Must/Should/Want method

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This workflow is our modification of MoSCoW productivity method and an extension of our Now / Later workflow, where your Now tasks are broken down even further.

In this workflow, instead of using task status like In progress or Next, you assign to each task whether it is Must, Should, or Want — we call these motivations.

This way of prioritizing tasks works better for some people to figure out what is important, what is not, and what to focus on first. It also works great for shopping lists!

What each motivation means to you is up to you. Some people plan their day by reviewing their task list every morning and assigning motivations for the day — you can implement The Ivy Lee Method this way.

tip

Use Shift+Arrow Right and Shift+Arrow Left shortcuts to quickly move tasks between sections.

How to add your tasks

There are three ways to create a new task:

• Click the "add" button at the bottom of the menu on the left
• Hover over the name of any section, and the button to add a new task into the section will appear
• Press A on the keyboard. Alternatively, CMD+N (on Mac) and Ctrl+N (on other platforms) work as well.

Prioritization

This workflow features our signature automatic prioritization. Tasks in this workflow are sorted with Must tasks on the top, then Should tasks, your Want tasks, and finally tasks to work on some later time at the bottom. Tasks in each section are sorted first by their assigned priority, then by their age.

As in other workflows, start working on tasks from the top. If you have trouble getting started on a task, try starting a timer.

tip

To quickly increase a task's priority, use Shift+Arrow Up keyboard shortcut.

tip

No need to look at tasks that are not relevant now — once you plan the tasks to work on next, collapse Later section by clicking its name. This works for all sections in all workflows.

info

The task with the highest urgency will be highlighted in bold in the list as the next task to work on. This can be disabled in the settings.

Estimation

To see the sum of estimates for all the tasks in a particular section, hover over the section name and the total time will show.