Things: Anytime vs Someday
Printed calendar on a yellow (fake) leather footstool ( GFX 50S + GF 120mm)
When I moved away from Things 3 a couple of years ago, I'd made a pretty big mess of…well, things: there were tons of projects strewn about that weren't projects at all (they didn't have end dates); I never set aside enough time to process anything beyond the most obvious, or urgent, tasks (which led to overwhelm); and the app's built-in Anytime and Someday “smart” lists remained a complete mystery. Why? While the concept appears simple, in practice I often found myself hesitating, unsure of where the line should be drawn between the two (apart from obvious, pie in the sky stuff that can't go anywhere but someday).
This time around, I planned on avoiding the confusion. I read what Cultured Code had to say on the matter (it's their app, after all). I looked through GTD resources, and various articles on the subject, until it finally clicked: ANYTIME should be an action list for the current week. All other unscheduled tasks would be “filed” as SOMEDAY. I wouldn't see them, until I needed to.
It's been working pretty well.
When I plan the week, I look through the SOMEDAY list, pick relevant tasks, and change them to ANYTIME. When I plan my day, I look through ANYTIME and hit command-T (for Today) on anything I want to do next: from this point on, I live in the TODAY view.
It's like transferring water from a bucket, to a pitcher, to a glass. You drink the contents of the glass, not the bucket.
Is the SOMEDAY list still overwhelming? You betcha. But 1) it's automatically divided into Areas, which helps; 2) it can easily be filtered with tags; and 3) the mess doesn't matter, because this list only acts as a source—it's never part of the daily grind.
There's something slightly counterintuitive about adding a time factor to a list called anytime. But this redefinition—to Anytime This Week—adds a surprising amount of clarity. It forces a reflection on relevance, but also on what's achievable, and which actions will move projects forward.
