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Drag and Drop in Bulk

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Smart-add in Bulk

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Tutorials of Doit.im for Web Part II

Processing

In the previous part we touched on how to master a set of skills to collect the stuff and put them into Doit.im on Web. If you have finished implementing the process of gathering all the incompletes on your mind and put them into our Inbox, I will have to say congratulations to you for taking the first step to achieve the Art of Stress-Free Productivity introduced by David Allen in his book titled Getting Things Done.

After collecting tasks, you would definitely not want to leave everything in the Inbox without sorting out. The tasks you put in there would never fail creeping back to your mind and distract the attention you could otherwise focus on your undertaking. It does not mean that you have to complete all your tasks, all you have to do is identify each item and decide what it is, what it means, and what you are going to do with it for the next step.

You will have three options once you have decided what the next action really is: 1 Do it immediately (if the action takes less than 2 minutes) 2 Delegate it (if the action takes more than 2 minutes and you are not the most appropriate person to act) 3 Defer it and act on it later (if the action takes more than 2 minutes)

Okay, let’s start learning how to process the three kinds of tasks using Doit.im on Web.

Do it

If a task in the Inbox would take no more than 2 minutes, please do it instantly even if it is not with high priority. Then tick the task and it will be automatically moved to the category of completed tasks under “Completed” for your future reference.

For example, reading a document would take just 30 seconds followed by a yes or no from you, even though it is with no priority, do it now since you can finish doing it in 2 minutes. Please find the task displayed in the following screenshot:

After the task is completed, tick “Read Documents” and it will be automatically moved to the Completed. See it in below:

The “two-minute” rationale is that it would take you longer to store and track an item than deal with it the first time it’s in your hands. It is the efficiency cutoff. If the thing is not important enough to be done, throw it away. However, when it is important and you are going to do it at some point of time, the factor of efficiency should be taken into consideration. It is easy for us to develop the bad habit of procrastination and put off things until they become urgent, so we hope that you can take the best use of the 2 minutes to habituate yourself to processing tasks in a timely manner so that your work efficiency can be largely improved.

Delegate it

For the tasks which would take you more than 2 minutes and for which you are not the best person to implement, hand it to the appropriate person. This feature is designed according to the theory of task delegation in GTD. In this case, click the task and then click the pen-shaped editing icon, and you will see the screenshot as follows:

  Click on “Assign to” to select the contacts you will need to send the task to. You can pick up more than one contact, then click Send, and the tasks should be moved to the “Waiting” list.

Defer it

Since we have settled on how to process the first 2 options with Doit.im, it’s time we moved on to the last option for task processing, that is to “defer” it.

It is common for us to have tasks which take longer than 2 minutes and it’s likely that most of them are still left in the Inbox unfinished. Just think about the circumstances when you have to make a call to a customer, or you are to discuss the details about a project with an outside consultant, or an e-mail to type up which is likely to take you a while to think and draft it up before sending out to your team members, or you find that your wife’s birthday is approaching and  that you want to buy a present at some boutique shop. All these tasks fit into the category of “Defer it”. Obviously, 2 minutes will not be sufficient to complete the tasks. It is suggested that tasks are processed and put into the appropriate categories so that its easy for you to check later on when needed.     Now, let’s make it clear how you can make the best use of this feature with Doit.im on Web.

1 Tasks of no high priority currently and with no specific start time, but for which you will have to take actions someday in the future, these are to be moved into Someday. For example, if you wanted to learn Latin dance when time permits, or you wanted to take a trip to Maldives for your next vocation.

2 Tasks which are to be done at certain point of time or on a specific day are to be put into Today or Scheduled. For instance, if there is a meeting at 5pm in the afternoon, or you will have to attend a friend’s wedding on 12 January.

3 Tasks which are important and to be done soonest possible with no exact start time are to be put into Next, which means “Next Actions” in GTD. For instance, you will have to get your car repaired or you should go shopping in the supermarket to ensure food supply for the next week when nothing is left at home in the fridge. 

Okay, that being said, here are some tips for you to move the tasks from the Inbox to the other categories.

Click Inbox and you will see a list of tasks, long press the area on the left side of the tiny square box beside the task title and drag it to the proper category in the sidebar.

If you want to edit a task, just click the task title and then click the pen-shaped icon located at the top of the page. You will see a pop-up page and you can arrange its Start time. The task will therefore automatically go to the corresponding box based on the Start time you have set up. Take note that you can only fix the specific start time for the tasks when you make sure that “all-day” is unchecked.    

After setting is done, remember to click “Save”!

