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Originally Posted by flyingdesigner View Post
I know that a core idea is to put deadlines into a calendar but that doesn't work because then I end up with a calendar with an overwhelming amount of deadlines which makes the calendar difficult to use for actually tracking appointments, etc. Another side effect of this is that I put deadlines in for everything, including really trivial things.
I use my calendar for meetings and appointments, but if it's not an event where I physically need to be in a certain place, I try to track it in OmniFocus by creating a project.

That said, you may be able to save yourself some effort and increase your overall productivity if you cut down on the number of due dates you assign.

I find that when I assign lots of false deadlines to my items, it initially feels motivating, but I eventually spend a bunch of time kicking items that aren't really due down the road. I also gradually get numb to the due dates across the board.

I find that I get more done overall when I only put due dates on things that were truly do-or-die deadlines. Things I truly need to do get assigned an appropriate deadline, but things I only want to do will get flagged. I grab from the latter list as I'm able once the stuff on the first list is dealt with...

(As previous posters mentioned, regular reviews are also a big help - when stuff's being promoted/demoted to the appropriate list/level of importance regularly, I find I'm less stressed.)