ForumsQuestionsNeed advice on using Toodledo as a Grocery List


Need advice on using Toodledo as a Grocery List
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Q.P.

Posted: May 07, 2010
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I want to use Toodledo as both a grocery list and a task manager (and to keep these lists separate from each other). Can anyone offer advice? Or should I just use a separate grocery shopping app?

I found this older topic (now locked). I'm wondering how much has changed since 2008. Or is this advice still the same?
Thanks.


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I put all my groceries in one specific folder called "Groceries". When I walk through the store I have the "Groceries" folder open and check off the different items as I walk through the store. I find this quite convenient. I have then shared this folder with my wife who can put items in the "Groceries" folder.

My issue is with the "Focus list". What I was able to do when I used RTM (which I switched away from since they could not sync with Outlook) was to filter out a folder from the focus list so that the contents of that specific folder only came in to view when I went into the "Groceries" folder. This does not seem to be possible here? If so that clutters my focus-list because it has 10-15 items like "cucumbers" and "potatoes" floating around there. Am I missing something?

Bård
Toodledo

Administrator

Posted: Dec 27, 2008
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No, you aren't missing something. You are trying to use Toodledo as both a task manager and a checklist, which we were not designed to do. Toodledo is primarily a task manager, so we assume that each item is a task. My suggestion is to put all your grocery items into the note of a task "Buy Groceries", or make them subtasks of a parent task called "Buy Groceries". You could also give them a -1 Priority which would make them hidden from your list until you wanted to reveal them.

Hope that helps
Andrew A

Posted: May 07, 2010
Score: 0 Reference
I treat shopping as a series of projects...

I have an @errands context and then sep folders for what I need, e.g., costco, supermarlet, baby shop (got newborns, twins, trust me, baby shopping is a project).

When I am done, I either start adding new tasks to the project list or delete the folder until I need it again.

I can review by general errands I need to do or a specific project.

Works well for the most part for me.

Andrew
stephen.ferro

Posted: May 07, 2010
Score: 0 Reference
QP, you could make the groceries list a context, give them a deferred status like reference, or set them as priority -1 and then filter out those items. You could also create a search similar to yours in RTM that would not look at your grocery list items.

But for what you want to do, I would recommend a grocery app. There are many out there now that are excellent and relatively cheap. We use Grocery Gadget and have been very happy with it.
Q.P.

Posted: May 07, 2010
Score: 0 Reference
Thanks for the suggestions. I'll experiment with those ideas and see what works best for me.
Gaelyne

Posted: May 08, 2010
Score: 0 Reference
I was using RTM for my shopping list before I brought it over to ToodleDo, so I'd worked out a sort of complicated set up - BUT - it's very uncomplicated to work with once done.

My only problem with it is that the iPhone app doesn't (?) show me previously saved searches from the website - which is specifically why I came into the forums so I could ask about that. Meanwhile though, printing it out works fine - and has advantages too.

Here goes with my set up...

I have a folder named 'Shopping List'.

I have several shopping/grocery store related contexts. For example, 'Chemist, Newsagent, Specialty Store' <-- These are places that are separate from where I do grocery shopping at so these have their own contexts.

I also have contexts for areas of the grocery store - 'Dairy, Bakery (bread, etc), Paper/Plastic goods, Cleaning, Condiments, ETC. I'm sure you get the idea. When I do a search, I sort it by context so I can generally look at my list and find where I'm at in the store and see what's on the list for that section. If I'm in the Frozen foods section, that's the area of the list I look at. It's extremely handy for that and saves a lot of time scanning an unorganised shopping list.

My plan with this, which is working rather well, is to not have to re-type in items that I buy. If I put it on the list once, I want it to stay on the list so I can review it before my next shopping trip and decide if it needs to be bought or not. So what I've done is added in my shopping list items and given them a priority of -1 Negative. When it's time to do the list for the week, anything I want to buy that week I change to a priority of 0 -- or, if it's something that I absolutely, can not forget, it gets a higher priority, but that's pretty rare.

Once you've added a few items to your grocery list and have a few you've set for a priority of higher than -1, you can go to the search link at the top of the page, and for your search query set it for:

Match ALL of the following criteria:

Folder is: Shopping List (or whatever you've named it)
and
Priority is NOT: -1 Negative

Be sure to save your search as 'Grocery List' so you can return to it in future.

Last week I had a lot of items for the grocery store and for the other shops so I added two more saved searches. One shows me only the items matching the above that also match the context of the 3 or 4 different shops. That way I can print that list separately. The second search I added was the exact opposite. It's all of the original search but excludes the 3 or 4 contexts for the other shops.

Printing. Before printing, you'll want to unclutter what gets printed. So go up to the section where the icons are to customise your display and click on the first one, 'Add Columns'. You won't be adding columns, you'll be removing them. I untick everything except Context. Save this, and then once back to your To-Do list, click on Search and then select your saved search for Groceries and then print it. You'll have a nice list, sorted by the context of where things are in the store (or which store you're in).

Once printed, you can then return to the 'Add Columns' section and return the columns you normally use for the rest of your ToodleDo projects and work.

What makes this work for me without it interrupting the flow of my daily ToodleDo stuff is that the shopping list items are never marked with things I use day-to-day. For example, when I'm working or at home my items all either have a 'Next Action' setting or a due date. So the grocery list items never appear for these.

On a weekly basis, it's quite easy to use. Just go to the Shopping List folder, set anything you want to be in your list as a priority above -1 and then remove extra columns, go to the search for your saved search and print.

It would be SO MUCH easier (ahem!) <grin> if I could access my saved search list via the iPhone app though. I can do this with the mobile web browser version, but the phone app is so nice, it should also definitely have this option.

Since I've written a whole lot here, I think I'll be adding this to my blog as well. I hope that's OK.

Cheers,
Gaelyne
PeterW 

Posted: May 08, 2010
Score: 0 Reference
Excellent! Thanks for a great tip.

One other thing that would help make this work better would be the ability to save a 'view', i.e. to be able to remove some columns for printing and save it so that it can be easily recalled when needed.
Gaelyne

Posted: May 08, 2010
Score: 0 Reference
I agree. That would help a lot. As well as search (and saved search) this would totally rock. :-)
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