I have been developing my own version of ABCDEF+ priorities combined with scheduling to achieve something similar. Thanks to this post, I have actually made changes to the definitions of each priority level, which has clarified things greatly.
If you define the priority levels in terms of Must Do Immediately (A), Must Do (B), Should Do (C or D), Could Do (E or F), and Someday/Paused (P), and then combine that with scheduling, you can get the important things to float to the top by sorting by priority first, then by scheduled or due date. If you hide everything that cannot be done now (usually by hiding everything with a start date after today), you get a good list of what needs to be done now, listed more or less in the order you described.
Separate views for “scheduled items today,” and “unscheduled items” are also useful so things don’t fall through the cracks. This way you don’t have to schedule everything and things still get done.
I’d just caution (in case you hadn’t noticed!) that Must Do Immediately is mixing importance and timing (cf ‘urgent’), as is Someday/Paused. Better to keep them separate if you can.
I have been developing my own version of ABCDEF+ priorities combined with scheduling to achieve something similar. Thanks to this post, I have actually made changes to the definitions of each priority level, which has clarified things greatly.
If you define the priority levels in terms of Must Do Immediately (A), Must Do (B), Should Do (C or D), Could Do (E or F), and Someday/Paused (P), and then combine that with scheduling, you can get the important things to float to the top by sorting by priority first, then by scheduled or due date. If you hide everything that cannot be done now (usually by hiding everything with a start date after today), you get a good list of what needs to be done now, listed more or less in the order you described.
Separate views for “scheduled items today,” and “unscheduled items” are also useful so things don’t fall through the cracks. This way you don’t have to schedule everything and things still get done.
I appreciate your post. It has helped a lot.
I’d just caution (in case you hadn’t noticed!) that Must Do Immediately is mixing importance and timing (cf ‘urgent’), as is Someday/Paused. Better to keep them separate if you can.