✅ Quick, before it’s gone!
Most of the things we forget are tiny, obvious, absolutely-doable tasks that show up at the worst possible moment.
While you’re walking somewhere. Halfway through a conversation. Right as you’re falling asleep.
You think, I should do that, and then your brain immediately moves on.
If your system for your to-do list assumes you’ll remember the simple things later, it’s lying to you.
I recently presented some options for capturing general notes and inspiration, but today we’re talking about the action items specifically. Things that need to be TASKS.
Make it unavoidable on your phone
If adding a task requires opening an app, navigating to the right screen, and typing for more than a few seconds, you’re not going to do it consistently. That’s just reality.
The easiest fix is also the most boring one: put task capture directly on the first screen of your phone.
On an iPhone:
Most task apps like Apple Reminders, Todoist, and Notion, let you add a widget to your home screen. These widgets let you either see your inbox or add a task with one tap. To add your widget:
Long-press the home screen
Tap the plus sign
Choose your task app
Drop the widget right where your thumb already lives 💥
On an Android:
Most Android task apps support “quick add” widgets that do one thing and one thing only: let you type a task and move on with your life.
Swipe up to open the app drawer
Press and hold the app icon you want
Drag it to your desired spot on the home screen
You can resize them, strip them down, and make task capture the most obvious thing on your phone.
If you have to swipe to find your task app, it’s too hidden. Your future self will not go looking for it.
Use email as a task net
Email is extremely underrated as a task capture tool. You already use it. It works everywhere. And it’s very good at holding onto things until you’re ready to deal with them.
The simplest version of this is emailing yourself a task with a clear subject line.
Send invoice
Follow up with Jen
Create new link-in-bio page
🤓 Pro Tip: Most email providers let you use plus addressing to create an alias for easy filtering. That means you can email something like [email protected] and set a filter so those emails automatically land in a “Tasks” label/folder.
You can check that folder regularly or let Zapier watch that folder and turn those emails into tasks for you.
⚡Zapier Suggestion: The Gmail trigger New Email lets you choose the specific label that will start the zap. Whenever you add a specific label to an email, it triggers the automation.
Example: You send an email to yourself as [email protected] in the subject line. You tell Gmail to automatically label things sent to that specific email address as TASKS and make it skip your inbox to avoid the clutter. Zapier sees that new email and tells Notion to create a new task assigned to you with the Subject line.
Dictate tasks instead of typing them
If you’re not already using the voice-to-text function, may I suggest you get over how silly it feels?
Things show up when your hands are busy. Walking, driving, cooking, carrying groceries, staring into the void. Those are not moments for typing.
Whether you use things like Siri or other listening tools are up to you, but hitting the microphone button on the keyboard or your car’s dashboard will capture the text you need.
Especially if you save your notes app as a widget, it just takes two or three taps for you to then dictate whatever you need to remember.
If you want a little more control, iPhone Shortcuts are great here. You can create a shortcut that takes dictated input and sends it directly to a specific reminders list.
You can trigger it with Siri, a home screen icon, or a widget.
Here’s an example that’s wildly easy:
Step 1: Dictate Text
Step 2: Notion app Create a page with dictated text in Actions database
Step 2 could also be the Gmail step Send Message to that specific inbox I mentioned above.
The part people skip
You can set up all the automations and cool tools till your dopamine maxes out but none of it works unless it’s easily repeatable and you have a painless way to look at your tasks on a regular basis.
You have to make it a habit to decide when the items on that list are actually happening. That’s the next thing I’m voice-dictating into my to-do list to write about next. 🤣
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