Vision #4: A Task Inbox With Bling

The idea of a task inbox is nothing new.

Other todo and task apps have it.

Some people just keep track of their plans in their email inbox, so they have it too.

What it does is separate a couple decisions.

The first is: do I care enough about this to remember it later?

If the answer is yes, you add it to your task inbox. If not, you go on with your day.

The second is: when do I need to remember it?

By sticking the task, or appointment, or reminder, or “what if” in an inbox you can defer the second decision until you’re in a state of mind where you can make it wisely.

The Big Problem

The idea of a task inbox is great.

But.

People have no habit of going through their inbox.

Or they do it whenever (better than nothing!), but don’t do it with the right context.

So whether your task inbox is a physical inbox, an email inbox, or in some todo app, you likely don’t go through it as often as you should. And when you do, you probably don’t have the tools you need to make the decisions required.

The Big Solution

It’s staring us in the face from two days ago: the big solution is to go through your inbox each day when you plan.

At that point, you have all the context you need. You’ve got your tickler files, you’ve got your previous and next day’s plans.

And you’ve got your inbox.

Now, each day when you plan, you just empty it out. Move items to the right tickler, or plan to do them the next day.

It’s also easy to add a bit more context, like adding the words “maybe” or “think about”, if you’re not sure, you just want to revisit the idea in the future.

Besides the inbox items, this also lets you rearrange the rest of your plans. If something comes up that you have to fit into your weekend, you can see that while planning and defer some other todos already scheduled for that time.

The Little Problem

Adding appointments can sometimes be trickier than just answering the two questions above.

There’s a third question: Will I be free at the time I need to do this thing?

Typically, you’d answer this by using a calendar. It can give you some insight into your previous commitments, even if it’s often incomplete.

The fact is, you rarely add everything you plan to do to your calendar.

And that’s ok. The stuff you don’t add is often stuff that can be easily shuffled around.

Nevertheless, if you’re just using a tickler file (or something else like Cue) and want to live without a calendar, how do you know if you’re free in the future?

The Little Solution

The solution is again the tickler file, but with some usability and algorithmic smarts behind it.

When you go to add an appointment, you’ll be looking at a specific day (or week) in the future. So the “adding mode” of Cue will give the user the ability to pick a date. If all you do is pick the date and add the item, it will just get put on the appropriate tickler.

But Cue will show you the ticklers already scheduled for that date, as well as the surrounding dates. So if you don’t immediately add the item, you can see the context needed to agree to the appointment/meeting/commitment or not.

It’s as good as a calendar. Or even better!

Besides seeing your hard commitments, you also see the soft ones. That way, you’ll get a feel for how busy the day or week will be, and whether you really want to schedule in something else.

The Price of Entry

Of course, these are new ways of using a task inbox. They are not the price of entry.

The price of entry is just that it’s dead simple to add things, almost without thought.

From any device, in any situation.

The thought comes later, at the right time.

When you’re planning.