{"id":5238,"date":"2020-12-23T09:06:27","date_gmt":"2020-12-23T16:06:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/?p=5238"},"modified":"2020-12-23T09:06:27","modified_gmt":"2020-12-23T16:06:27","slug":"guest-post-using-todoist-with-myn-and-1mtd-by-charles-olsen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/guest-post-using-todoist-with-myn-and-1mtd-by-charles-olsen\/","title":{"rendered":"Guest Post: Using Todoist with MYN and 1MTD by Charles Olsen"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I am very pleased to\nannounce the guest post below by reader Charles Olsen about Todoist. You may\nrecall that Charles wrote a few guest posts about Things over the last year,\nand this one is even better!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Todoist <\/strong><\/em>app suite is a\nset of to-do list management apps that run on virtually all platforms: Windows,\nMac, Android, iOS, and the web. It\u2019s one of the most popular to-do list apps\nout there. Charles Olsen has spent a lot of time and effort developing ways to\nuse 1MTD and MYN<\/a> within those Todoist apps. Charles\u2019s guest\npost below shows you how you can do this yourself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Both Charles and I dismissed\nTodoist years ago because it lacked key features to allow it to work with MYN.\nBut those features were added recently to Todoist, and a month ago Charles\nalerted me that there are now excellent ways to use Todoist with MYN (and\n1MTD). After reading his article below, I agree!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am\npersonally excited about Todoist. Mainly because it is completely cross platform.\nIt also can be used with any email system. I use both Windows and Mac, so I am\nalways looking for good apps that support both, and I now think Todoist is it.\nI\u2019ve started using Todoist as my primary MYN task app, to test the waters, and\nI am very happy so far. Because of that, I am very seriously considering creating\na full MYN video course on it, similar to what I did for Windows Outlook and\nfor the app called Toodledo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latter, Toodledo, I\u2019ve pushed for years as the MYN app-of-choice for anyone who does not<\/em> use Windows desktop Outlook. Can Todoist replace Toodledo in that role? Simple answer: Yes! Granted, Toodledo has many more features, some of which I miss when moving to Todoist. But Todoist is much easier to use and is certainly robust enough. And mainly, it\u2019s much better supported by its developers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So read the article below. I think you will see that not only is\nCharles an excellent writer, but the 1MTD and MYN implementations he has come\nup with are very nicely done! If you like this, give Charles a big \u201cthank you\u201d\nshout out in the comments section below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michael<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Todoist: MYN for Everybody<\/strong>
by Charles Olsen<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Introduction<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve written a couple of articles for this blog about using\nthe Things 3 app for One Minute To-Do List (1MTD) and Master Your Now (MYN),\nwhich are productivity systems developed by Michael Linenberger and fully\ndescribed in his video courses and books. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is about how to use\nthese productivity systems in another app, called Todoist.<\/em> This is\nanother task manager that I\u2019ve played with over the past couple of years, but\nit could not be configured for MYN.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until now \u2014 a recent update added\nfeatures needed to do true MYN in Todoist. With this new capability, Todoist is\nnow my favorite app to use with MYN. (I have no affiliation with Doist, the\ncompany that created Todoist.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For those of you who are new to\nMYN, I\u2019ll start with a brief story about how I learned the power of MYN, and\nwhy you may want to use it. Then I\u2019ll talk about using Todoist as your\nproductivity app.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why MYN?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I learned the value of Michael Linenberger\u2019s \u201cMaster Your\nNow\u201d (MYN) productivity system long before I even discovered Michael or MYN.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was working for a large company\nas supervisor of the PC Help Desk. There were almost 1,000 employees in the\ncompany, and I had a team of 6 to handle help desk calls and desktop support.\nOf course we stayed very busy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company sent me to a productivity\ntraining course. The course lasted all day and was offsite, so that we wouldn\u2019t\nbe distracted by our jobs. Cell phones were not common at this time, and those\nwho had them were instructed to turn them off except during breaks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first exercise in the class\nwas to write down the roles we serve in our lives. Everyone has multiple roles:\nemployee, manager, spouse, parent, etc. We spent a few minutes thinking about\nour lives, and writing down all of the roles we play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next, we were instructed to write\na long-term goal for each of those roles. Then we were asked to write one or\ntwo short-term goals that would move us toward completing each of the long-term\ngoals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, we were told to examine\neach short-term goal and write down at least one or two specific actions that\nwould move us forward toward accomplishing that goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The exercise was empowering, even\nfun. The rest of the day we learned various productivity principles, and best\npractices for using the binder we were given at the start of the day. The class\nwas designed to make us excited and enthusiastic about our new approach to\nproductivity, and it worked. I had created a plan that would change my life,\nand bring new levels of productivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And what happened next?