I have always had a strange, obsessive fascination with to-do lists, tasks and organizing things -- basically productivity applications. I have played with all manner of software from internet-based, stuff on the Mac, iPhone apps, Blackberry programs, Linux tools, and even Windows programs.
The dream is to have all of one's tasks in a single application (possibly synchronize to multiple locations). The nature of to-dos makes this difficult. My brother talks a bit about this in his blog. The problem is the way that you acquire tasks. As a salesperson, I get tasks at work via email, phone messages, my notepad, things I think of while driving, as well as all of the ways that one comes up with personal tasks. Right now I have 3 systems running -- notepad, email and specific to-do software (at the moment, this is Things). Too many things to keep track of, and often things that have specific dates get missed. You can add calendar based tasks to this as well, as all of my meeting requests come in this way.
For email I used Mac Mail, and at the moment I use sub-folders under my inbox to sort tasks. Those folders are: @ACTIONS, @DEMO, @EVENTUALLY, @READ AND REVIEW, @TO BE ENTERED, @TODAY, @WAITING FOR. I sed to also have a @FILE folder but realized that I just jammed things into it instead of filing them properly. Once completed, things move into off-line archive folders and are then indexed and searchable in DevonThink Pro Office. More on the folders....
@ACTIONS is where I immediately drag any emails that contain things that I need to do. This folder is a list of tasks that I need work work on that that need to be completed relatively soon.
@DEMO is a sales specific folder where I keep 2 kinds of things -- emails from clients requesting demo gear or have demo gear, and emails from suppliers whose demo gear I have to remind me to return it.
@EVENTUALLY are tasks that I want to do at some point, but don't really have a timeline. I look here (supposedly) when I have free time.
@ READ AND REVIEW is pretty self explanatory -- anything that I need to read over.
@ TO BE ENTERED used to have more value; was things that I had to enter somewhere to be useful; I haven't used this much lately and will probably get rid of it.
@TODAY is what I use for anything that I need to do right away. I will also fill this folder with things at the end of the work day with anything that must be done the following day. This folder usually has less than 5 emails in it.
@WAITING FOR is anything that I am waiting for something back to accomplish. Maybe I am waiting for a PO from a customer, price from a supplier, or piece of technical information -- it goes here and is reviewed daily.
This system works pretty well but only takes care of things that come and go via email -- kind of leaves me locked in Mail all the time and can prove to be a bit distracting. I tried to email myself other things and use everything in one system, but this doesn't work very well. (not sure why, but it just doesn't seem to work).
Stuff that works well -- I can find just about anything. DevonThink is brilliant for searching emails, and any files that I have. I archive things into it by year and it automatically makes all my PDF's searchable.
Stuff that doesn't work well -- if I don't religiously do the review, I can miss deadlines on things or leave things for too long in a folder. There isn't really any kind of 'auto reminder' or anything in this system.
The next thing I am going to try is The Hit List. However, other than nice keyboard shortcuts, I am not sure that it is much of a change from Things, and I lose the iPhone synch. It does have the ability to drag and drop email to it to create a task -- maybe this will solve the problem.
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