How-to use Smart Groups
January 17, 2011 | 43 Comments
Smart Groups are a quick and easy way to group together tasks that have the same tag. Just enter the name of your group, and all the tags that you would like grouped together. Now all your existing tasks with these tags are automatically listed in your smart group!
The first step to creating a Smart Group is to click the “add” button 
next to the heading “Smart Groups”. The following screen should pop up for you:
Smart Group Dialog
We wanted to make Smart Groups as quick and easy to use as the rest of the app. To create a new Smart Group, all you have to do is enter the name of the Smart Group, and what tags are going to be included in this Smart Group.
***Now this is the tricky part [well not really tricky but different]. Any tasks with the selected tag will show up in your Smart Group no matter where they are. All you have to do in order to add tasks to the Smart Group is add a task ANYWHERE in Get It Done and include at least one of the tags you’ve listed above when creating the Smart Group. The task will automatically appear in your Smart Group. For example, say I created a project called “School” and I listed “Biology” in the tag list. If I go to my “‘Next” folder and add a task called “Read chapter 5″ and tag it with the “Biology” tag, the task will show up in my “Next” folder and also in my “School” project folder. You can include as many tags as you want in each Smart Group.
As you can see in the following screen shot, you can very quickly see all your tasks with ‘Smart Groups’, no matter if they are in your ‘Inbox’, ‘Today’, ‘Next’, or even if they are scheduled for review at a later date — they will still show up here:
Smart Group View
And, of course, you can still drag and drop your tasks to reorder or to put them into a different folder, just like in your other views. You can also double click to edit the task or put your mouse over the note icon to see the note.
A Smart Group was our original attempt at creating Projects. Due to your valuable feedback, we’ve since modified the way Projects work. Smart Groups show all tasks with a specific tag, no matter what Area they belong in. They simply look at ALL tasks in your account and display the ones with the assigned tags. A task can show up in more than one Smart Group.
If you want to convert your existing Smart Group to a Project, we’ve added a simple button in the Smart Group Dialog.
Convert to Project Button
Well, I hope this helps explain our philosophy on Smart Groups. It took a little getting used to but we find this saves tons of time–time we could be spending on actually “Getting Things Done”!
Next: Scheduled for Review and Due Dates
Damian Castillo 6 Feb 2010
I will be honest here and say that this is not the best way to implement project per GTD.
A Project is a separate area that should stand on it’s own. By forcing the use of a tag with a Project, I end up using new tags for every project making my tag list huge.
Since tags are used for context, this adds confusion.
Also when I look at my Next list, I should not see all the task associated with Projects there, because only one task in a Project is considered the “Next Action”. Only the Next Action of a Project or the top most task should show up in the Next list.
This makes the weekly review possible and productive because you don’t see a bunch of task that you should not even consider moving to “Today”.
Having so many tags also makes the Next List cluttered and confusing. I am forced to isolate my Projects with a tag instead of just having my context associated with the Project.
Look at the way Projects are done in other GTD specific applications and you will see what I mean.
Just sharing. I really thing GID has the potential to be the best GTD app around but I think some tweaks are needed on how Projects are handled.
Mike 'Get It Done' Staff 6 Feb 2010
There has been a few people asking me about projects, and it could be confusing since we do things a little differently.
We wanted to make it as quick and easy as possible to sort your tasks into projects. Any task that you “tag” with the same tag as your project automatically shows up in there. This is how I set my tasks and projects up:
Projects:
- Work (with tag ‘work’)
- Home (with tag ‘home’)
- Shopping (with tag ‘shopping’)
When I add a new task I just make sure I tag it with either the tag ‘work’, ‘home’, or ‘shopping’ then I drag it into the appropriate focus (either ‘Today’, ‘Next’, ‘Someday’, or ‘Scheduled’)
By doing it this way I could easily just click on one of my projects and see what I have to do today or next.
We are currently looking into a few ways we could tweak this system to make projects even better so keep an eye out for updates.
Rory 7 Feb 2010
I’d just like to second Damian’s comments here about projects and next actions.
Ideally (for me anyway), a task would either live in the inbox, a project, a ‘misc actions’ folder or the someday folder (i.e. not in more than one at any time). The next actions list could then act like a search, picking up the top items in each project, as well as all of the items in the misc actions list. This would work nicely when completing a task, since the next task would then show up in the next action list.
This makes it easy to see what to work on next by simply browsing the next actions list and filtering by tag. It also makes the weekly review easy, since you can still browse by project. In the project view, I’d prefer to just see the ordered list of tasks without any other information about which other lists a task might be in (for me that’s a bit distracting).
