TODO: Trackable Lists

Checklisting [11/29/2007]

What’s the difference between checklisting and todo listing?

I don’t know. Check back later after I’ve had some time to think about it.

Time vs. Task [11/29/2007]

I am using the To Do feature that is part of the 37Signals BaseCamp web application. The way this todo handling is implemented exposes two other aspects of todo lists:

1. Each task can be associated with a particular time, as in a “Milestone,” or
2. each task can be associated as a subtask of a larger task.

BaseCamp works according to the first principle, which requires an “out-of-band” analysis and documentation for determining how to schedule tasks according to deadlines which are better derived according to parent task. For example, reading an ESRI shapefile for building footprints by task order could look (grossly simplied) like this:

• Write code to read footprint
• Operate on footprint data
• Write new data modified footprint

The confusion (for me) in the BaseCamp web application is that I want to title a list according to major task (Implementing footprints), but I cannot implement all the subtasks within the scope of any particular milestone associated with the task. In fact, it would be just as convenient to set the todo list title the same as the milestone. Essentially, in BaseCamp, one can either set the todo lists as Task-oriented, or Time-oriented, but not both for the same list unless all task can be completed by the designated time.

Original post

In every single todo list applet or widget I have used, once the item is checked, it is essentially dead data.

This is ridiculous.

To make a todo list really useful, each item should be time stamped when posted, time stamped when completed, and have fields for metadata. And not only that, each item should have a “cancel” feature, where the todo is a “not gonna do” along with time stamping and metadata.

Furthermore, each todo list should be exportable in RSS, OPML, SQL, or whatever useful, convenient format desired by the user. In fact, the items in the todo list could use microformatting.

I would pay a few dollars a month for this service, especially if I could share it, and download my history into a database for further analysis whenever I wanted it.

This is a pretty big itch. I have a lot on my plate, and the hardest part is keeping track of it all.

Update

Just purchased 6 months of gootodo for $18. So far, I think I like it. It’s at least as good as anything else I have used, and better than most for getting entries into the list.

Update

Just because something is posted on a “todo” list doesn’t mean it doesn’t have to actually get done. Pick a couple of dozen of personal todos, from both work and personal activities, and postpone doing them for as long as possible. I guarantee that you will find half of them turn out like this: 1. magically get done somehow, 2. just turn out to be irrelevant, that is, had you done it, it would have been a waste of time, or 3. someone else actually does it for you.

There is a real art to managing a todo list. I am using this idea of procrastinating the todos to figure out what kinds of things are actually important enough to get done, and how to quickly tell the difference.

Update

There are really at least two different kinds of todo lists: short term and long term. There may be others, let’s examine these two.

• Short term: Stuff I need to do right now, or at least today, in the next few hours. The size of this list critical. Sometimes, it’s a whole day just to get one thing done. At the end of the day, best just throw this away, or maybe enter the remaining tasks into the long term list. Any piece of scrap paper will work for this; I have been using drafts of my dissertation for years, fold it [the list] up, put it in my back pocket.
• Long term: Stuff that needs to get done soon. Maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, maybe before Christmas. But stuff that definitely seems important enough to keep track of. These kinds of activities could be important enough to track long term. Not just that you did the task, but when you are going to do it, when you did it, how you are going to do it, how you did it, etc.

My vision. It still hasn’t been implemented. Nobody gets it right!

Tagged as: Todo