Remember the Milk has made a few changes that now make it much easier to use this awesome list-management service with David Allen’s GTD system.

Improvement #1: Add Items to Search Results and Smart Lists

Smart lists are basically saved searches. You can click a tag in the tag cloud to pull up a list of all items with that tag. You can then add items to that list, then either close the list or save it as a new smart list.

Problem: Using tags for projects makes it hard to add additional items to a project

Solution: You can now add items to a smart list, so for a project, you can tag an item, click that tag to view a smart list of everything with that tag, and add new items directly to the smart list, which will automatically be tagged the same way. Similarly, if you search by due date or other criteria, items you add to the search results list will automatically be given the same characteristics. This is very powerful, because you can search by tons of criteria. You can then close the smart list to avoid cluttering your screen with too many lists, or save it if it’s one you’ll use a lot.

Improvement #2: Edit Smart Lists

Smart lists are the best way to create a RTM workspace that matches your work. For example, I’ve created a smart list for overdue items by searching for “dueBefore:today”, then saving the search results as a smart list. This lets me quickly see what I either need to postpone or do ASAP.

Now, though, you can edit the criteria for your smart lists if you decide at some point that you want to modify them (previously, you had to create a new smart list and delete the old one). This can be done under “settings.”

Some other potentially useful ways to combine tags with smart lists:

• ibnu - for items you’ve tagged as “important but not urgent”
• someday - items you don’t want to set a date for yet, but still might want to do some day
• wait - items you’ve delegated to others and are waiting to hear back on
• next - for next actions. I personally don’t use next actions at the moment, but GTD requires a distinction between next actions and actions you can’t do yet

Creating a Project in Remember the Milk

I recommend using tags for projects, because tags are quick and easy to manage. For example, doing my income taxes was a project (David Allen defines a project as anything with more than one step). So, on my Personal list, I created an item called “Project: Income Taxes.” I then tagged this item with “taxes.” I then clicked this tag in the tag cloud to be taken to the list of tasks with that tag - which, so far, was just the one item.

I then set the priority of “Project: Income Taxes” to 1, so it’s colored red and moves to the top of the list (this helps me distinguish project titles from to-do items; I don’t use the priorities as priorities). Next, I started adding the steps to doing my taxes to this list. Since it’s a search results list, the items are automatically tagged with “taxes.”

I don’t want to have the “taxes” project list displayed at all time, so I then closed the search results list (though I could have also saved it as a smart list). Now, whenever I want to work on my taxes, I click the “taxes” tag and do something on the resulting list.

Further GTD Usage Notes

I use lists for many different purposes, not all of which are related to GTD. For example, I have one list of stuff I might want to buy some day. I have another list for stuff I need to buy right away, like deodorant. I have another list of stuff I need to read for class. Other lists are “areas of responsibility,” such as work or church.

Do what works for you. You’ll probably want to limit the number of real lists you keep, just to keep the screen from getting crowded (though you can have as many lists as you want). The tag cloud is pretty cool, and I like to rely on it for most things. Smart lists are great for displaying things that you don’t want to have on a separate list forever, but want to access quickly on a temporary basis.

RTM is just fun to use. It’s incredibly fast, and can, now more than ever, help you get things done.