If you have a lot of items on your todo list, you may be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of things you need to do. However, if you use Todoist, you may find a premium feature handy – labels. Labels allow you to assign tasks a specific label, and you can assign tasks with as many as these labels as you want. Labels allow you to see only the tasks that you want to see, and filter out the tasks you don’t.
Note that labels are a premium feature, so you may want to check out Todoist Premium is you do not already have it.
Planning out your labels may take some time, but it will save you a lot of time in the long run. You’ll be able to order the tasks by a specific label, and then view all the tasks with that label.
There are a few ways to create a label – the first, and my preferred way, is to simply create your label whilst entering a task. To do this, you put in your task, and then start typing the label by writing ‘@’, and then the label name you want. A small popup will appear over it, and you can press enter to create the label.
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| Quickly adding labels via the input section |
Of course, you can click on ‘Create Label’ in the labels section, but I find that it takes some more time to do it that way.
One thing I suggest when setting up your labels is to keep them at a manageable size. If you have hundreds, it can a bit over complicated and the point of labels can defeat the use of them, as they will just confuse you.
A great advantage of labels is that you can add multiple labels to the same task, and you can also create custom filters that allow you to filter with multiple or single labels (filters are to be covered in a later post). Therefore, you could have a label that is ‘online’, and ‘computer’. A filter then could be created that shows all tasks with only those two labels, and you could call that filter ‘Online computer’. I use something like this to label tasks that require me to be online on my computer, such as posting a blog post or programming something that requires me to be online and on my computer.
I’ll share my labels below, and also give a little bit of info on how I use them.
Waiting
I use this label to label tasks that I need someone to do something before I can complete it. For example, I may want to improve some work that the teacher still needs to give me, and I would label the ‘Improve work’ task with the waiting label.
Online
This is one filter I use a lot – it means that I have to be online to complete that certain task, and it cannot be completed offline. An example of this would be if I wanted to make a change to a blog post.
Offline
This task is given to tasks that I can complete when I am offline.
iPad (phone/tablet)
Once again, this is one of my more commonly used labels. I give this to tasks that I need my iPad to complete – for example, reviewing an app that runs on iOS would require my iPad, and I would give it this label.
If you don’t have an iPad, or use Android, you can change this to say ‘Phone’ or ‘Tablet’.
Computer
This label denotes something that requires me to use my computer, such as updating a blog post, or doing something in a desktop game.
Low energy & high energy
These labels are pretty useful, and I use them quite a bit. ‘Low energy’ is for tasks that are quick, and won’t really take up much energy, like a quick worksheet from school, or any other tasks that won’t be too ‘mentally’ taxing or difficult.
‘High energy’ is for something completely different. It’s for big tasks that will take a while and require a lot of energy, and isn’t something I want to do when I’m tired. I often find myself placing larger pieces of homework here, such as exam papers and projects.
School and home
These two labels are location based labels. When I tag a task with one of them, it means that I need to be at that location to complete it. If I forget to hand in homework, I give it the ‘School’ label, as it can only be completed at school. I also find that a location reminder added to this task makes sure that I don’t forget to do it.
I have been considering adding a ‘morning’, ‘afternoon’ and ‘evening’ labels to break up my day, however I’m lucky that I don’t have that many tasks to do. There are some interesting label ideas that you can check out on the Todoist blog.
So, Todoist labels are certainly a great and powerful tool that allow you to filter down your tasks to chunk up your day and make it easier for you to use. I really suggest you check them out and give them a go if you are already not using them.
If you’re not using Todoist in general, I suggest you give it a try and see if you like it yourself. You can check out my review of Todoist Premium here.
Thanks for reading!
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