When it comes to organising a day I believe there should be only single source of things planned for the day. I’m not a fan of actively blending todo list and calendar during the day. I believe that there should be only one place to see everything for the day.
Obviously I picked todo app (in my case Todoist) over calendar as my source of truth. I say “obviously” because while todo app can do calendar’s job, calendar cannot do todo app’s job as it is designed to deal only with items having specific date and time.
That said, I do look at my calendar when starting my day and sometimes right after lunch break. Calendar is really good at visualizing slots in a day occupied by time-specific items.
The way I use Todoist to navigate the day is by operating three kinds of items: tasks, routines, and calendar-bound items.
Tasks
Nothing fancy here. Just good old plain tasks. Exactly for what todo apps are designed.
Only difference is that I organize them by grouping to strategic, operational, and miscellaneous. These three levels are based on the influence they have on my life in a long run. I explained this concept in depth in From Strategy to Chores: 4 Kinds of Tasks in a Day.
Routines
These are the things I do regularly. Some of them are daily, weekly, or monthly. While others are just periodic. I use word “periodic” for routines that I need to handle on several specific days of a week, every second day, every second week, etc.
Also I use routines part of my Todoist structure to help me adopt new habits. While I’m in adoption phase I have an item in routines section, because I want it to appear in my Today list.
Calendar-bound items
When I was using plain pen and paper to plan my day, I was putting on the same page my todo items and calendar events. These were two separate parts of the page. But together they were giving me a perfect view on my day. That’s actually how lots of printed planners look for a long time.
Unfortunately I can’t have same view in Todoist. I know some other apps are better at this while used on computer. But I didn’t see any app doing this well on smartphone. So I just stick with my old buddy Todoist.
Anyway I simply have a section in Todoist where I add calendar events as tasks with specific time. Then just like any other item they appear in my Today list. So they live both in calendar and in Todoist. That’s a bit of extra manual work, but it works for me as I have just a few calendar events in a week.
It’s so relaxing when you don’t need to switch between Todo and calendar apps back and forth to see day agenda. Having a single view with everything planned for today gives a real picture of the day and lets our brain trust the system.