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I went back to work the next day,\nbinder in hand, ready to seize the day. But I found over two dozen new messages\nin my email Inbox, with people making requests or asking for updates on past\nrequests. My phone\u2019s voice mail had several new messages. Some people had come\nby my desk looking for me, and had written notes which they left on my desk or\nmy chair. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My carefully-crafted plan had to\ngive way to the urgencies of the day. Not every request that had come in had to\nbe done that day \u2014 for that matter, some didn\u2019t actually need to be done at\nall. Some could simply be forwarded to the help desk issue tracking system,\nwhere they should have gone in the first place. But first I had to sift through\neverything, and figure out what really needed to be done, who needed to do it,\nand when. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not saying that the exercise\nwe did in class was useless \u2014 I think it really is a helpful exercise. But for\na productivity system to truly work for you, it must start by acknowledging the\nurgency of the things you need to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some tasks need to be finished\ntoday, or you will face negative consequences. There are many types of\nconsequences in your personal and professional lives. This could range from\nlate fees, to lost business because clients realize they can\u2019t depend on you to\ncomplete work they\u2019ve hired you to do on schedule, to disappointing family or\nfriends who were counting on you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is why I found Michael\nLinenberger\u2019s instruction to be transformational. His productivity systems \u2014\nthe One-Minute To-Do List (1MTD), Master Your Now (MYN), and One-Minute Project\nManager (1MPM) \u2014 all revolve around the urgency of the tasks that you need to\ncomplete. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course your priorities can\nchange, daily or even hourly. These systems include timely reviews which can be\ncompleted quickly \u2014 often in one minute, as the names suggest. It\u2019s easy to\ntrack changes in priority, and to be confident that you are always aware of \u2014\nand focusing on \u2014 the tasks that truly need your attention right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And when you don\u2019t have urgent\ntasks requiring your immediate attention, you can see the items that are soon\ngoing to become urgent, and get started on them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve studied several productivity\nsystems, taken courses, read books, magazines, blogs, etc. While many of them\nwere helpful, it was MYN that really brought everything together for me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Set Up Your Todoist Account<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To get started in Todoist, you\u2019ll need to create an account\non their web site. You can do this on a tablet or phone, but I prefer to do it\non a PC (Windows or Mac) with a full-size screen and keyboard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In your web browser, navigate to <\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/todoist.com\/r\/charles_zfvkav<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a referral link. Signing up with this link will give\nyou two free months of Todoist Premium, and if you later pay to keep the\nPremium subscription it will add two months to my account. If you sign up\nwithout using an affiliate link, you will create a free, basic Todoist account.\nThe free account may be all that you need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click the button labeled Sign up to access Todoist Premium.<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can sign up by connecting to\nyour Google, Facebook, or Apple account, or using your email account and\ncreating a password. Todoist will not ask for a credit card to create your\naccount. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once you\u2019ve signed up, you\u2019ll be\noffered a choice of themes. Choose the theme you prefer, and click the Open my Todoist<\/strong>\nbutton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now that you have created your\naccount you can continue the working in the web browser, or download the app\nand sign in with the account you just created.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quick Tour of Todoist<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In your new Todoist account, you\u2019ll see the screen is\ndivided into three sections. The bar across the top shows the following items:<\/p>\n\n\n\n