I also feel like projects should be separated from the tag system, since I agree that it clutters the tags. It also feels a bit redundant (from a user point of view) after creating a new project to also have to create a new tag just so that tasks show up in the correct place. I can live with it for the time being though.
Mike, the projects you mentioned seem more like areas of responsibility to me (and I see that the projects section is called ‘Projects & Areas’, so I guess that’s probably your intent). I think many GTD’ers use projects more like the book, as in: A collection of related tasks taking you towards a definite, achievable goal. I would personally like to use them like that, and I would expect to create quite a lot of small projects which are quite specific.
Anyway, I don’t want this to be all a bit of a downer: This app looks promising. I feel like there’s been a lot of really good work done so far, and it’s heading in a good direction. I hope the improvements continue to flow.
Alex 7 Feb 2010
Mike – GID looks like it has a lot of promise – thanks for doing what you are doing!
At first, this approach to projects seemed like a really good idea but I agree with Damian about too many tags.
Also, for me “Home” is a context and “Clean up the Garage” is project which could include tasks like “order a dumpster” and “call Dave to help” both of which could be tagged as “calls” – another context.
Based on about 10 minutes looking around this looks very promising – I think so many “to do” systems are really ugly. You’ve done a great job with the UI. If this had the level of customization of Toodeldo – sign me up!
I’ll be watching your progress.
Thanks again.
Alex
Heidi Monteith 7 Feb 2010
I agree. This problem is definitely a deal breaker for GTD followers. I need to be able to set up projects and tasks with subtasks underneath the projects/tasks. Within these subtasks, only one should be a next action according to GTD. I will continue to use my current program but I love the look and ease of getitdone and I will be checking back to see how it improves.
Paul 11 Feb 2010
I’m also in agreement that having a tag for each project could be unwieldy. However, I found that having ‘@office, @home’ etc. makes the contexts appear first in the bar and it becomes a lot easier to navigate.
Also, as Damian mentioned, there should be 1 next action in GTD. However, in practice, I’ve found there may be several next actions to projects in different contexts (i.e. phone X and email Y) where the order they happen in doesn’t matter, and only having 1 appear on the ‘next actions’ list is quite limiting. Hence, I actually prefer the system here of putting next actions into ‘next’ and later actions into ‘someday’.
Damian Castillo 15 Feb 2010
First I want to say that I do love what I see here with Get It Done. It’s very close to being a great GTD system but as many agree, it needs some rethinking in the Projects section.
When creating a Project, you can simply have a Project Alias that the project would be identified by. This eliminates the tag issue. Now when creating a new task, you can click on the “Add to Project” list and see all the Projects in a drop down list to accomplish the same idea as the tag.
This clears up tags for use as Context, Priority, Length.
When clicking on a Project such as “Rebuild Engine”, I rather see all the actionable steps required for this project and not the focus areas as it does now. This will make the view clean and easy to work with.
On any task associated with a Project, we can have a simple check box called “Next Action” and this will allow the task to show up in the “Next” Focus List for our weekly review. This will also be flexible enough for those who have Projects with more than one Next Action if they delegate some of the steps to someone else. This gives the user the flexibility to list only what makes sense in the “Next” Focus List. During your Weekly/Daily Review of the “Next” Focus list, you can choose what you will move to the “Today” focus.
This I think would be a great change. I also want to have the Areas separated from Projects. Makes it easier when looking at your list. We also need Active and In-active projects, so that only the Active Projects are showing. This will shorten the project list to what matters at the time.
The Areas of focus should be a Global filter for the entire UI. So if I select “Work” as my Area of focus, every Focus list will only show task associated with that area. Not by using a tag, but by also having an Area of focus we can assign all task and projects too. This will allow me to use Get It Done at home and work without having to fight the context filters to see what I can really work on.
Changing the Areas and Projects to function more like traditional GTD would make Get It Done hard to compete with. I would then become a full paid customer and promote it to all my GTD friends.
Thanks for everything Mike. You are almost there and with a few tweaks your customer base will explode.
Oh, and while you are at it. Get rid of the tag scroll bar on the iPhone app and replace it with a simple tag icon that will show a tag list that you can select. The scroll does not work well and makes it harder for me to hunt down the tag I am looking for. Many times I select the wrong tag when trying to scroll.
Just a suggestion.
haeffb 17 Feb 2010
Mike, add one more to the “don’t use tags for projects” crowd. Make the projects a separate entity.
