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ghb

Posted Aug 21, 2009 in: Pseudo subfolders
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  • ghb
  • Posted: Aug 21, 2009
  • Score: 0
Posted by richard:
Like many people here, I really wanted the organizational capability that would come with having subfolders. At first, I toyed around with using subtasks, but it just didn't feel right. What I am about to describe is likely to be seen as exactly the same functionally, but for me feels more appropriate.

In my adoption of GTD, there are a couple of items on toodledo which I simply do not use. One is priority, and the other is tags. There isn't much I could think of to do with priority, but tags was essentially a free for all. And it was while thinking about tags, that folders fell into place.

The reason I wanted subfolders was to group things together. All of my personal tasks, I would like under one grouping, with subgroups underneath. So, if I had my choice, I would have a personal folder, then within it would be my projects (Read these books, Redesign living room, Plan girlfriend's birthday party), then within each project folder would be the tasks. As it turns out, philosophically, tags are used to categorize or otherwise label things. In a sense, tags allow someone to put anything into multiple folders, but this is not what I use them for.

I created tags for my wide picture view (Personal, Finance, Work, SideJob, etc). Then for folders, I simply used the full project name. In addition to projects, I came up with generic verb-based folder names to lump my single-step tasks ("Maintain the credit I still have" for the Pay Utility Bill type of transactions).

Now, when I want to see what is going on in my Work file, I sort by Tags -> Folders -> Context, and I get an awesome bird's eyeview and somehow, my mind is at ease for not using subtasks to do the exact same thing.

Also, a minor point for me, is subtasks were nested below, whereas in this method, the task and the project to which it belongs are always on the same line. Apparently my memory is weak, as I always had to jump back up a few lines to re-read the project. With the tags, it's an easier glance a little bit to the right, as opposed to a random distance above.

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