ForumsQuestionsJuggling Home and Work


Juggling Home and Work
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DJ

Posted: Jun 25, 2008
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Newbie here...

I've added many items for home and categorized them using folders. I started adding items for work and was suddenly overwhelmed by the intermingling of it all. I have contexts for Home and Work, but if I change the view from main to folders after filtering for a context, I see everything again! I'm thinking about creating another account to keep home and work separate, but first I thought I'd ask for suggestions on how others manage all their personal items along with their business items. When I am at work, I don't want to be distracted by all the thing I need to do at home and visa versa. Any feedback or suggestions will be appreciated.

DJ

P. S. I'm using the free account, if that makes a difference.
mesposito2

Posted: Jun 25, 2008
Score: 0 Reference
This doesn't really answer your question, but it may be useful to someone.

First, for me, priorities don't have that much meaning due to the way I work. I prioritize during the planning stage by setting the due date. I try to do everything that is due today, and what doesn't get done I move to the next day if possible. Even if I have 10 items in one of my pools, it's not that difficult to decide which one to work on.

My Priority designation for Today items
-----------------------------------------
TOP - Morning Pre-Work Tasks
High - Today's Work tasks
Medium or lower - Evening Home tasks

This way I see a split during the day. I can handle the 3 pools of tasks during each time slot.

ME
DJ

Posted: Jun 27, 2008
Score: 0 Reference
Thank you ME. One of my favorite things about Toodledo is how versatile and flexible it is. It allows people to manage data the way they see data which is GREAT!

Anyone else?

-- DJ
Capt'n Bob

Posted: Jul 06, 2008
Score: 0 Reference
How about using Tags?

Capt'n
jwelshjr

Posted: Jul 07, 2008
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You might want to reconsider how you use folders. Initially I had a bunch of folders - I think I got up to 17. I realized that it was overkill and actually made my life harder. I now have only 6 folders and am considering making it only 4 - Work, Personal, Someday, Inbox (which is actually 'No Folder'). I use contexts and tags to further categorize and subtasks for projects. ...but I'm still perfecting my method. ;-)

See this thread for some other ideas on folder use: http://www.toodledo.com/forums/5/32/0/how-are-you-using-folders.html
Qrystal

Posted: Jul 09, 2008
Score: 0 Reference
It sounds like you're in need of a way to distinguish between "actually doing the tasks" and "organizing the tasks".

When I'm in ORGANIZE MODE, flipping around between folders for different "realms of existence" isn't such a big deal, because I try to keep my organizing time to a minimum.

I basically have three Work folders for different major realms of work I do, one huge Home folder, a Self folder for personal development and fun, a Blogging folder, and one folder called People (for stuff that's neither Work nor Home nor for Me). If I'm organizing stuff, I'll just make sure I don't even look at the folders for stuff I shouldn't be organizing at the moment.

But when it comes down to DOING STUFF, I work from the Hotlist. If that's too big (and it usually is!) I select a few things for my Starred list, and work from that. Since both of these lists are within Main, switching between them does not change the filtered context.

The only thing I haven't done yet is set up contexts so I can use the filter for them!!! The more I think about it, the more I see how it will work awesomely. Currently, my contexts are so complicated, I barely ever use them. I might go with something like Work, Play, and Life (neither Work nor Play), because I can see how I'd use the context filter really well with these categories.

Tags I use kinda like sub-folders, in that I usually sort by tag when viewing my Folder contents. For my Home folder, I have tags like finances, maintenance, cleaning, organizing, decorating, etc. For my Self folder, I have things like gaming, photos, shopping, health, etc. For my Blogging, I have tags for the various websites I work on.

Keep in mind that "sort by" is saved for each "view by" section. So your sort for the "Main" section can be different than the sort for the "Folders" section, etc.

I hope this helps -- it surely helped me to think about my system a bit more!! :) I'm quite pleased with how things work for me, and am looking forward to a little tweak to make it work better!!

P.S. All the stuff I've said above can be done with the free account!


This message was edited Jul 09, 2008.
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