Task Trees

Commonly, todo lists are just flat, bulleted lists:

- Bake a cake
- Mix ingredients
- Get groceries

This list doesn't have any order though... are they interchangeable, or which one comes first?

If we introduce a litte indentation, we can describe the order these tasks need to be done in:

- Bake a cake
  - Mix ingredients
    - Get groceries

We just made a task tree!

Indentation- or subtasks- makes it easier for us to realize the order and intent:

• "In order to Bake a cake... first Mix ingredients"
• "In order to Mix ingredients... first Get groceries"

Then, it follows that the only task worth focusing on is getting groceries! The other 2 are blocked.

Notice in the example how the Focus Tab only shows Get groceries. That's because the order-of-operations is Get groceries -> Mix ingredients -> Bake a cake.

Breaking down large tasks

The Task Tree is an excellent way to model todo lists, particularly because we can append subtasks to large tasks:

- Climb Mt. Everest

Whoa, that's a big task! Maybe we should break it into subtasks?

- Climb Mt. Everest
  - Start physical training regimen
  - Find average cost of the trip/summit
  - Find beginner mountains to climb

Not bad. We can get even more granular:

- Climb Mt. Everest
  - Start physical training regimen
    - Determine current oxygen utilization
  - Find average cost of the trip/summit
    - Start saving money
  - Find beginner mountains to climb
    - Check mountains nearest to me

Best of all, now that we have structure in our todo list, we know what the actionable tasks are: the lowest subtasks.

- Climb Mt. Everest
  - Start physical training regimen
    - Check current oxygen utilization
  - Find average cost of the trip/summit
    - Start saving money
  - Find beginner mountains to climb
    - Check mountains nearest to me

The Focus View removes more than half of the list; 4 tasks which were interferring with our focus!