By now, tasks for today will go to Today; tasks for tomorrow will go to Tomorrow. The rest of the tasks with Start time will go to the Scheduled.        Here comes to the end of the tutorial on processing tasks. If you have further questions, please do not hesitate to write us, and we will get to you as soon as possible.

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Tutorials of Doit.im for Web Part I

Collecting

Most of our work cannot be done without the help of internet. When internet has enabled us to access information more quickly and easily, increasing workload has also been putting pressure on us. Thus, we need effective tools to help us get things done easier. According to GTD, the first critical step we need to take is capture all the things to be done and pour them out of your mind so that they no longer occupy your head. The next step is transform the “stuff” you have collected into the actionable stuff you will follow up with. If you try this way to arrange your work and life, you will be pleasantly surprised by the changes you are going to experience, and you will even feel yourself being rescued both in your work and life.

Doit.im will make this happen, and mind you it is not exaggerating. Let’s get started with our learning journey to have this life-changing experience now. When you log in Doit.im through Web, you will see the interface as below:

You will find the box in the upper left corner labeled as Inbox. Its function is equal to the collecting bucket in GTD. Inbox in Doit.im is used to collect “Stuff” on you mind. All the tasks added without a specific date or time will be listed in Inbox.

Different from the old version with which you will have to switch among tabs, the new version makes it possible for you to add a task by clicking “Create a Task” on the left upper corner, you can fill in all the fields of information through a pop-up page which you see in the below screenshot.

  You can type in the task title and add to Notes the details which might be useful. If you do not want to set a specific time for the task, please check the “all-day”. In so doing, you can leave the specific time undecided and move on to set the deadline date for the task. However, you can pick up among Inbox, Today, Next, Tomorrow, Scheduled, Someday, or Waiting for to identify roughly your Start time.

The Repeat function is one of the most distinctive features brought by Doit.im. If you have a task to be done on a regular basis, it will be burdensome to add it in repeatedly. In consideration of this, Doit.im incorporated a setting for the repetitive tasks. Here is how you can use this function: click the tab with “+ Add repeat, reminders and assignment” in the bottom, and the screenshot appears as below:

  It’s not difficult for you to recall scenarios in your work and life when certain tasks are repetitive at a period of time in interval. That means you will have to go through the same procedure once in a while.

Scenario #1 If you are a sports fan and go work out in the gym everyday or every few days, the Repeat function is just for you. You can set “Repeat” for your gymnastic time daily or every few days. This is also excellent for people working on shift rather than regular working days to arrange their working hours.

Scenario #2 If you are a guitar lover and attend classes every Wednesday and Saturday, it would be best for you to set “Repeat” by week. You can set any day or several days of a week for repetition. It will be quite convenient for you to set fixed time cycle for work, classes or business.

Scenario #3 If you work from Monday to Friday and have to report to your boss on a daily basis, “Repeat” by workday suits you well. With the default time cycle set from Monday to Friday, you can arrange your everyday repeated tasks at your convenience.

Scenario #4 When it occurs to you that your payment for the telephone bill is due on 28th monthly or on Friday of the fourth week every month. In another case, you have to pay your rent every three months on the 15th of the first month, or on Monday of the third week of every three months. In such situations, you can set “Repeat” by month to remind you the tasks you need to complete on a monthly basis or in every few months.

Scenario #5 Have you ever felt sorry to your wife for not remembering your wedding anniversary? Have you tried remembering the birthday of your best friend? Do you often forget to maintain your car every 2 years? If these were the troubles for you, “Repeat” by year can save you from them all. Just set a fixed date with “Repeat” by year for the tasks to be done annually or in every few years.

If you want to set a specific time for your task, all you will have to do is uncheck ‘all-day’, and then move on to choose the exact starting time, for example 12:15 pm, 14th February in 2012. You can set the time by quarter in the 24-hour time system. You can also select a specific time for the deadline, which is by default not earlier than the start time. 

Check the sidebar and you will see features such as “Projects” and “Contexts” placed in the left column. Click the small triangles to see the sub-lists of ‘Projects’, ‘Contexts’ and ‘Filters’.

Project: Click it and you can pick a project that you have added before. Context: Click it and you can select the default context or a context you have added before. Priority: Click it and you can identify the priority according to the degrees of None, Low, Medium and High. Tags: Click it and you can pull in the tags you have added before.

Once you click on Reminders, you will see the screenshot appears in below:

With Doit.im you can add up to 5 reminders for a single task. You can set the reminders by Pop-up or Email with alarm time by minute, hour, day, or on date at a concrete time spot.   is the icon for you to add more reminders containing different time details. Reversely, you can click to minus one or more reminders you added so that the alarms either by Pop-up or E-mail will be cancelled.

