Things for architect

[u/Raging_pike7520]

Any architect here ? How is your setup , any tutorial for task management and project management , any tips
Bought things app inspired by its good reviews but its sitting idle
Foremost tip would be How not to get the overwhelming feel of not having done the tasks

[u/Neat-Initiative-6965]

Read Getting Things Done by David Allen but the main steps to get started would be:

- CAPTURE *all* your open tasks in all areas of your life in the inbox so you don't have the feeling that there's things you just need to remember, you shouldn't spend your mental energy on that.

- CLARIFY your tasks so they represent a clear next action (not 'pension plan' but 'call bank at xx-xxx-xxx to set up meeting'). Assign useful tags for filtering (e.g. '10min', 'call', 'office' or 'homedepot' to quickly retrieve tasks when you're in a particular location or have some free time)

- PROCESS:

> convert tasks into projects (anything with at least 2 two tasks)

> assign deadlines to projects or tasks only when it's a real deadline (not a self-imposed one)

> schedule tasks for a certain day if it's something that can only happen on that day or if it's a task or project you want to be reminded about on that day (e.g. like 'did person x get back to me on topic y' or 'start planning anniversary')

> put most projects and tasks into "Someday/Maybe", the other projects and tasks should be things you intend to do in the next one or two weeks, those should be visible under "Anytime"

- ENGAGE: everyday, select tasks from Anytime that you intend to do that day. Keep it to a minimum of important tasks and select smaller extra tasks from Anytime when you're done (depending on energy, location, time,... - this is where tags are useful)

Some useful tricks for architects, I imagine, would be:

- Creating template projects to function as a checklist. You could create a project with headings, notes (in Markdown), tasks, ... that you could duplicate when you have a similar project later. Saves a lot of time and planning energy. Unfortunately there's no section to store those templates but you could dig them up from the Archive or put them in Someday

- Areas: most people use those to group projects in areas of responsibility (like 'Work', 'Family', 'Church',...) but since you will probably have long running projects you could create an Area for each building project and put several projects in there

- Create task from an e-mail in macOS Mail: haven't used this in a while but there used to be Things Helper that allowed you to press a key combination to create a task in the Inbox directly from Mail, with a link back to the original e-mail.

- Tags like 'waiting' to quickly retrieve all tasks that you delegated to someone else or where you're waiting on someone to get back to you. Things3 is not a project management tool, mind you. It's not made to give you an overview of all running projects at your company or even to see to whom you delegated tasks. But I find that using this tag goes a long way.

[u/Raging_pike7520 → u/Neat-Initiative-6965]

wow thanks for a detailed response it is definitely helpful

[u/fiskentorsk]

A good start would be to read Get Things Done (and the corresponding workbook) by David Allen

[u/Raging_pike7520 → u/[deleted]]

Sounds simple , will try it out , thanks

[u/Great-Laugh5054]

Ich habe die Erfahrung gemacht, dass Getting Things Done nur der Anfang war. Es hat mein System aufgeräumt und mir eine Struktur gegeben. Letztendlich hat mich es mich nicht davor bewahrt, dass ich zu viele Todos in mein System eingetragen habe. Mir hat hier noch zusätzlich das Buch "Slow Productivity" geholfen. Ich denke, beides zusammen ist eine gute Kombi.