hello everyone and welcome back to the Keep Productive youtube channel it is francesco
here and in today's video we will be diving into my thing story tour i want to show you around
talk a little bit why i've moved from todoist after eight to nine years of using it then i
want to talk about how i'm exactly using it including projects including layouts and all
the stuff that you might need to know if you're using things three is a little bit of inspiration
or a way that i do something that might help you so if you're new here it'd be great to have you
as a subscriber so make sure to hit subscribe and do check out the keep focus community which we're
doing some fun stuff within you can join below and it'd be great to have you there so as you
can see in front of me this is things three i have been using it for about three months i've sort of
surpassed the 90-day sort of trial period that i give most applications if i try them i really
rarely do try them and this only came about because i was struggling so much with it with
todoist and um my own uh sort of notion use and as you can imagine remember i moved over
to evernote from notion and it came at a time when i was trying to minimize the tools and
i i found quite a good base on things three the main reasons i want to talk through sort of three
core reasons the first is the way that my day is more structured so for example my days is a lot
more sort of 50 50 personal work so being able to have separations to that is quite important for me
and what the feature that really drew me in for that was this evening feature which um if you see
here when you press when you can pop open this evening as an option which is perfect because
that's tend to be when i clock off and i can do other stuff around the house you know everyday
routine stuff and i i'm able to sort of separate that from the day stuff the second feature that
sort of drew me in is this grouping ability so even if i moved this to say today you can see that
it groups it based on project which i really like so if i open today i can see that quite neatly
organized on what tasks i have i really like the minimalist style i can drop away that side menu
and just have it clean in front of me so as you can see it's quite nice for that because
i have daily tasks for my the regular stuff i do every single day with work and i have routine for
stuff around the house the third feature i'd say is probably projects so if i go over here
to my projects i have two main projects at the moment is like launch of two solar courses and
reach one million views in 30 days which uh will be a little bit tougher but as you can imagine
going into these projects i like to actually go inside and sort of plan them break them down into
headings but make some notes on them and add a deadline as well and that's something that i felt
that things are as much better at personal project management and it helps me also to separate it
um quite neatly into areas away from the personal stuff so i've really liked having this set up
and actually it's really helped me to separate work and personal a lot better than i was doing
before inside of todoist even at sort of my pick peak todoist time so as you can imagine i'm still
using it in the same way i used to do it um so let me start you with inbox and say move down the list
through this sort of sidebar so with inbox across the day i'm just sort of clipping stuff it can be
really random stuff um like from articles i want to read two things i want to check out
maybe buy to ideas that i've had across the day i'm just clipping them in the mobile app
works really great with the really fast and when you drag it into the inbox i love that feature
so the inbox has become like this hub for me i'm not using i say with any sort of extensions or
anything like that it's just plain and simple so set up here and i use command p on my on the mac
to quickly dump something in now over the top of doing some other piece of work so i'm always
capturing stuff and then at the end of the day at say 4 p.m i tend to just organize this into the
relevant areas if i actually don't get around to doing it what i tend to do nowadays is just press
ctrl a and that just selects it all and i just drag it into anytime um and that's mainly because
um i can then do a bigger processing session and it keeps that inbox clear to dump in new ideas
for the day and allows me to sort of actionable and sort that all out later versus seeing the
sort of check mark there of like okay you've got 23 things in there it would then go up to say 50
and i'd be like oh my god that's a lot of stuff so that's my sort of methodology with the inbox
it's not safe gtd but it definitely resonates gtd with the capturing side of stuff so today
is obviously where most of the tasks get done for the day so for example with this say tesco order i
tend to do this if i'm trying to break it up a little bit more pop that in this evening and you
can see here like for example daily tasks the last thing on my list here today um is the things to
retool which i'm doing now so as you can imagine it's like a really simple setup i'm not using
anything advanced using the deadline abilities i use the tags really occasionally and that's if
i've got more than four things on my list i go down to where is it focus or no highlights and
you can see here the highlights tag appears next to it then if there's a very long list
of stuff to do that's where i can sort of narrow down the three things i want to do during my day
i've been doing the three things i want to do during my day for the since maybe middle
of december so basically that is when i do my journal in the morning i write down three things
if i want to get done during daylight highlights and that helps me to navigate the minimalist style
of things really more than i did before so when i'm in here i have three core focuses for the day
and allows me to get things done better than i did before which hopefully is uh you know like helping
me keep focused and keep sort of going towards the right goal now the one thing that i do is i when i
open upcoming if i'm trying to plan the next few days ahead i'll use the new windows area and i
tend to put up like today on the left and upcoming on the right i'll make this one smaller and what i
what you can do between the windows is drag them which i really like so for example if i'm like
if i'm in any time and i'm like okay right these maybe these look a little bit more actionable than
they are uh what i'll do is i can drag them into the the relevant areas at it on a week review so
that tends to be on like a thursday afternoon and it helps me plan the week in advance but literally
allows me just to drag stuff in without any sort of stress i really like that ability
very subtle very easy to use i used to actually have the calendar events pop up here but i even
found just having it as tasks only is quite nice um and sort of keeping an idea but i can always
have their calendar down here open at the same time to see what's actually on for the day so
yeah i really like the way that this upcoming is viewed um it does it it's quite non-intrusive to
