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For you who prefer listening to reading, this post is also available as an episode of the ""Done!"" podcast:

Well, let us say we are talk­ing about your to-do list tool and that you want to be able to see what you have to do in four hier­ar­chi­cal levels:

1. Respon­si­bil­i­ties
2. Projects
3. Phase
4. To-do task

This hier­ar­chy is what I call a thought mod­el — in oth­er words, a struc­ture for the structure.

Oth­ers might not think like you

Imag­ine, too, that you are look­ing for a good tool to keep track of every­thing with. You find Microsoft To-Do and it looks nice, but woe is me — it can only han­dle three levels:

1. List groups
2. Lists
3. To-do tasks

Is that what decides it? Do you have to find a new tool just because of this?

No, not at all. If the app devel­op­ers did not have the same thought mod­el as you do and the tool is there­fore miss­ing a lev­el, sim­ply cre­ate one more.

Do this

If your tool falls one lev­el short, make an extra lev­el by adding sub­head­ings that begin with cer­tain spe­cial char­ac­ters, such as dash­es, dol­lar signs, or underscores.

In my exam­ple from To Do, you would first let the top-lev­el ​“group of lists” rep­re­sent the area of respon­si­bil­i­ty. With­in an area of respon­si­bil­i­ty, you would then cre­ate a list called “– Project A”. Direct­ly below it (but tech­ni­cal­ly on the same lev­el), you cre­ate anoth­er list called ​“Phase 1”, anoth­er one called ​“Phase 2” and so on. In the phase lists, you final­ly add the to-do tasks.

This is what it would look like:

– Project A
Phase 1
Phase 2

– Project B
Phase 1
Phase 2

and so on.

The list of projects and the lists of phas­es are actu­al­ly on the same lev­el, but it will be clear to you that the list of projects is what holds togeth­er the under­ly­ing list of phases.

Done!

More to choose from

If you find a way around the fact that an app devel­op­er did not think the way you do and cre­ate your own solu­tion for what you are miss­ing, you will have more pos­si­ble apps to choose from. You will not have to spend time and ener­gy look­ing for the per­fect struc­ture tool, but can choose one that is good enough and then cus­tomize it your­self so that it is at least close to per­fect. The soon­er you adapt the tool to fit your needs, the soon­er you can get back to get­ting the tasks that are clear­ly more impor­tant done. Full speed ahead!

What’s your way?

What emer­gency solu­tion or Mac­Gyver-like trick have you come up with that you would like to share with me? I get eas­i­ly excit­ed and hap­py hear­ing about how oth­ers have inven­tive­ly got­ten past what at first seemed like insur­mount­able obsta­cles, so feel free to write to me and share!

(Not every­one is a list-lover like me. Does that apply to you? Then feel free to check out my to-do list for any­one who does not like lists!)