Agreed this wold be a great feature to add.

@Folke

If convenient, may I know the reason why you need the default priority? Is there any differences between tasks with a Medium priority by default and tasks with a None Priority by default?

Thanks for your support on Doit.im.

@michelle1987

May I ask you a question, too? :-)
What is your (Doit's) intended use case for the Priority field?

But of course, I am more than happy to explain mine: :-)

When reviewing my Next list every day (or when reviewing my Someday list every week) I like to save time by declaring some tasks as Low Priority, and review them less frequently. I only make something a Low Priority if I know it is safe to do so. Typically, these are tasks that do not hurry, and I will keep on my list until such time that I find them by filtering for a particular situation (e.g. an errand that I will do when I am in that part of town, or something I will bring up with John next time I see him, but no hurry). I do not really need to review these tasks on every routine review occasion. I review Low Priority Next only once per week (during my Weekly Review). But I want to be sure I do not put anything down as Low Priority by accident, because then it will take too long until I notice it again. So, that is the answer to your question. By being able to select Medium Priority as my default, I would minimize the consequences of any error on my part when entering the task.

For some tasks I set the Priority to High, and this is for the exact opposite reason. Whenever I look at the Next list during the day (usually many times per day, in order to select more tasks, or in order to just see "what's up") I want to be sure I do not miss these particular tasks. I have not yet flagged them as Today, because I do not yet know whether I will have the time or opportunity to do them today, but I want to be absolutely sure that I at least consider them every time I look at the list, before I choose anything else.

In Someday I use the same principle, but on a different timescale. The regular review schedule is weekly (as per GTD), but I look much more often to check the High Priority Someday, those that I am extremely eager to be able to start but am hesitant about for some reason (that's what makes them Someday/MAYBE). Conversely, I have tasks that are so half crazy or half dead that I do not need to look at them every single week. Quarterly is more than enough. Those are my Low Priority Someday.

But Medium (Normal) Priority is what I use for all tasks that are neither particularly High nor Low, and I review those with the standard GTD frequencies. Having Medium as the default would ensure that I can trust the regular GTD routine.

@Folke

Hello,

In terms of Priority, here is the way we recommend.

None stands for ordinary tasks. Low is level 1, and also there are two levels, Medium and High.

Since they are ordinary tasks, there is no need to perform more operations on them.

BTW, if you think that it's troublesome to change priorities one by one, there is a simple way for you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzsw04wL2og

Thanks for your feedback and support.

@michelle1987

I think that this really does not make as much and I agree with @Folke

So right now we have four different priority setups:

1) no priority
2) low priority
3) medium priority
4) high priority

So what is the difference between "no priority" and "medium priority"? This is very confusion for users.

Instead, you should just remove option 1) above and assign all new tasks to "medium priority" as a default. Then if you have a task that is lower or higher priority you can edit this. This would save a lot of time because right now I have to add "medium priority" manually to many tasks :(

@delta6

Hello,

As I told to @Folke, on the web version, you can prioritize multiple tasks at once.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzsw04wL2og

And in addition, we will seriously consider your suggestion.

Thanks for your feedback and support.

Hi,

this feature to add priors by default is not the origina methodology way of Task managing.

As teached by task managin scholors, it is very imortant to add all of your tasks in your mind! After that you can prior your tasks. This is very simple and very important to differenatiate between tasks and their importance. Only with this approach, you can realy make sure, that you can plan your day more successful.

KR

@velikaratay

You are absolutely right that task management gurus and philosophers have each their own way of interpreting words and their own concepts they push. The word "priority" is one that is interpreted and used in wide variety of ways,

GTD (David Allen) argues (and I agree) that you should not even try order your tasks in a fixed "priority" order in which you will do them (or worse: put dates on them unless they are truly objective).

You leave the decision about what task to do until the very last moment. This is GTD and I agree with this. So the use of a Priority for any such purpose would be totally meaningless, since you would have to adjust it all, all the time. But nevertheless we all (including David Allen) recognize the fact that some tasks are more important or urgent or lucrative or risky or ... than others.

If I have a Priority setting available in my app, then I do not want to use it for any counterproductive purpose. I want to use it for something useful and reasonably stable. I definitely do not use it for representing the order in which I will do tasks. I use it to represent how often I will review the tasks. Most tasks are Normal (until I come to some other conclusion), and i will review them according to the normal GTD guidelines - daily for Next and Waiting; weekly for Someday.

But some tasks I may want to look at and consider every single time I open that particular list. Those tasks I change to High Priority. This makes it easy for me to see them, to avoid overlooking them, but this does not mean I will do them first; it only means that I will not forget to consider them.

