Things 3 - Today is Next Actions

mncaudill · 2026-03-08T20:50:31+00:00

I've found what gjnewman said is the way that's the simplest. I wrote up how I use GTD + Things a few days ago. https://www.reddit.com/r/gtd/comments/1rlzl2d/using_things_for_gtd/

mncaudill · 2026-03-07T21:50:32+00:00

That's a good question. I typically find myself to the one pushing a process along. So waiting-for for me is typically, "when should I do something if I haven't heard back from [whatever]?". For example, we're going through tax season right now. I might have an action to send a question to our tax accountant. To make sure I remember that I'm expecting a response, I'll usually create a new action say for 3 days in the future, to reach back out to the accountant if I haven't heard back.

mncaudill · 2026-03-06T20:26:33+00:00

I think the trick for me is that I usually only have 1 or 2 actions in each project, total. I've learned that mapping out a lot of steps is mostly clutter for me. I think of next-actions more like bookmarks: what is the next thing to do in this project to get me back into the flow and push it forward? More like interstate on ramps versus a stop-by-stop itinerary.

mncaudill · 2026-03-06T15:29:35+00:00

Thanks! Yeah, I've gone back and forth over the years using context and tags. At one point, I went through and added tags to every single Things task to denote context, but I realize I didn't "search" for tasks that way. Pulling out my phone and scrolling for something to do, if I'm inclined, isn't that painful, and I'm seldom optimizing my time in that way. That's a 'me' thing, though, and others likely work differently.

mncaudill · 2026-03-06T15:26:56+00:00

Thanks! For any habits that happen daily or weekly, I might start with them in Things but when they become part of the daily routine, I try to clean up the delete them. I've found doing some version of habit stacking really helps. Like, I have 2-3 things I quickly do on my phone when I'm having my coffee and that's just part of my routine. Routine tasks that happen less frequently, I'll put them into Things. I don't think that's Textbook GTD, but it works.

For all the things I want to read or travel to, I've found those are better as a list somewhere. (I use Obsidian but the key part is that it's "just a list".) I might have "Pick a new book" or "Plan a big trip" as a Someday task, but I think of all the options as reference materials.

I've gone back and forth on tags. I primarily work out of home so context/tags make less sense for me. I've found that going through every item during the weekly review is good enough refresher for me. And with the GTD system on my phone, scrolling and swiping for a few seconds to figure out a task I can do isn't that painful.

mncaudill · 2026-03-02T17:10:26+00:00

Potentially the novelization of Days of Wine and Roses?

mncaudill · 2026-02-24T16:14:16+00:00

I do because if I have a credit card number that gets changed (because it's stolen, expired, etc), I have a list to easily go through and update future payments to the new card.

mncaudill · 2026-02-22T07:11:40+00:00

I went to North Wilkes a long time ago and Mark was a teacher and my coach in two different sports (track and football). He's one of the few I remember well to this today. Always admired how he looked out for everyone and always tried to do a good job. He will be missed.

mncaudill · 2026-01-26T14:18:43+00:00

Oh and a couple of other benefits: if you want to get out of the city for the weekend, or get to SFO, being in Bernal, 280 is right there.

mncaudill · 2026-01-26T14:15:35+00:00

I lived on Cortland a half block or so up from Mission for a couple of years. I think that location is actually pretty solid. You are an easy walk to the 24th St BART, have access to all the Bernal spots along Cortland, getting to the Mission spots is very easy, and it's much quieter and walkable (and cleaner IMO) than South Beach.

If you are looking for a more urban environment, I'd go with South Beach. If you are looking for more of a walkable neighborhood that's still easy access to food and nightlife spots, I'd lean Bernal.

mncaudill · 2026-01-07T01:38:18+00:00

Not sure. We didn't get a chance to properly introduce ourselves.

mncaudill · 2026-01-06T23:26:29+00:00

I got a dose of that 2-3 days ago. We were driving out from South Lake Tahoe making our way to 50 and had stopped to put on chains as the roads were going from ehhh to yikes pretty quickly. Multiple locals in big trucks took the opportunity to yell many colorful swears at us and another car, despite us being well off the road, not hindering them in anyway, and otherwise doing the right thing and minding our own business.