I absolutely love that you’ve allowed me to separate my project tasks into Today, Next and Someday. I like being able to have multiple project tasks in Next. Perfection would be to automagically move the topmost task from Someday to Next if Next is empty (i.e. have completed all tasks in Next for a project.)
Vikki Rabe 18 Feb 2010
Well done on this UI … enjoyable to use … I just wanted to support the previous comments re handling projects…. resolving this will make Get It Done a winner!
Ella 18 Feb 2010
I don’t have the same issue with Projects and tags that some others appear to. I like having tags associated with my projects so that I can easily make sure each task gets affiliated with the correct project regardless of whether it is a “today”, “next” or “scheduled” task. Once I type in a few letters of the tag I like that the system offers me a list of tags to select from.
I use the “next” category as a repository of all the actions that need to occur for a project over time. The tag assures me that the action will get associated with the correct project. I review the “next” category daily and move any actions that need to be done immediately to the “today” category. With the “projects” view, I drag and drop tasks within the “next” category to organize based on what needs to occur first, second, etc.
I do, however, have two suggestions. Within the scheduled category I would very much like to have the tasks organized by date rather than a random assortment.
Second suggestion, I would like to have an outcome statement associated with each project that I could view whenever I click on the project and see all the tasks associated with it. This would help remind me of the intended outcome and would also allow me to share all the next steps plus the outcome with others easily.
Thanks for a great product and your on-going willingness to improve!
Ulrich 19 Feb 2010
I fully support Proximo’s statements.
I have checked quite a number of tools. I like very much what I have seen with this one. I love the look and feel.
But with the current implementation of projects I can not use it for me. Which is really a pity.
Jon 25 Feb 2010
I agree with Proximos comments in this thread. With that set of changes, GID should get a large wave of new users like me who have been seeking a web-based version of a true GTD solution. A huge number of toodledo users would migrate quickly. Until then, we are all sitting on the sideline waiting. Were I on the GID team, I would put these changes to the top of the priority list and then, once made, leverage them to get a lot of publicity/recognition among the blogs (lifehacker, webworkerdaily, etc.) for being the first strong web/iphone implementation of true GTD.
Lyn 28 Feb 2010
It’s funny, everyone is voicing my same frustrations with this system. It’s incredibly simple and looks great. Not having separate contexts makes me create an elaborate workaround by using projects as contexts, etc. I have to put an “x” in front of the name of the context to have them separate. It would be sooo much easier to have them look and feel distinct. What’s odd to me is these changes are so basic and central to the GTD system, I can’t see how or why you would omit them. Simplicity at the expense of function is not a good strategy.
I’m happy with much of this system, but I must admit, I’m looking for something that will meet all of my requirements.
Clyde 3 Mar 2010
I will add my voice to the chorus asking for projects as a separate entity. This system is GREAT, easily the most intuitive, clean-looking and functional (aside from the projects issue) online GTD tool I have found.
If projects were a a separate entity from tags, or if I knew that you were going to implement it in the near future, I would sign up in a heartbeat.
Mike 'Get It Done' Staff 3 Mar 2010
Thanks for all the input (keep it coming).
I find more and more I am using ‘Projects’ as ‘Areas of responsibility’. For example I have projects for:
- home
- client x
- client y
- website
I am thinking it might be best to better define ‘Areas of responsibility’ (AOR) and when you change the AOR your entire page is dedicated to that AOR.
I also think projects needs to be different so that projects can fall under a particular AOR. I also think we need to rework projects to make them more flexible/powerful. I would like to ideally share entire projects and set milestones within a particular project.
We are in the planning phases now for this, the difficult part is to make it powerful but at the same time easy to use and intuitive (this is what keeps us up at night!)
keep all the good comments coming!
Clyde Brown 4 Mar 2010
Hi Mike,
I like your idea of having AOR’s, and then to have projects as subsets of AOR’s. It’s not strictly GTD but I would use it and I’m sure many others would as well.
When you make this change, will contexts and projects then become totally separate entities? That would make it easier to handle a situation such as the following:
Let’s say I have two projects: Home Renovations and Graphic Design Project
Under “Home Renovations” a couple of my next actions look like this (with associated context-tags)
: Buy drywall paste and trowels (@errands)
: Finish installing electrical wiring (@home)
And under “Graphic Design Project”
: Visit client’s restaurant to take reference photographs (@errands)
: Set up master page for client’s menu (@home, @computer)
For me, viewing tasks by project during the daily and weekly review is essential for defining next actions. Meanwhile, when I’m in the hustle and bustle of actually doing stuff, sorting by context is key.