Can you guess why I like to see these tasks every time? Because the are more important or urgent or lucrative or risky or ... than others. That's why I want to be sure I do not miss them. (In other words this correlates quite well with the "fuzzy" GTD definition of Priority.) Whether I will actually do any of these tasks first or not depends on the overall "fit" - how well a task's requirements regarding Context, Time, Energy and Priority match those same aspects of other tasks in the particular situation I am in right now.

In my own opinion this is an excellent interpretation of GTD :-)

It eliminates work and potential errors to have them automatically declared as Normal by default. Then I only need to adjust those that are different (exceptionally High or Low).

Okay, with your argues and your own way of prior tasks, I do fully agree.

What do u think about time estimations of a task. So you calc a task before you plan your day.
So you could plan your day even more effective. And about a stop watch which can be activated when you start to work and leave your work.
Stop watch for the working day
Step 1: Start the watch when you begin to work
Step 2: Stop the watch when you leave
-> You can meassure your working day and effectiveness of yourself within a working timeframe which can be adjusted individually. You can see how long did u spent for: Meal, for breaks ect.

Stop watch for a task
Step1:
With this approach it is possible to say:
Estimation of "Call xyz": 2 hours
Estimation of "write to hr": 5 hours.
At the end you know, that a full day has 8 hours and you have 1 business hour left....
So u could fill this 1 business hours with small tasks.

Step 2: Process you planned day
1) Take your first tasks which is planned as first by time. (when the doit.im guys implements ordering by start time)
2) Click start - kind of stop watch starts
3) Click stop

In that way you could get reports of:
- How long a task take for each category (call, write, ect.)
- Are my time estimations matching the real spending time of the tasks

You will enhance your effective working time:
- Become motivated by time tracking
- You will bring it done, as soon as possible
- It is like a test of your own.
- Just now, the REVIEW makes sencse

In my opinion that is very important to add to this great app. Otherwise I feel more about the tasks: there is a task, you can execute them at this time and when not, doesnt matter.

@velikaratay

I am sorry to have to say this so bluntly, but even though I do not mind performance measurement features as such as an extra feature, I feel that the basics of GTD seem difficult enough to get right, are way more important, and have not been implemented even at a basic level in any "GTD" app I know - and much less so for the 21st century.

GTD (David Allen), and I and many others, have discovered the hard way that time planning and fixed priority sequences are a dead end. So how do you organize your "stuff"? I feel that there is no "GTD" app in the whole world that even tries to take the GTD spirit seriously - keep it dynamic, situational, reviewable, without fixed dates or even priority sequences except where absolutely and objectively necessary.

And no one seems even close to be wanting to do this, much less take GTD to a higher level!

All "GTD" apps have a bit of GTD in their left menu (Next etc; and Projects), and they have contexts/tags in their left menu or on top. But this is not enough! The lists are still too long and difficult to analyze. What most app developers then do is revert to old classical time planning and ask you to put dates (more or less arbitrarily) on things just to get the tasks in some kind of reasonable order. This is definitely not GTD.

What I advocate is for app developers to understand the core GTD spirit and move the solution even a bit further. Keep it all open; avoid dates and fixed priority sequences; but make it even easier to review (plan) and to choose (tasks to do right now).

This thread was started by me because I have found a way to use Priority (a GTD term, defined quite "fuzzily" but very appropriately by David Allen) in a way with does not conflict with GTD or with the dynamic decision making of GTD, and which helps me pay attention to the right things at the right time. Using Priority in the sense of what "I need to consider more often" gives me the perfect balance of proper "attention" and a "situational choice".

I prefer tasks to be considered Normal Priority by default (less "tagging" work, and a reduced risk of mistakes).

I fully agree in "it must be very clear and simple as possible".

But this function "stop watch" is a very nice enhancement and very easy to use.

For tasks: You can build a button on the right side of the task: Start/ Stop.
For day: You can build a button on the header (e.g. left to search) Start/ stop.

In that way your advantages with it:
- Train youself to calc better estimations
- When you are a freelancer - You feel more under "pressure" do complete your daily plan with start/ stop.
- You can plan you tasks even more effective (e.g.) Calls is better to do in the morning
- ....

That is not the simple way of GTD - but it very simple to implement and the effect of it will increase you daily work thinking.
I have tried out with my own application. For this app very useful.
It is also not weired and doesnt touch your "clean desing and ordered structure and priors" (in which I also agree).
Nobody must use this start stop, but for those they use, it will very helpful.