- Headers aren't the only non-actionable things. Tasks that are not next-steps (that are blocked on something else) are also non-actionable. As are tasks that have a specific date & time assigned (I can't or don't want to complete them any earlier). So I use @nextstep on tasks that are actionable and ignore everything else.
- Do more with Todoist on desktop and mobile:. Capture and organize tasks the moment they pop into your head. Remember deadlines with reminders and due dates. Build lasting habits with recurring due dates like 'every Monday'. Work together on projects by assigning tasks to others. Prioritize your tasks.
If you’re anything like me, you probably find yourself taking on a lot of responsibilities. It’s part of being a Producer. The combination of starry-eyed dreamer and super ambitious administrator. Therefore one of the most important parts of implementing a personal productivity system is taking the time to figure out your areas of responsibility and projects. You can’t really be productive until you know what you’re saying “Yes” to.
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After you’ve captured everything on your mind into your productivity inbox, the next step of GTD is to clarify what all of the “things” mean. Producers can think of Clarifying as three components:
- understanding what is your responsibility and what needs to be delegated.
- writing actionable next steps for the things that are your responsibility.
- creating reliable nudges for your delegated tasks.
One: Roles, Responsibilities, and Delegation
You’d think it would be fairly straightforward to know what is your responsibility and what is someone else’s responsibility. But our industry notoriously lacks standardization. Therefore every show requires a little bit of ‘reinventing the wheel’.
Effective productivity requires clear boundaries and that’s why I spend a lot of time with my team at the beginning of every shows discussing roles and responsibilities. Make sure everyone on your team has a clear understanding of their responsibilities. An added benefit of taking the time in the beginning is that people will spend less time ‘searching’ for the right person (“Who handles the music cue sheets?” “Who sends audio out for transcription?”) when things get busy and time can least be spared.
As a recent example: on my current show both the Production team and Post Production team order expendables from the same vendor in Burbank. The Line Producer will approve all of the invoices created by the Production Team and I’ll approve all of the invoices created by Post. What inevitability happens is that production wraps and a silly $10 dollar invoice will slip through the cracks, and I’ll have to handle it. It’s not a big deal, but I just have to make sure that I remember to keep in mind that after production wraps an unfamiliar invoice will probably cross my desk that I’ll have to research and approve.
Todoist has a leg up on the competition when it comes to delegation because it has collaboration built it. If your production springs for the business plans, Todoist enables you to create tasks that can be assigned to other people. I’ve used similar systems in the past with mixed results, but your results may vary so give it a try!
Two: Writing Effective Next Steps
“Things rarely get stuck because of lack of time. They get stuck because the doing of them has not been defined”
David AllenOnce you’ve divided tasks into your tasks and delegated tasks, it’s time to think about what you’re doing. If your lists are anything like mine they’re filled with incomplete thoughts like “Update Driver’s License” and “Create Gallery of my Sketches”, or the deeply unhelpful “Producer Interview Podcast”. (That last one is going to happen one day!)
A good productivity system is one that propels action! And all of your tasks need to be actionable. Before I can “Update my Driver’s License” I need to: gather all of the necessary paperwork, find the location of the nearest DMV, and find a day when I can be out of the office for most of the morning. The process of breaking down your goal (“Update my Driver’s License”) into discrete actionable tasks is a practice. And I was surprised to see how much of my productivity inbox was unactionable.
The more I practice writing actionable next steps. The more fun it becomes. I keep thinking about them as the story beats of the screenplay that is my life.
Three: Creating Reliable Nudges
If you’ve delegated a task to someone else you have to remember to followup. (“Did my coordinator get that release form?” “Did the legal team review that contract?”) A key component of delegation is creating a reliable method of nudging yourself and your delegee. And this is where all of the softwares goes to die 😦
Except Gmail! Google recently implemented a snooze feature into its email clients and I think it is the least worst option. I feel this way because my primary method of delegating tasks is via email anyway. When I need to get something done, I send an email; and followup with a phone call or in-person conversation. But email almost always because CYA.
After I send an email I’ll snooze it for two or three days later when I want to be reminded to followup. Then at the predetermined time in the future, the email will pop up in my inbox and I’ll be reminded to followup and nudge. It’s not a perfect system, because now my tasks are split between my email client and task manager. But it’s the best method that I’ve found so far.
Clarifying your responsibilities requires you to see the forest (Your Projects and Areas of Responsibilities) and the trees (Actionable tasks for you and your team). In the next post we’ll dig into Contexts and knowing which tasks to work on next.
Using recurring and repeating tasks in Todoist is a great way to save a lot of time and to stay on top of all of your tasks that occur regularly, or at least more than once.
When setting up a task in Todoist, to make it recurring you fill out the task information as you normally would, but when it comes to the time / date field you make some small changes.
For example, if you want a daily reminder you would type in “every day” in the date field and it would become recurring every day (remember – every day is ever day, including weekends!). If you only want weekdays you would type in “every weekday”.
There’s lots of date formatting options that gives repeating tasks a lot of flexibility – you can find more of them here on the Todoist date formatting guide.
Repeating Tasks Todoist
This is also important to know about if you are using IFTTT and Todoist – you’ll need to make sure you have your date formatting correct or you may run into some real issues.
(You can find out more about integrating IFTTT and Todoist to automate some really handy processes here: IFTTT & Todoist Gmail Automation Article)
Another area where date formatting for recurring tasks can come in handy is setting start and end dates.
As an example, let’s say you had a project with a new task that came up, but you only need reminders through the end of the week. If today was March 23 and Friday was March 25, you would type in “every day ending March 25”. You can also do this for starting dates to set up a recurring task in the future!
Todoist Non Actionable Tasks List
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Todoist Task Duration
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