every task is either next, waiting, future, someday.
- Every task can only be done in a certain context.
The first rule should be rather obvious: everything that needs to be done either completes the goal or is part of a bigger picture. Single tasks get a “lone” tag, while tasks belonging to a project receive a tag called “-project_name.” Yes, the dash is supposed to be there. Preceding certain types of tags with special symbols is something I learned from the Remember The Milk forums. Part of the benefit of this is obvious when tagging: RTM’s auto-completing immediately shows me all my current projects when I type “-”; but it really shines when coupled with a few greasemonkey scripts I’ll mention later.
Before moving on, let me explain a few of my project conventions. RTM doesn’t natively support projects, but with another greasemonkey script, you can add that functionality. I won’t explain how to use the script here, since you can read about it from the links below, but I’ll say that you can have a project title, as well as sub-projects, and theoretically sub-sub-projects (but I haven’t had success with those). I declare project headings by giving them a priority of 1, although this isn’t necessary. I just do it so I can view all projects at once by searching priority:1. Then, sub-tasks have a priority of 2.
Bullet Two: A next action is either a lone task or part of a project. All lone tasks are next actions (if there were anything in their way, they would be part of a project). Anything that can be done in a project is a next actions. I denote next actions by using a priority of 3. They also require a context, an energy level, and a time estimate (which is the only one that is not a tag). The context is the important one; I have energy level and time estimate in there just for completeness, and because it was easier to build it in when I started than to put it in down the road when it really becomes useful. Energy level tags are @@high, @@medium, and @@low. A context is basically the environment you do a task in, or where it is done; these tags are preceded by @: I’ve got @web, @home, @email, among others.
There are two types of waiting tasks: secondary tasks that are waiting for me to complete primary tasks, and tasks that can’t be done until other people do certain tasks. I don’t specify the first kind in any way; when I’m waiting for someone else, my task gets a tag of “wait.” The difference between waiting tasks and future tasks is that future tasks have a specific date they are done on. This isn’t a due date: think of it as a reminder system. For example, 4 times a year, I do a “deep clean” on my computer; I don’t have to do anything for this until that time comes, so I have a task with a specific due date and a tag “tickler.” Setting this task to repeat every 3 months reminds me to keep my laptop running smoothly.
Finally there are someday / maybe tasks; these are things I may want to do one day, but aren’t current; they’re just ideas. Example from my list : Design a new cereal bowl.
This seems like a lot to think about when you simply want to list a task, but once you have it all implemented, the system does all the work. The key to it all is Remember the Milk’s best feature : Smart Lists. Basically a saved search, a Smart List is a list of tasks that have a certain criteria. For example, my daily tasks list is a Smart List that looks for tasks with a priority of 3 (next actions) as well as tasks due today or before today.
There’s so much more I could say about the way I use RTM, but I’ll end this by listing the greasemonkey scripts I use and show you a few screenshots.
Make sure to read the documentation for these if your going to use them; a knowledge of JavaScript would be useful too.
- Remember the Milk – Keep Cloud Visible — Keeps your tag cloud visible at all times.
- Remember the Milk – Tag Cloud Colorizer — Lets you color and divide your tags into groups.
- RememberTheMilkEnhanced — Various enhancements for RTM, mostly layout.
- RTM Projects — Gives RTM support for Projects.
- A Bit Better RTM — Small improvements for RTM (I’ve edited this one quite heavily).
- Remember the Milk – Display Keyboards Shortcuts — This is actually a Stylish style that shows you the RTM keyboard shortcuts.
Remember the Milk without scripts
Remember the Milk with scripts
If you have any questions, please, ask in the comments!
