What goes in the hard landscape?

[furashgf]

I've got three sorts of things that seem to go in the calendar:

1. a task DEFERRED because you can't do it yet until that day;
2. a recurring task you do every X, but it doesn't make sense to do it that day.

Is it okay to use it for both? Are there other uses?

[Gameboy70]

According to David in GTD Fast, three things go on the calendar: appointments, day-specific (but untimed) events, and day-specific information for optional committment (e.g. a TV show you may or may not decide to watch).

[kewms]

My calendar contains appointments. Period. Nothing else.

(Appointments includes birthdays, anniversaries, vacation days and holidays.)

Recurring tasks for which the exact day doesn't matter go into Sciral Consistency.

Deferred tasks go in my tickler file or on my NA list with a future date, as appropriate.

Deadlines go into the information file for the appropriate project, or into the tickler file, as appropriate. ("Conference report due July 8" goes in project information, because the report requires lots of preparatory work. "Pay estimated tax June 15" goes in the tickler, because it requires nothing except writing the check.)

Katherine

[Brent]

I use my calendar just as kewms does, though note that my "appointments" include things like "Book Sale @ Library, 9-1." These aren't necessarily tied to a particular time, but are tied to a day.

But yes, I use my tickler file for recurring tasks. For deadlines, I'll add a tickler file to remind myself about it before the deadline falls, in case it's not done by then.

[furashgf]

Thanks. What's " Sciral Consistency"?

[tjrandell]

I will put an "all day event" entry on my Outlook calendar if I really want to keep an item in my face to complete that day (i.e. a deadline that must be met). Otherwise I try my best to scan my lists every few hours.

In my job as a manager of technology and people I find about 80% of my time is not mine to say what I do with it. I have meetings I must attend and I have to be at the ready for a person or technology issue that comes up, so I stopped trying to schedule my days a long time ago. On the days I have large blocks of time open I will pre-emptively schedule myself for a few hours to avoid being invited to a meeting, then I try to crank on my lists.

I was interested in Sciral Consistency as I thought it was a theory of some sort. Turns out to be a sowtware product (http://www.sciral.com/consistency/) which at some point must have been a theory.

[TesTeq]

Thanks. What's " Sciral Consistency"?

It is the software application which implements "soft deadlines" for recurring tasks. It uses color coding for marking the urgency of the task (based on the deadline entered by the user).
TesTeq

[MisterMorgan]

Hello, long time lurker. Love this stuff.


I am in some ways fortunate in that I work at a job with few meetings but a lot of interruptions (front lin e management in a call center). In my calendar I keep the few appointments that I have and any task that must be done on a particular day (and only that day). An example of that latter is payroll-related silliness we have to do the day after the pay period ends. It can't be done before hand but it must be done by the end of the day or people don't get paid. This impact morale. A little.

What I've started to experiment with is "time specific tasks"--tasks that aren't really appointments but can't be done before a specific time. Two examples are "give X his final paycheck at the end of the day" or "Move car to the lower parking lot at 6pm [when there is more parking but before the upper parking lot becomes scary dark creepy space]". In Outlook I have the Taskpad set up by date and then by title. So I preface these "time specific tasks" with the military time that I need to do the task: "23:00 Give X his final paycheck".

Seems to be working okay.

I like the idea that 90% of my day is officially unscheduled so I can react to changes really quickly.