Knowledge needs to be aligned

“Chase the invoice” makes perfect sense in the meeting where you agreed it. Three weeks later, on a to-do list by itself, it means nothing. Which invoice? Whose? What were we going to do if they didn’t pay?

Write tasks in the note where the work was decided, and pull them into a list when you need one. The list is only a view. Each task still lives in its note, a click away from the context, and ticking it in either place ticks it in both. The meeting in your calendar and the people in your contacts should lead back to their notes in the same way.

Write tasks the way you’d say them. “Send Jane the contract on Friday” already has who, what and when in it, and a decent tool can pick all of that out without a form. Every extra field is another excuse to put it off.

Give each task one owner. Tasks shared between two people tend to slip, and tasks with nobody on them don’t get done at all. If it’s yours, say so. If it’s someone else’s, put their name on it and link it to the note where they said yes.

When the list gets long, prune it. If you can’t remember why a task is there, open its note. If the note doesn’t explain it either, delete the task.