Today List Feature Released

Today we released a new view within GTDNext called “Today”.

To use this feature, just drag items to the list. (a keyboard shortcut will be added soon). You can remove items from the today list by dragging towards the top of the list.

You will see a list of all items you plan to accomplish today. If you don’t complete an item today, it will move to the “Past Day’s Actions” group after mid-night (a refresh is required right now).

By turning on the completed items filter in the Today view, you can see what you have accomplished during the day.

The Today list solves a common problem where people often feel the next action list is too daunting. They want a smaller list of items to work on for the day. In the past, we have recommended people use the focus list for this purpose. While right now the two lists provide very similar functions the today view will soon become a better place to plan what you want to accomplish.

We will continue to add functionality to the today list that will differentiate it from the Focus list. (We may even retire the focus list someday… we will see, based on your feedback)

So… What would YOU like to see the today list do? We have a lot of great things planned for it, but I’m curious to hear how you see using it.

2 Likes

This sounds great! One suggestion - at least as an option – would be to have all actions and projects that are due today automatically show up on the Today list.

Yes, this looks intriguing. For those of us who where using “Focus” to flag up items to be done “Today” can you distinguish what the difference is? One obvious thing is that previous “Todays” get marked as such, which is very nice. But is there anything else?

If I am correct, it seems that Today is a field that is completely separate from anything else. So this means that you can for e.g. have Someday also being “Today” which is interesting…

Dragging project to the today makes it appear as a task, in my mind it would be better to maintain the hierarchy, minimum viable bugfix would be at least make the icon clear that it’s a project so you know to ctrl-click to focus it :slight_smile:

1 Like

We’ve updated the today view today. Now in addition to the tasks you drag onto the list, it will also display items with a due date of today and items with a start date of today.

You can always drag those items off your today list if you want. It won’t change the due or start date, it will simply remove the task from your today list. This is a powerful way to make sure you don’t miss due dates and ticklers you’ve placed in your scheduled items.

For the short term you must hit the refresh button on your browser to see the new tasks appear on the today screen. Soon this will be automatic.

1 Like

This is a great addition to the Today View! If I may I would like to suggest that focused items also be shown on the today view. In my opinion, if it is a focus item, it probably needs some kind of attention today. I feel like I sometimes need to work off of 2 lists throughout the day. I can drop next actions on the today view and then mark them as a focus item and they will show up on the Focus List. This is expected. However, any task dropped on the Focus List or marked as a focus item from the Next Actions List will not be visible on the Today View. To me it makes sense to have items with due dates, start dates, or marked as Focus, shown on the Today View. Then if you need a Focus List you could use the Filter Focused Items button in the Today View to pare down today’s tasks to just the items I should be focused on. Thank you for your time! I am new here and am excited about what I see! Keep up the great work.

Yes, we have heard from quite a few people that they believe the focus list and today list functionalities should be combined. This is something we will do in the future. Thanks for the feedback!

Welcome and thanks for taking the time to comment on the forum!

Hi, new user here with a contrary view on combining focus and today lists. For me having them separate is one of the big differentiators for GTDNext.

I have c. 30 projects on the go at work so 30 next actions - of those, around 10 are a priority at any one time. If I’m in meetings for 8 hours a day then my ability to complete 10 actions is reduced, but the focus hasn’t changed - so my today list might be a few quick items and then back to the focus list tomorrow.

Hope that makes sense; I would much rather keep the focus and today lists distinct as it cuts down hugely on the overhead of replanning to fit available time.

Thanks, J.P.

Thanks for the vote!