The way your program is set up, I have to assign a tag (e.g. @errands) to a project (e.g. Graphic Design Project), and if I do that, a task like “Buy drywall paste and trowels” must either show up under “Graphic Design Project”, or not have the @errands tag attached at all. Both of those options are not going to help me be my most productive.
Sorry if I am rambling a bit! I seldom post comments online but your system is SO CLOSE to being perfect for me… and for several others, judging by the comments above. I really hope tags and projects get divorced.
If you add AOR’s and marry projects to that, I bet many will find it useful. But separating tags and projects is absolutely essential for this to be the best GTD system around.
Just my two cents
Clyde
Mike 'Get It Done' Staff 4 Mar 2010
I think I am sold to not having tags married to projects. It will still be possible to do it this way but I also want to be able to add to a project without a tag.
You can still set up your projects so that you can not have context tags assigned to it.
Using your example:
Project “Home Renovations”
- create with tag HR (NOT ‘@errands’ or ‘@home’)
Project “Graphic Design Project”
- create with tag GD (NOT ‘@errands’ or ‘@home’)
task: “Buy drywall paste and trowels” I would tag it with ‘HR’ and ‘@errands’
task: “Finish installing electrical wiring” with tags ‘HR’ and ‘@home’
task: “Visit client’s restaurant to take reference photographs” tag ‘GD’ and ‘@errands’
task: “Set up master page for client’s menu” tag ‘GD’ ‘@home’ ‘@computer’
Basically I assign each task a project tag (GD or HR) and a context (@home, @computer, etc). Doing it this way you can separate your context within each of your projects and they don’t get mixed together.
David 15 Mar 2010
Hey Mike,
I’ve tried out GID a couple of times and the only stopping me getting to be a customer is the project issue.
It seems you are thinking along the lines of using projects along the lines of GTD which is really encouraging.
Is this something that is likely to be changed in the near future?
Cheers!
David
Mike 'Get It Done' Staff 15 Mar 2010
We will be making some modifications to the project management part of the site but we do not have a release date yet
Leah 17 Mar 2010
Mike,
I’m so glad to hear that Get It Done is revising the way tasks with a given tag are automatically linked to projects. I think this will make a solid application even better!
Thanks,
Leah
JamesT 22 Mar 2010
Hi Mike;
I’m evaluating moving off another task management system to one that is more focused on the GTD workflow. I found your site and it looks very good.
I’ve signed up for the 15 day trial, but I must say that as of right now I won’t be converting to the paid membership.
I have over 100 active projects (remember according to David anything over 1 task is a project!) and the way projects is currently implemented with GID is just too cumbersome.
I’m currently looking at another app that isn’t quite as far along as yours – but does seem to have the project side of things working a bit better. (imho).
I’m rooting for you and your site and I’ll check back every once in a while to see if you have projects nailed yet!
Cheers!
James
haeffb 22 Apr 2010
Mike,
Just checking in to see what’s up with your “modifications to the project management part of the site”. Is something still in the works?
Aaron 15 Jul 2010
Where does the “Delegated/Waiting on” section live?
Mike 'Get It Done' Staff 15 Jul 2010
We are working on creating better flexibility for projects and sharing of projects. There is a lot going into this update (web app, iphone app, ipad app, android app) so it will take some time to get this all hashed out. We are excited about this update but it will take some time to get it all up to our standards. It will be done this year but we do not have a release date yet.
Dave S 11 Sep 2010
PLEASE implement the suggested changes for Projects. As implemented, they are just another way of viewing Tags, which you can of course do from the main screen. Personally, Project feature is of no value to me as currently designed.
Really good product so far; make the Project fix, and you’ll be best-in-class.
Mike 'Get It Done' Staff 11 Sep 2010
It’s done for the web app, we just need to finish updating the iPhone and Android apps before we can release the update.
Dave S 12 Sep 2010
GREAT NEWS, Mike & Staff! Thank you. Can’t wait.
Paul Hindes 3 Oct 2010
“We do things a little differently here” would be great if your way was informed by established project management principles. Wouldn’t it make sense to make sure your way supports projects other than the simplistic examples you use? Those of us who undertake substantial endeavors would be grateful for – and would pay a lot for – a creative app that took advantage of new technologies. Projects have sub-projects, Next Actions that take more than 10 minutes need to be broken into sub-tasks, delegation implies parallel tracks. Add the ability to create a Work Breakdown Structure on the fly, add Areas, intelligently progress Next Actions, add priorities, add lossless conversion to and from mindmaps, and you’ll really have a good beginning. Take a look at the Project Management Institute’s (http://www.pmi.org/) clear and basic guidelines and add your cool stuff to that. Please. We could use the help.
