My GT setup

I must say that I’m very pleased with my current setup within GT. You can really make GT adapt to you instead of the other way around. I’m not a very busy person and my setup is probably very basic but I think it would also work for more complex situations by just adding more tags and lists.

So I have 4 native reminders lists and they work as “areas”; Inbox (default), Private, Work, Project1. Tasks will always remain in one of these lists.

Then I have the following smart lists; Today, Scheduled, Anytime, Someday (I also have the lists Recurring and Location which are self-explanatory).

I have the following 2 tags; #someday, #focus (quick-action switch)

Today

  • tasks scheduled for today
  • overdue tasks (they are separated by default)
  • undated tasks with the tag #focus

Scheduled

  • Scheduled tasks only, including today (I always wanted the Today tasks to be included in the Upcoming list in Things 3, at least as an option)
  • tasks with a start date within the chosen time period (day, week or month)

Anytime (tasks that I will do but haven’t decided when)

  • undated tasks without the tag #focus
  • undated tasks without the tag #someday
  • exclude the Inbox list

Someday (tasks that I might do someday, e.g. long-term things)

  • undated tasks with the tag #someday
  • exclude the Inbox list

So when I add a new task, the default “area” list is Inbox which basically contains tasks that I have yet not assigned to an area (Private, Work or Project1) or given a date. So I can easily throw all my ideas and tasks in here with Siri just by saying “Hey Siri, remind me about …”, particularly with my apple watch.
Now I assign it to its area list (Private, Work or Project1) with a switch quick-action and it moves accordingly from the Inbox to the chosen area list.
If I don’t assign a date, the task will also automatically show up in the smart list Anytime.
If I assign the tag #someday, it will instead only show up in the smart list Someday.
If I assign the tag #focus, it will instead only show up in the smart list Today. I use the tag #focus for undated tasks that I want to keep in focus (today) but where I still don’t want to assign a date. This means they will stay in Today until I complete them or remove the tag. Very handy when I go through my Anytime or Someday lists and see something that I want to do now-ish but still don’t want to assigned a certain date.
If I assign a date to it, it will obviously show up in the scheduled list as well as the Today list if the assigned date is today.

I first didn’t have an iCloud list called Inbox because all my tasks should be in one of my areas anyway. So I used the Private list as my default list. The reason why I changed is that want to have an Inbox where I can throw in all kind of ideas and tasks. And I sometimes forgot to change the area of the tasks to the Work or Project1 lists and by having a default Inbox list I force myself to assign a task to its correct area. And even if I forget to assign it to an area it will still remain in my Inbox even if I accidentally assign a date to it. (In Things 3, you can really lose sight of tasks if you assign a date but no area/project, particularly if the date is far in the future, since they don’t stay in the inbox but only show up in the Upcoming list.

I think that GoodTask is amazing, at least for me. :slight_smile:

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My filters

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Thanks for sharing your use case! :smile:

Looks like a descent setup and usage. I'll bring more updates to make it better as you use the app. Thanks! :slight_smile:

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Thanks for posting your workflow! I really like how you are using the #focus tag and want to try that in my setup. I have been assigning due dates to those kinds of tasks that aren't critical, but I hate it because I end up not completing them on the due date, and then they clutter up the list by becoming overdue. Your idea seems perfect. Hey, if you don't mind, since you posted screenshots of your filters, can you post a screenshot of your QuickActions? Thanks for the reminder about switch QuickActions. I do have one of those set up for assigning a level of effort (LOE) of Low, Medium, High, so that when I have a few extra minutes, I can knock out some of those low LOEs. I need to set up more of those switches. Thanks again for all your ideas. You have great posts, and I enjoy reading them!

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Sure :slight_smile: as a rule, I use switch quick-action (it's called "List" for the ios reminders lists) when a task should have only one of the alternatives. So I have a switch for the #focus and #someday tags. It might be faster to have 1 quick action for each tag but then you can accidentally assign both to one task.

Thank you! This helps a lot! I implemented the focus tag over the weekend and like it much better than what I was doing before. Thanks for your good ideas!

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How do you exclude the inbox list? I’m very interested to exclude my routine of my main list :grin: thanks

Hi, in the setting "Edit List" in each smart list, you can exclude or include IOS lists to your liking. :slight_smile:

Thank you very much :joy: I just started using it yesterday and want to set all for using along Agenda, as it’s a very potent combo