Last but not the least, remember to click Save when you have completed filling in the information for the setting. That being done, a new task is created.

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Doit.im Mini for Mac (V1.2) Released

First let’s see new features in this version:

1. Starred Tasks

Added “Starred Tasks” page through shortcut to show the starred tasks picked from Today box. In “Starred Tasks” box, new features are supported including manual sorting, modes to switch between single task and all starred tasks, auto-hide of the box under single mode,  shortcut to complete first starred task.

For the Starred Tasks, it’s one of the most demanding features and we’ve write a blog especially for its features and the convenience it brings us named Starred Tasks with Manual Sorting and Auto-hide in Doit.im mini for Mac 1.2

2. Specific Time Setting

The task adding/editing page now turns out to be clearer as below, and you can pick specific time now for both Start Time and Deadline.

3. Smart-add supported more widely:

Smart-add is supported in quick-add box, with shortcuts, and through right-click on Dockso that you can add tasks smartly and successively anywhere.

1) Smart-add feature in quick add box on main page.

2) Smart-add with shortcuts.

By using the shortcuts, the following popup will turn up.

3) Smart-add through right-click on Dock.

By clicking the “Smart Add Tasks”, the smart-add popup also turns up as above.

4. Right-click in Dock

Added support to call out task-adding box (smart-add) or “Starred Tasks” through items in the right-click menu over Dock.

5. Tooltip for Notes.

Added tool-tip feature for notes on task bar, with which you can easily see detailed notes by hovering over the notes icon.

6. Able to modify more shortcuts.

Added support to modify shortcuts for “Autofill after copy” (Autofill copied content), “Smart add” and “New task”. You can choose one or more ways to add tasks.

And also, some bugs are fixed.

1. Fixed the bug that popups would exceed out of the right border of the screen. 2. Fixed the bug that complete time showed wrongly after the synchronization of tasks completed before 12 o’ clock at midnight.

Thanks.

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Starred Tasks with Manual Sorting and Auto-hide in Doit.im mini for Mac V1.2

from our users

Numerous users told us that they need a manual sorting. We’ve been considering seriously for what exactly they need the feature. Since David Allen tells us in GTD what to do next exactly depends on context, time, energy etc of the moment, we may not sort the tasks correctly in advance except for the tasks with exact start time and deadline which have already been sorted automatically in our app.

inner needs

But finally, we found the answer: what our users need is not to manually sort everything in Today box, let alone other boxes since those would even later things, because the more we arranged this way, the more we would rearrange them later; what they need is exactly what to do next, say, for the next two hours, or half a day.

What we bring

So, Doit.im Mini for the Mac this time comes with the feature: Starred Tasks — You can put a task into Starred Tasks page by clicking the star of the certain task in Today box or just dragging and dropping it. What’s more, you can manually sort tasks here. Thus,

Within the two hours or half of the day, just close the main window and open Starred Tasks, other tasks to do today are out of your sight, but of course still can be found in Today box.

You can manually sort the tasks you’ll do within the next two hours or half a day.

You can see the starred page anytime but can set to see it only when you need to with another secret weapon — auto-hide.

Also, you can use shortcut to complete tasks here.

Let’s figure out the operations now! It’s great but easy to handle!

1. How can we find Starred Task?

Click ‘Starred Tasks’ in menu or use the shortcut, you’ll see the popup page.

2. How does it look like?

There are two ways it appears: All Starred Tasks mode and Single Starred Task mode, with the former as default.

3. Two ways to make the tasks appear in Starred Tasks.

Star the task in Today or Drag and drop it into Starred box

4. Here comes the great point: Manual Sorting in Starred Tasks page.

5. How to switch between All Starred Tasks and Single Starred Task? — Space!

Just press ‘Space’ to switch between All Starred Tasks mode and Single Starred Task mode. You can see the tip at the bottom of both mode page.

Then it comes the Single Starred Task mode as below:

6. And the Secret Weapon again: Auto-hide!

In Preference, you can check ‘auto-hide’ so that the Starred Taskes page would be hided automatically at upper right corner when under Single mode.

7. What now? Shortcut to complete the first task in Starred Tasks page.

You can also see the tip at the bottom.

That’s all for the Starred Tasks.

And, Oh, yes, you can modify the shortcut in Preference.

Thanks for your support, more features in V1.2 of Doit.im mini for Mac, refer to Doit.im Mini for Mac (V1.2) Released.