Remember the Milk is one of my favorite task managers, but there are so many options that you may get overwhelmed, or not use them because they just take too much time to implement into your work flow. There are a handfull of handy shortcuts you can use to ease all these tasks and navigate the RTM interface swiftly.

Multiple editing

Multiple editing is the one mode which can save you a boatload of time. You can enter tags, places, URL’s completion information for any tasks you like at once, or you can mark them complete en masse. Just press “m” to enable multiple mode and from then on, when you select more than one task you will be editing them all at once. Handy lines to the right will enable you to visualize this better, and also to help you notice that you’re in multiple mode when you want to be in single edit mode. If you want to switch back, just press “m” again.

Editing task specifics

When creating a task you need to click on tags, then click on tag, enter it, click on location, enter it, click on time spent and so on, and while these are small additions to the time of task creation, they still amount to a considerable waste of time. There is a letter shortcut however for each task property, so when adding a task all you need to do is press “u” for url, enter it, then press enter, press “s” to change tags, enter them and press enter. While this sounds longer written down it’s actually about 30% faster initially and when you learn the shortucts it shaves at least 50% off your task creation time. Here are the shortcuts to all the properties in the order they are found in RTM, and also the shortcuts for assigning a priority on the fly.

• r - Rename
• d -Due
• f - Repeat
• g - Time estimate
• s - Tags
• l - Location
• u - URL
• p - Postpone
• y - Add a note
• 1 through 3 - Priorities

Navigation and Misc

Apart from just changing and adding tasks you can navigate easily around the interface with just letters. “a” selects all the tasks visible while “n” deselects all tasks, both logical choices and highly productive, especially the select none option. You can easily move up, down and select an item with “k”, “j” and “i” respectively. Another way to easily navigate and input details is the tab key which will save your input and move to the next field. The last keyboard shortcut I use a lot is the delete key which of course deletes the selected task(s).

If you use these shortcuts a bit you will get very used to them and your productivity will soar, shaving precious time off what you spend adding and modifying tasks which in itself is not an effective task.

I read an article today on the Geek’s Guide to Getting Things Done, which I am sorry to say I completely disagree with. Or rather I agree with it, but for a wholly different reason. Please take a look at that article before reading on, the main point of it is that productivity hacks nd tricks or not really that effective. The writer has gained considerable time by unsubscribing from feeds, stopping youtube browsing, Twittering, and so on.

I think many people fail to realize what productivity hacks are, or they are poorly defined. First of all, when working online (but it applies to anywhere else), you have to separate tasks into four groups, based purely on how much money they make you, or how much does this get you done directly.

Consider my position. When I write an article this can be considered to earn me money, especially guest posts, which are directly measurable. However, time spent researching, trying an app, watching video reviews of it are not tasks that can truly be considered productive in the sense that the writer thinks. Your time would be spent productively if you would watch these videos while writing the article for example. However, these are necessary actions to take to write a quality article, so overall can be said to be productive. I would draw the conclusion that writing the article is a directly productive task, while researching it is indirectly productive. Directly productive tasks can measurably (or at least closely) earn you money, while indirect tasks don’t make you money, they help you accomplish the tasks that do.

Twittering for example is not always a waste of time though. For me this is one way to stay in touch with my community. However, I do not spend hours twittering, I actually very rarely interact with people, I just let people know what I’m doing. In this case, twittering is an effective task, which is unproductive, doesn’t contribute to, or earn me money, but may bring me readers, which will pay off in the long run. When you go about Stumbleing for hours, or staying glued to youtube, getting lost in Twitter, these are the tasks that are ineffective and unproductive, meaning they are true time wasters.

Putting tasks into perspective

Also, the benefit of any one task you do is different for you than it is for me. If you want to get economical, you should be getting proportionally more, or at least as much added benefit from a task then the input. This means that ideally your marginal productivity should be a positive number. Of course this is not measurable, so it relies on your common sense.

Let’s look at an example. Twittering for me is an unproductive, but effective task because I only have abpout 2000 readers a day. Since I started Twittering about a month ago I managed to scrape up 13 followers. This is not much, but if you apply some social media equations, this means I could have about 200 more followers and readers in a year’s time. This means they don’t just know about Hack Your Day, but Organization and Planning, Blogtastique, and my other projects.

For Gina Trapani, who is the editor of Lifehacker, twittering is probably a waste of time, since she caters for tens of thousands of readers each day. She will have a load of followers, but this won’t add so much value that it would be worth her time.

Business productivity is not the only type

People also tend to confuse productivity with being a very efficient worker and business person, but I believe it is much more than that. Productivity is simply a way of living by achieving the highest possible output, with the lowest possible input. This doesn’t mean you’re lazy, it just means why navigate Windows with a keyboard when you have a mouse. If you can do something better, or equally but faster, why not?

Now productivity can be applied to anything you do, it’s not just about the business. I have a load of photos I took yesterday at the zoo which I will quite soon upload to Flicks. This is absolutely, positively a waste fo my business time. It will take me an hour, but I know some tricks here and there, so it would probably take some people 2 hours, I’m not a huge Flickr user yet, so someone really into it could possibly do it in much less time. I will be happy however, since I will be batch processing, batch correcting and so on.

Productivity can be, and should be applied anywhere in your life, not just when you’re working. In reality, productivity will work for you most if you can apply it to everything else in your life, not just your business. The reason is that while you can only apply it in your professional life it means that you have to consciously think about it. If you have extend it to everywhere else, you have a better change of getting the feeling of it, and being productive sub-consciously.

Productivity and personal balance

As I’ve pointed out before, personal balance is very important in life. You can be the best productivity worker in life if you die of a heart attack at 55. Dieing is not productive, you can get less work done and people look at you in a funny way if you show up for a marketing meeting.

Spending an hour in front of youtube, without thinking about the impact this will have on your productivity might make you happy, which, first of all, is a higher goal than money, and also, since it makes you happy, may ultimately raise your productivity in the long run. If you love Twittering, this could boost your morale, give you ideas, help you keep in touch with friends, who knows? Yes, it may be a waste of time, but the point is, that not everything you do that is a waste of time is undesirable.

Is productivity all that productive?

When a musician plays a song, you don’t say, wow, that guitar can play really well! An instrument is only as good as the musician playing it, and this applies to productivity nicely. Productivity hacks are there for shortening your day, helping you to achieve things faster. Twittering is a waste of time maybe, but Twitter tools help you shorten this time. They are designed because people know that Twittering is wasteful, but overall may make you happy, or have some other benefit, so in a sense “minimizing the damages” is productive.

In conclusion I have to say again that I totally disagree with why the writer has written his article, but I do believe he is right in two ways. One, he identified unproductive places in his life and eliminated them. A somewhat radical approach, but hell, it worked for him. Anyway, productivity is a process which needs to be refined, and maybe he just took the first step in a long road he will take.

Second of all, the theory behind it is sound, simplifying your day goes a long way to making it more productive. Using an application with a simple interface is usually much faster than one with a fully featured, but cluttered one.

Also, I love Geek’s Guide to Getting Things Done, sorry guys