If you have any upcoming travel, it’s always a good time to brush up on any phrases in a foreign language you may want to have at the ready.
This week’s tip, shared by dillo99, suggests keeping a list of tasks handy with phrases and translations as needed, keeping the translations hidden in notes of course!
My wife and I have been traveling quite a bit for the last two years. I’ve been using RTM to quickly learn travel phrases that I need to know. The process is simple and since I put it in RTM it is available to me on any device whenever I have a few minutes to test myself.
First, look up the phrases you want to learn in the language of the location you are traveling. There are lots of samples on the internet that include all the basic things you will need to say. Next, start a new list for this language - example “Italian”. Next put a task on the list for each phrase. I put the English version of the phrase as the task name. but you can easily go in the other direction if you want. Then select each task and copy the translation into a note on the task. Example:
Task Name: How much does it come to? Note: Quanto viene? (kwahn-toh vyeh-neh)
Once you have all the phrases in as tasks you can look at the list at any time and test yourself. Just select each task to see the answer. Once you know a phrase well enough you can mark it as complete… plus you can always restore completed tasks to re-test at a later date. You can also create a separate list that goes in the other direction to display the foreign phrase with the English as notes.
I find this process to be simple, convenient and very helpful when learning travel phrases before a trip. I also keep the lists around for quick tune ups in the future!
Thanks for sharing this tip, dillo99! You’re our Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner this week.
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Repeating tasks are helpful for building habits in your life. Today’s tip, shared by dtreusch, adds an interesting twist: using subtasks throughout the day to help cement the habit.
I have some tasks that I want to remind myself to do multiple times per day and then I want a wrap-up task at the end of the day to record notes, etc.
Let’s take logging food into MyFitnessPal as an example. I’ve been using MyFitnessPal for awhile, but I am not consistent with logging. My goal for this year is to log shortly after each meal then check things over at the end of the day and close the day out in MyFitnessPal.
To set this up I created a task in RTM that repeats daily at 8 pm. This is my daily wrap up task where I can log notes, check over everything for the day and then close out the day in MyFitnessPal. Then I added three subtasks that are due at 7 am, 12 pm and 6 pm to remind me to log food into MyFitnessPal at the respective due time.
This causes the subtasks and the main task to show up in the list based on due time. If I see multiples in the list at the end of the day, I know that I either failed to log my food shortly after the meal or I forgot to mark a subtask as done.
It works great to keep me on track develop the habit of logging into MyFitnessPal three times daily and I’ve started using this pattern for other habits I want to develop.
Thanks for sharing this tip, dtreusch! You’re our Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner this week.
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Organizing your tasks can be a complicated balance: one way and you don’t have things in place, and the other way and things are incredibly fussy.
This week’s tip comes from cek1227, who lays out a thorough way to organize your tasks around blocks of time with streamlined and straightforward results.
I’ve been through several RTM schemes - they work for a while, and then either I get bored or the weaknesses of the system drive me to rewire everything. Here’s my latest rewire:
Only 5 Lists (including Inbox):
Inbox: Tasks that need to be dispositioned into another list, reviewed daily (see “Open” Smart List below).
Active: Tasks that I’m working on (or are scheduled)
Queue: Tasks I want to get to, reviewed weekly.
Someday: Tasks I might consider, reviewed monthly.
Delegated: Tasks I’m tracking with others, but not responsible for (using tags so that I can see all tasks that are delegated to Bob the Monkey, for example).
Open: Tasks in the Inbox OR have no location set (i.e., need to be dispositioned, reviewed daily)
Tasks: Tasks that take less than 5 min (or have no estimate)
Jobs: Tasks that take 15 - 30 min
Projects: Tasks that take more than 30 min
Then location-specific Smart Lists, as needed:
WkActive: Location = work, list = Active
WkTasks: Location = work, Smart List = Tasks
And so on, but only as needed for what follows.
Then my working Smart Lists, tagged as “favorites” - these are the only lists I work from:
1WkActiveTasks: All my work tasks that are active and take less than 5 minutes, sorted by Priority and Due Date, grouped by Due Date.
2WkActiveJobs: Like previous, but 15-30 min.
3WkActiveProjects: Like previous, but > 30 min.
4HmActive: No need to break this out for home stuff into tasks, jobs, and projects.
Whatever else I need like this. The number prefix keeps them sorted in the favorites list.
The sorting and grouping put the No Due Date items first, then dated items grouped by day in order below. Each group is sorted by priority. I can quickly see what needs attention first.
I use BLOCKS of time at work - some for tasks, some for jobs, and some for projects. So, I use the Favorite Smart Lists to keep visible only what my current block of time is for, so that I can focus. I’m not staring at long projects in a list of other things that I can knock out in minutes. My Smart Lists shows only what applies to my time block.
If there are too many Jobs or Projects in view, then I need to change something in the task to get it out of view - I don’t need to look at it.
