PalmPilot: The Ultimate Guide, Second Edition

The To Do List

The To Do List opens when you press the third plastic button from the left. As shown in Figure 4.23, this simple software doodad can be a surprisingly powerful way to get control of your life.

Figure 4-23. Tap a checkbox to “check off” a task you’ve gotten out of the way (left). To set a priority level, tap the number beside an item (right), and then tap one of the numbers (1 through 5).

The concept is simple: Every time you think of something else you’ve got to do, tap the New button and write the task down. (In fact, if you’ve got Palm OS 2 or later, you don’t even have To Do that; simply begin writing in the Graffiti area. The PalmPilot creates a new line automatically.) The name of a To Do item can be many lines long—up to about 100 words, in fact.

By tapping the number beside the checkbox, you can rank your To Do items in order of importance—lower numbers increase in urgency, and appear closer to the top of the list. (Don’t be alarmed if the item whose priority you just changed seems to disappear. Most likely, it’s just jumped into its correct sorted position, which may be off the screen.)

Note

The PalmPilot normally assigns Priority 1 to every new To Do item. However, if your list already contains items of various priorities, here’s a timesaving tip: a new To Do item takes on the same priority level of whatever was selected at the time you tapped the New button. ...