today uh and i really like that you know like there's really nothing wrong to do us but the
next seven days i guess sometimes can be quite overwhelming and having that sort of separation
helps to keep focused so the really cool thing with anytime as well so i'll do like an
anytime clear out every two days three days if there's anything in there is anything that
doesn't have an associated date goes inside of here so for example like if i'm just like okay
like there's stuff that i need to get done inside of the the project side of stuff and they're
static they're not got a date associated to them i can actually go in and see them same with reading
same with other stuff like that they can be done anytime there's no deadlines on them and it helps
me to i guess to go down here and sometimes just like weave out what needs to be done so someday
i have it broken into two areas um i have it associated to a project which is called 2021
goals with a few things that i'd like to get done during the year like new year's resolutions always
they're all there and that's uh that's really nice to see i can go to that project if i want to but
these are all someday ones so again they're things that can be done in the future uh very general
and there are some so i guess just above here sort of medium short term short term to medium
goals so for example in this case uh like things like car finances and it keeps projects you know
what i want to do next like booking an airbnb get away where we can so that some day is quite
nice because it gets me to look at like future stuff so i'd say the top bit short term the
next bit is long term and that's really nice now i don't really use the log but whatsoever
trash again the same i have that thing to be cleared out instantly the projects as i said
is fairly simple i don't keep them too difficult but is it it's actually really nice to have like
a place to plan them and organize them in a very relaxed fashion the real magic is inside of the
personals area so for example i have different tasks for um you know like otto um and i can go
to like the routine and this is all the stuff that i've got set up so for example like bins
common grandpa pay pension things like that that um i've got coming up um so this is where a lot of
my sort of time goes into as well so uh it's just being able to use that as a sort of planning board
i use it as my reading list as well so sometimes if there's like some longer
articles or even notes that i'm taking say for example like fitness notes that i want to do in
my next sort of planning session then i'll store them into red to read section it's just handy to
find them there and i have sometimes like to clear clear reading list on certain days to get rid of
them again daily tasks is a place for me to just extract things that i'm pretty routinely gonna do
i actually just did that um but you can see it lovely sort of sinking there but i really
like this because it keeps me very simple in what i'm gonna do during the day whereas the projects
are more where i get the majority of my work done because that helps me to keep focused on that
project this daily task area is really handy for that now i really love the area side of stuff so
having the ability to have area and then the lists below it that's something that i would say
is something that i didn't really like inside of todoist it's something that um you know
having those drop downs but it what it does is it neatens it up much further than it does inside of
todoist and that's all it is it makes it just easier to be able to use on a daily basis
so in terms of my planning and that sort of sign of stuff as i said i tend to capture a lot of
stuff in inbox process anytime every two days to see what tasks i need to do in the next coming
stuff and that really helps when i'm getting sort of bombarded by emails or work and i just want to
be able to defer it or even just capture it for later to be able to process particularly helpful
when i'm trying to focus on the three things that i've done during the day other stuff tends to go
an inbox or anytime unless it's super super urgent and i need to get to it um but quite
luckily i haven't had those for maybe a while now maybe because it's january and it's still fresh as
the new year begins now i just want people to know that i really still respect todoist a lot i
think it's a fantastic application and the board's abilities was definitely something that was great
i think i think i just needed a bit of a change of scenery and the way that i was using applications
i just was slimming down on them and i wasn't utilizing the majority of to do this features
like labels filters and also even boards to some extent i wasn't really taking advantage of them
if that makes sense and i just found like this has been a lot more of a cooler relaxed setup for me
especially when managing personal and work at the same time um so i'm very grateful to have spent
a bit of time just working that out as i said i think i definitely warranted being able to move
because i have been using it for such a long time to do this that at the same time it gave me a lot
of time to think about why and how i'm moving and this was a this is a really great move i think um
both over to evernote and both over to things three despite evernote's bugs it it allowed me
to just think about what are the cool tools i use and why should i use them so that's something i
definitely recommend doing if you're someone that just uses tools just because you use them for the
sake of it and things like that one final thing i like is i'm slowly learning the keyboard shortcuts
but i really like the quick find that's something that i i really like to do so for example like
like for example that website upgrade i i tend to just like dump stuff in here as time goes on
in the subtask and that helps me to plan with next sessions so again uh just super simple but really
easy to use and you can see that example here like with the community planning uh you can see that it
pops open on i can see like all of the stuff that i've i've been having ideas on that i can still
capture in advance um so super helpful um but yeah that's my things very loud guys i hope you enjoyed
um it and hopefully give you some inspiration for your own setups um and whether you're applying it
to your things 3 or whether you're applying it to your own accounts um it'd be great to hear
feel free to share your opinions in the comments below always good to hear what to do applications
you're using i think one thing i just continue to try and say is try and stay with it for as long
as possible i see myself potentially not moving from things three for several years now unless
they come out with the things four because it's sort of like the same systematic stuff
it's almost like you know if if you've got a new iphone it's it's going to be the same base
you're not really moving necessarily like the way you're using the tool um unless it's drastically
different but i doubt it will be but i hope you enjoyed uh today's video please do subscribe and
i look forward to chatting with you guys in the comments but thank you very much guys and cheerio
you