Make My To Do System Better.
February 25, 2009 8:05 AM
I'm happy with the system I've come up with on Google calendar to keep a to do list and track my budget and workouts.
Help me make it better.
After long and fruitless experimentation, and noting many of the programs and ideas that come up in posts like this, I've finally come up with a system that works for me.
In addition to my main Google calendar where I have all the appointments and time-sensitive things, and that is synced to be blackberry and outlook at work, I've created separate "calendars" - sub-calendars, really - that contain my work and personal to do lists and record expenses and workouts in the "event details." It works like this: for the to do lists, every morning or at the end of the day, I hit "duplicate event", change the date to today or the next day, and go into the event details, where I have a list of things organized GTD style, by @office, @home, etc or by big projects or themes, and delete what I've done and add whatever's come up. The money and workout calendars work the same way, in "what" it says workout or money, and in event details I put in whatever I've spent or done. (And they're recurring events, so the blank is there every morning to be filled in.)
So all this works great. Each calendar is a different color, I can chose which ones I see, and because its all in one place, as opposed to having one program to do budgets (ie xpenser or quicken), one to track workouts, one for to do lists, I actually use it every day. I like it so much I'm thinking about adding a calendar to track what i eat. And I'm reading about unschedules and thinking that could be integrated into this as well. (And, feel free to steal and adapt if you think this could work for you.)
Here's the question: What creative ways are there to make this better? For example: How could I easily edit these calendars on my blackberry or by SMS? How can I see the event details for one of those calendars for an entire week or month? Would it be possible (and I'm no programmer) to come up with a way to add up the quantities in event details? Can I get appointments to open up in event details by default? Or: Is there some off-the-shelf solution that does all this and more?
After long and fruitless experimentation, and noting many of the programs and ideas that come up in posts like this, I've finally come up with a system that works for me.
In addition to my main Google calendar where I have all the appointments and time-sensitive things, and that is synced to be blackberry and outlook at work, I've created separate "calendars" - sub-calendars, really - that contain my work and personal to do lists and record expenses and workouts in the "event details." It works like this: for the to do lists, every morning or at the end of the day, I hit "duplicate event", change the date to today or the next day, and go into the event details, where I have a list of things organized GTD style, by @office, @home, etc or by big projects or themes, and delete what I've done and add whatever's come up. The money and workout calendars work the same way, in "what" it says workout or money, and in event details I put in whatever I've spent or done. (And they're recurring events, so the blank is there every morning to be filled in.)
So all this works great. Each calendar is a different color, I can chose which ones I see, and because its all in one place, as opposed to having one program to do budgets (ie xpenser or quicken), one to track workouts, one for to do lists, I actually use it every day. I like it so much I'm thinking about adding a calendar to track what i eat. And I'm reading about unschedules and thinking that could be integrated into this as well. (And, feel free to steal and adapt if you think this could work for you.)
Here's the question: What creative ways are there to make this better? For example: How could I easily edit these calendars on my blackberry or by SMS? How can I see the event details for one of those calendars for an entire week or month? Would it be possible (and I'm no programmer) to come up with a way to add up the quantities in event details? Can I get appointments to open up in event details by default? Or: Is there some off-the-shelf solution that does all this and more?
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