I don’t care that my 1WkActiveTasks Smart List shows a hundred tasks, because of the sorting - the no-date, priority, due-now tasks are what I see, no matter how long the list actually goes down the scroll. If too many are due today, then I change the date to be realistic with myself.
I use tags to collect like tasks, either by to whom I’ve delegated, a given project, a department at work, etc.
Details of Smart Lists:
Open: isLocated:false OR list:Inbox
Tasks: timeEstimate:“<6 minutes” OR hasTimeEstimate:false
Projects: timeEstimate:“>29 minutes”
Jobs: NOT list:Tasks AND NOT list:Projects
WkActive: location:Work AND list:Active
WkTasks: location:Work AND list:Tasks
WkJobs: location:Work AND list:Jobs
WkProjects: location:Work AND list:Projects (etc., as needed for each location)
1WkActiveTasks: list:WkTasks AND list:Active
2WkActiveJobs: list:WkJobs AND list:Active
3WkActiveProjects: list:WkProjects AND list:Active
4HmActive: location:Home AND list:Active
Daily: review Open
Weekly: review Queue (true list)
Monthly: review Someday (true list)
The key is to view only the list that corresponds to the block of time you’re working.
Delegated items are reviewed by tag at whatever interval makes sense. Just create a task to remind you when for each one, with the same tag.
Thanks for sharing this tip, cek1227! You’re our Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner this week.
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It’s possible to use priority for a variety of things but this week’s tip to track the current task and its progress, shared by john.turknett, is one of the simplest.
I use the priority flag to sort my tasks as well as determine the current task I am working on.
‘Priority 1’ tasks I need to get done without question, while everything else has 'No Priority’.
When I start a task I mark it as 'Priority 3’, which moves it up to the top. If I have to step away in the middle of the task, I know where I was when I come back. When the task is complete, I reset it to 'No Priority’ and complete.
Thanks for sharing this tip, john.turknett! You’re our Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner this week.
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Journaling can be a great way to reflect on your day—week, month, and year too!—but as with anything it can feel daunting as well.
This week’s tip, shared by quietmind, suggests a quick daily journal task alongside the rest of your tasks so you can keep a daily journal and/or catch up quickly if you get behind.
Last year, I started a list I call ‘Journal’ and added 365 tasks. Each task is labeled with the day of the year, and scheduled for that particular day of the year.
I live in the US, so examples of my task dates look like: 01/01 (for Jan 1st) 01/02 (for Jan 2nd) 12/31 (this would be Dec 31st)
The 1st part is the number of the month. The 2nd part is the day of that month. Entering the task in the 01/01 form keeps that as the task name AND automatically schedules it for that date as well. I happily found that out by accident. I put all 365 on repeat for yearly.
So, each day this past year I would enter a quick note about what happened that day. It’s the 1st time I’ve ever journaled every single day. I may miss a day or 2, but it’s easy to catch up. NOW, I get to go through every day this year adding a note for 2019 while at the same time getting to see what I was doing that same day last year. This could go on for many years. Adding a new note under the date.
It’s also a neat way to motivate me to do better than last year. Like, apparently I did a workout last New Year’s Day. Now I’ll feel lazy if I don’t workout this NY day. And, throughout last year I added how many alcoholic beverages I had on the days I did drink. I am determined to drink less than each one of those entries this year. I didn’t go into great detail in my notes. Just snippets like: did a workout, took a walk, 3 drinks, 6 degrees outside!, vacation day from work, lazy, got a raise, headache again, etc.
It’s the easiest journal I’ve ever kept because I look at RTM every day.
Thanks for sharing this tip, quietmind! You’re our Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner this week.
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When moving house, there can be a lot to do—before, during, and after the move. This week’s tip, shared by mmoore100, suggests keeping separate lists to have everything ready to do right when you need it.
For moving, I have MovePrep, a MoveActual, and MovePost lists. I also have a MoveJettison list, which could actually be a sublist of MovePrep, but for now I’ll keep it separate.
I’m downsizing from a house in the suburbs to something smaller closer to a city.
MovePrep is for the things I need to get the house ready for sale, change-of-address tasks, finding a new place, hiring a mover, scheduling utility service, and so on.
MoveActual is for the things I need to do on the day of the move, which I won’t know until I sign the contract with the mover, and tips from friends who have been through this recently.
MovePost is for the things I need to do once we’re at the new address. Do I need to find a new doctor, new dentist? Get a library card?
MoveJettison is for the things I want to get rid of (jettison) just before the move, but can’t do ahead of time. For example, I can’t get rid of the snow shovels until I know we’re set to move to either a warmer clime or a place where someone else takes care of those things.
Thanks for sharing this tip, mmoore100! You’re our Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner this week.
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Packing lists are a great way to make sure you don’t forget anything on your travels. This week, we share a particularly neat way to generate those: evan.fredericks shares some Smart Lists for keeping a master list and then automatically generating packing lists for specific types of trips with tags.