Miguel 7 Oct 2010
He estado probando la aplicación, me parece una gran aplicación y que tengo deseos de adquirir, solo que en la versión de prueba me confunde mucho la forma de administrar los proyectos, no puedo encontrar la tarea que asigne a un proyecto.
Ojala puedas resolver este issue, una vez que realices el ajuste tendras una gran aplicacion, espero que sea pronto, pues compre la version para Android.
Saludos
Mike 'Get It Done' Staff 9 Jan 2011
We finally released our update for projects and areas, let us know what you think!
Keith 17 Jan 2011
Help
Still having trouble understanding the purpose of smart groups. Can anyone give a good example.
Scott Cook 27 Jan 2011
I’m using smart groups as a version of areas of responsibility with better logic. I am a grad student, so any computer task can be done at home or at school on a computer. When I go to school, I’d like to see computer tasks and at school tasks. “At School” smart group allows me to see both types, but not home tasks. “At home” shows me computer and home tasks, but not school, etc.
QUESTION – is there a way to assign a default tag when a new task is created? I have an “anywhere” tag that puts the task in any smart group and I’d like to have that default added until I actively assign a better tag.
Chad Miller 5 Apr 2011
I just signed up for the 15 day trial and love it so far and I have a question. Is there a way to share projects? Is there a way to change the status of a project? Can we setup default task lists that launch as the project status changes? For instance, I’m a real estate agent. Can I change a project status from “For Sale” to “Sold” and have a default list of tasks assigned to my team. like, remove sign from property, remove lock box, etc. Either way the program is great. Thanks,
Chad Miller
Mike 'Get It Done' Staff 6 Apr 2011
Hi Chad,
Currently there isn’t a way but we are always working to improve the product.
Eric Myren 15 Apr 2011
I have tried many GTD tools over the years and this is the best one yet. It is straightforward, intuitive, quick, and easy to navigate. It also works nicely on my Droid X. Keep up the great work!!!
Eric Myren 18 Apr 2011
I agree with several people on this thread. I did a brain dump on a work project today under “Projects” and it worked great to capture all the items that needed to be accomplished over the next year. However, I was frustrated when I noticed that all the project tasks were automatically get dumped into “In” box. If I add several more projects my “In” or “Next” will become unmanageable. I would prefer to leave project tasks in my “Project” folder and move them individually during my GTD weekly review -and then choose the appropriate next steps to “Today” or “Next”.
Eric Myren 18 Apr 2011
Disregard my previous post – I now see how “Inbox” works. “Inbox” is just “Everything” and I can just ignore that and work daily in my “Today” and “Next” section.
Now that that I understand that I added a bunch more projects and love how quickly I can brain dump and prioritize!
Markus Schend 5 May 2011
I just wanted to state that I am going to buy this app because it does NOT exactly follow the GTD principles like it was suggested in previous posts. I tried different apps like Toodledo or Nozbe, but it just doesn’t work out right for me and so I am glad that GIT has a different approach. Integrating all GTD principles wouldn’t necessarily result in a better product for everyone.
V P 23 Oct 2011
Hi there
I can’t seem to set up smart groups across areas of focus. Is this correct? I would prefer for example to see all my calls regardless of area of focus!
Thanks
Mike 'Get It Done' Staff 25 Oct 2011
If you set the area of the Smart Group to ‘None’ then you will see all of your tasks with that tag across all areas.
Darryl 5 Nov 2011
I like the “Smart Groups” with Evernote integration. Having related tasks along with the documentation from Evernote is very efficient. As mentioned above, I have MANY projects, and like to track tasks by project.
When I convert a “Smart Group” to a project and keep the tags, it seems lose the Evernote integration. Unless, I am missing something, I would really like to have the same Evernote documents in Projects as I do in “Smart Groups”. The only way I could do that now, is to have all Projects also listed as a Smart Group, but with a lot of Projects, that gets out of hand.
Thanks,
Darryl
Mike 'Get It Done' Staff 7 Nov 2011
Hi Darryl,
It sounds like it is working as intended we only track Evernotes by tag, this is why it works with Smart Groups and not Projects. We are looking to do a deeper integration some time in the future.
Christine Morris 2 May 2012
I’m hoping to move from another system to a more GTD friendly system and Evernote. So far I really like what I see – and I have evaluated countless applications. I do agree with a lot of the comments here and look forward to seeing the improvements roll out!