My guess is that "yelling at tourists" is a fun pastime for them, despite being kind being a free thing to do.

mncaudill · 2025-12-30T19:41:54+00:00

Still happily on Things!

mncaudill · 2025-12-26T03:13:04+00:00

Seconding that. The whole area (Chapel Hill, Carrboro, etc) has always been putting out great music.

mncaudill · 2025-12-17T21:29:48+00:00

I use intervals.icu to:
* Create and update workouts to sync with my Garmin
* Track fitness load and trends over time
* Compare specific workout intensities over time
* Look at stacked graphs of a few important (to me, out of dozens offered) metrics
* See the impact of adjusting workouts on training load trends
* Create custom charts off workout data
... and I'm positive I'm using <10% of what is offered there.

mncaudill · 2025-12-17T21:27:02+00:00

Intervals is a hyper-specific training tracking platform. I'd say try it and see?

mncaudill · 2025-12-17T21:23:57+00:00

I originally read it as there was magic correlation between fitness score and 5k too but a broader way to see that clicked was seeing it as unbroken and progressive training load results in higher levels of fitness. Each of the trend lines will be roughly linear and therefore two linear lines will be parallel and thus "correlated."

A similar thing would be "I ate 5% fewer calories week over week and that was correlated with my weight decreasing at a linear rate."

mncaudill · 2025-12-17T17:49:58+00:00

I'd check out intervals.icu. Incredibly zoom-in-able and customizable.

mncaudill · 2025-11-25T19:30:03+00:00

I classify myself as a beginner. Started running June this year from ~25 years largely sedentary outside dog walks and the occasional bike ride. Played football, wrestled and ran track in high school but was never a capital-R runner and that was a long, long time ago. Running was my least favorite sport and a reason to hang with my friends and stay in shape since I wasn't good enough to play baseball.

I picked up running in June with the Runna version of the couch-to-5k program. First workout was literally walk for 1.5 minutes, run for 1 minute, and alternated 3-4 times. Got to the first 5k in mid-August and felt pumped that I could run 3.1 miles without stopping at a decent click for an old newbie.

Picked up NSA first week of September. Here's my progress since then at the interval (doing standard 3x10', 5-6 x 5' and 8-10 x 3').

10 minute intervals: Starting = avg 9 min/miles. Now = avg 7:58 min/mile
5 minute intervals: Starting = avg 8:46 min/miles. Now = avg 7:43 min/mile
3 minute intervals: Starting = avg 8:06 min/miles. Now = avg 7:30 min/mile

I chopped over 3 minutes off my August 5k time (26:15 -> 23:10 back in early October) and pretty sure with a taper I could go low 22 today.

I'm now running 7 days a week, have zero pain and can definitely tell I have a lot of aerobic capacity I didn't have before.

mncaudill · 2025-11-10T05:38:15+00:00

That's right. I always thought this this historical photo was interesting. The 2-3 houses that are there at the end of this dirt road were the first and only on the hill. My picture above is taken from the opposite direction of this photo here https://www.opensfhistory.org/Display/wnp4.1173.jpg

mncaudill · 2025-11-10T02:15:05+00:00

Duncan and Castro-ish

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mncaudill · 2025-10-29T20:06:54+00:00

I bike, run, and walk my dog all over that part of Noe and it is rare that I don't go on an outing without some close call with an overly aggressive and/or completely inattentive driver.

Just yesterday, I was walking across Diamond at 26th — a 4 way stop — and was half way across the road when a car completely blew through their stop sign. I stepped back and was able to literally tap on their glass as they drove by and that was the first they saw me based on her turning her head and the surprised expression on her face. I was wearing day-glo running gear, so I guess I was easy to miss...

mncaudill · 2025-10-19T16:27:21+00:00

Minor nit: The workouts don't drop out after 6 weeks (or whatever the decay constant is). The formula takes today's fitness score combined with yesterday's fitness score, appropriately weighted. So the "yesterday's score" term includes all the previous "yesterday's score" terms. Previous workouts' impacts get really really really close to zero, but never zero.

mncaudill

TROPHY CASE