Tags and Smart Lists are a powerful combo for customizing task list views based on context. I also use these for creating dynamic checklists from a “master” list based on ad-hoc criteria.
For example, I have a master packing list with over 100 packing items for trips ranging from a quick weekend getaway to a 10 day international camping trip.
Within the master list, I have:
Items that I’ll pretty much always pack
Examples: “c:jeans,” “h:chapstick” (the first letter denotes the category of item - in this case ‘c’ for chap stick and 'h’ for hygiene - and is used to keep the list sorted by category when sorting alphabetically)
Items that are only packed based on specific criteria
Example: “c:gloves” is tagged with “t-cold”. (’t’ is a prefix for “trip” so these tags also bunch together since RTM sorts these alphabetically in drop-downs/autocomplete)
I then make a Smart List that has the following criteria:
List - is - Packing
Tag - is not - t-cold <– modify this to whatever trip attributes you want to filter out, adding an additional “Tag - is not” criteria for each one. (some ideas for these tags are at the bottom of this post)
Tag - is not - skip <– this will be used to filter out items that I am deciding not to bring on this trip for whatever reason (remember to make a task to remove the “skip” tag from all tasks in your master packing list when you get back from the trip so they don’t get filtered out of future trips)
Which will include all of the universal packing items (they are un-tagged) and any tags that I didn’t filter out.
As I go about my packing, I either:
Mark the items as complete once they are packed.
Tag them with “skip” to get them off the list.
This Smart List stays in existence until I’m making my return trip, at which time, I can go into the completed list and “uncomplete” items when I pack them for the trip home, so I make sure that I bring back everything I packed.
Advanced tip:
You may find that there are some items that aren’t universal packing items, but fit into more than one special criteria (e.g., you want to bring an umbrella on a trip in which you expect rain or one that is longer than a few days, since the weather could change unpredictably). If we filter out either of these tags, (e.g., we have a rainy trip that will only last a day or 2, so we include t-rain but exclude t-long) the umbrella will not show up. We could make two umbrella items in the master list and tag each one differently, but this would make the master list unwieldy to maintain if we have many items that could be used in many contexts.
To best handle this case, you’ll need to use the query editor in your Smart List (another feature that makes RTM extremely powerful). Using the wizard (I recommend starting in the wizard so you can use the drop-down tag selection), choose the tags that you want to include (rather than exclude) from your packing list in addition to the “tag - is empty” criteria. Going with our example, our search will be:
List - is - Packing
Tag - is empty
Tag - is - t-rain
Tag - is - t-long
Tag - is not - skip
As written, this will return an empty list due to the tag criteria. To fix this, click on the “Switch to the query editor” link. The scripted version of our search will now be:
list:Packing and isTagged:false and tag:t-rain and tag:t-long and not tag:skip
In order to get the desired behavior, change the “and” between the isTagged:false filter and each of the tag:t-*** filters to an “or”. So you now have:
list:Packing and isTagged:false or tag:t-rain or tag:t-long and not tag:skip
This will work, but to make it easier to read and understand, you may want to add parentheses (I also like to capitalize the operators):
list:Packing AND (isTagged:false OR tag:t-rain OR tag:t-long) AND not tag:skip
Now all of your items that are tagged with “t-rain” or “t-long”, as well as those that are tagged with both (the umbrella) will show up in the search.
This has really streamlined the packing process for me and you could apply the same concept to any checklist based workflow that changes slightly depending on context. This is just one of the many ways you can use tags and Smart Lists creatively to get on-demand lists in RTM.
Happy travels!
Example packing list tags:
t-camping
t-cold
t-drive (for when I’m going somewhere by car)
t-fly (same as above for flying)
t-formal (will need formal attire)
t-hot
t-hotel (staying at a hotel)
t-international
t-long (trips longer than 3 days)
t-rain
Thanks for sharing this tip, evan.fredericks! You’re our Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner this week.
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Having tasks ready to go can help when you’re keeping things moving during your day. In this week’s tip, dominic.spachmann shows a way to mark these – with a nice visual indicator too!
I found this idea useful to get a short list of tasks to be picked up and get started. This is how I set this up:
I created a tag (on iOS) with the name “__⭐️__” (shown as a star on iOS and as a “__*__” on the web client)
This tag is now at the beginning of the tags list, which makes it easier to assign the tag to a task (still not just tapping on a star but still).
I created a Smart List “__⭐️__” in my Favorites with “tag:__⭐️__ AND (dueBefore:tomorrow OR startAfter:yesterday)” (I love to work with start and due dates, this leverages transparency for me).
Also I took the starred tasks out of other Favorite lists like my “Today” and “Focus” lists. I now use those lists to get an overview of what is due and star the tasks I will pick up next.
Really works well for me!
Thanks for sharing this tip, dominic.spachmann! You’re our Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner this week.
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