Hello everyone, thank you very much to Scott for having me here on Simpletivity. It is so good to be back.
I'm going to talk in today's video all about Things 3 and how we can use the project management functions to coordinate your own personal projects, which is quite exciting. For those who don't know, my name is Francesco.
I run a YouTube channel called Keep Productive here on YouTube, and I do reviews on productivity apps and resources. It's very much a complementary channel to Simpletivity, and vice versa.
Scott will be doing a video over on my channel all about Trello power-ups, which I'm really, really excited about posting. So without further ado, guys, let's dive over to the laptop and explore Things 3 for project management.
Things Overview
Now, in today's video, I wanted to dive into Things 3. This is an application available for macOS and iOS.
It's really for all others—a simple to-do list application. But what I wanted to talk about specifically is the project side of things.
Obviously, you can only share personal projects here; you can't share with other people. But I think it's a great visual application for planning out a new project.
I wanted to dive into what it exactly means, how you can get started with it, and a little bit more about the application. So guys, we have Things 3 in front of us.
I'm obviously viewing the macOS version—it's only available on that platform at the moment. Of course, if you're a Windows lover, it's a bit of a shame.
On this left-hand panel, we have a new list section. You can do typical things inside of the actual Things 3 list building.
You can create a new project, which is a time-based project, which is quite exciting. We'll be talking about that in a moment.
And there are areas, which are a group of projects or to-dos based on a responsibility. I've already created two: I've created Work and Personal.
Obviously, that tends to be a lot of people's situations, although there are tons of areas you can create. There are some great examples out there if you check social media like Twitter to see how people are using this—it's really extensive.
Create a Project
Let's go ahead and create a project. Let's say a kayaking event or tracking activity.
We're looking at kayaking next month, I think by the sound of it. If we scroll this one down and drag it under Personal, it now becomes a personal project under the area Personal.
You can do that with the same, so for example, you could create a project for work. So, for example, I could say Conference—I always go with conferences as my demo project.
I'm gonna drag it down to Work. If I just pop it in Work, it appears there.
You can add as many projects as you'd like to the different area sections, which is something a lot of people love inside of this application. So if I go to kayaking, you can see here it's a very simple project.
Pie Chart
It looks like a task, but it's actually not. Here is a pie chart—we'll be showing you this near the end.
It's a pie chart for the completion of a task. So once a task is completed, you can actually see it.
For example, if you've added all your project tasks to this project, you can see this partially filled. So, for example, if you're getting planned and organized, this can be a great way to visualize what you've got left and how much you have left.
Projects
Let's go into the project options. You have a host of different options.
You've got Complete Project, which will allow you to complete the project and now go into your logbook. Your logbook is accessible in this left-hand panel.
But the great thing is you can actually complete a project inside of Things 3. In some other applications, you've only got the ability to archive a project, which is a bit of a shame.
But again, it's something that serves as a bonus of Things 3. You can add a When date to it.
For example, let's say we were going on the 10th of November kayaking. As you can see, the actual project disappears from the actual personal section—it turns into Upcoming.
So if you don't want it to actually appear in Upcoming, you can add a deadline to it instead. For example, let's say we want to add the 10th of November to it and actually remove the When of the tasks.
It should appear back in this personal area, and that's because once you've assigned it there, you've given it a fixed date. Whereas this is a deadline, and actually, you can still use it as a project.
It becomes less accessible through the personal area section. Let's just explore a few more of the benefits you can advocate.
Benefits
You can add a When deadline, you can add tags to this project. For example, you could say Fitness and add a tag to it.
When you are searching stuff, you can actually find it. For example, if you had multiple fitness ones, you could click in this area and actually filter down, which is very helpful.
We also have Move, so you can move it to work, for example, or another area. You can repeat, so you can actually repeat an entire project.
So this is like if this was a monthly event and you planned for it. I don't know what it could be—it could be a newsletter for your website.
Then you could have a week or sort of monthly tabling, a monthly plan, and obviously, all of the tasks in here. You can duplicate a project, which is quite easy to do.
You can actually delete it and share it, but again, the sharing abilities aren't great. Now, as you can see here, you've got notes, and down here you can sort of go crazy.
Personal Projects
What I recommend for a lot of people when they're starting personal projects is to use this button down here, which is the heading area. This is something that ToDoist doesn't have.
It has it, but in this really strict format, which I don't necessarily like. So, for example, I'm going to put Planning here.
I'm going to add another one called The Day, so I'm gonna drag that one down there. You can see here that these are movable, archivable, removable—all from there.
Once I create a to-do, it opens up into this lovely, beautiful panel in which I can add notes to, I can add a date, tags, checklists, and the like. So, for example, in the planning process, maybe when we're planning for kayaking, I can call the sports center.
In my notes, I'm gonna put Ask for two kayaks to rent, and I'm gonna put this one on the task list for Wednesday. As you can see, you can add checklists if you want and even a deadline.
Now, if I drag this and put it under Planning, it is neatly organized under there, which is lovely. And of course, I haven't completed anything yet, so you can see that this is my chance to open.
We'll be demonstrating how it works in a minute. So, we're gonna put an Invite List to send the invite list out, and I'm gonna add a tag to it.
For example, I'm gonna put Easy because that's gonna be quite easy, apparently, to do, and I'm gonna give it a due date of Friday. So I'm gonna drag that one down there—this is all part of the planning process.
Then I'm going to put, for example, in The Day, I'm going to put Pick up all team members, and I'm gonna drag that one down there. As you can see, it's actually added the Friday to it.
But I'm gonna give it another day, and I'm actually gonna put that on the day of completion. So you can see here you can start building a lovely outline of a personal project here, or it can be work—whatever you want.
As you can see, it's a great way to do it. If you wanted to, you can add in a few details about the event up here, which makes it really accessible.
Now, let's say today I got the call center thing done. I called the sports center, and as you can see up here, what's been updated quite nicely is the pie chart for the completion of the projects.
You can see a nice outline of exactly when it's been completed, and that task disappears. You can even see the logged item below and when you did it, which is quite exciting.
And of course, the actual header that it was under. So if you're looking for a great way to coordinate a project in personal situations, this could be your best bet.
As you can imagine, Things 3 is a bit of an investment—it's $49.99, which seems simple but provides enough access. This could be your bet again—it's worth the investment.
Anyway, guys, hopefully, that gave you a nice outline of everything. As you can imagine, once you click Upcoming, you can actually see the tasks and the project linked to it.
Anyway, guys, hope this gave you a nice outline of Things 3. I will hopefully be doing more videos on this very soon over on my channel.
I've done a Skillshare course on it recently, so you can definitely check that out. Anyway, guys, a big thank you to Scott for having me here on the channel.
Please do join me on the Keep Productive YouTube channel and feel free to subscribe to Simpletivity, the awesome channel over on YouTube. Anyway, guys, big thanks for stopping by today—make sure to have a great week.
Keep productive, and I'll see you guys very, very soon. Cheers.
