I’m a productiveness junkie—I’ve dabbled in many of the to-do record apps on the market, and I’ve experimented with each number of Publish-it notes, pens, and fancy journals. Nothing ever appears to stay!
YNAB is nice as a result of I by no means need to “system hop” on the subject of my funds. As soon as it clicked for me, I used to be hooked, and I’ve by no means regarded again. Having that framework for managing my funds is highly effective and assuring, and I really like that I don’t need to “hack” it to make it work.
How I exploit YNAB as a to-do record
These days, a part of my productiveness experimentation concerned YNAB. In any case, I’m in my funds each. single. day. Generally (okay, most instances) a number of instances a day. May there be a option to make it work for me as a to-do record? Whereas I’ll neglect to open my planner or by accident toss that post-it word, there’s little doubt that my funds will at all times be there for me.
Listed here are some methods to make use of YNAB as a to-do record:
Scheduled transactions as reminders
The obvious means to make use of YNAB as a to-do record is to make the most of scheduled transactions. For instance, due to YNAB, I do know that my library card is because of expire in a couple of weeks. Sadly, the “cool” library (sure, there’s such a factor) is simply over the state border, and I’ve to pay $50/yr to have the ability to try a gazillion youngsters books each week.
It’s not on auto-renew, however seeing that transaction enter my funds is a reminder to do one thing about it. Do I wish to renew my library card? Are there dusty, forgotten books that must be returned (most certainly)? It’s the nudge I want.
My teammates had all types of enjoyable makes use of for scheduled transactions:
- Does a verify must be written for an expense, one thing that may’t be paid through auto-pay? Kat makes use of scheduled transactions to remind herself to just do that.
- Jen makes use of scheduled inflows to let her know she’s anticipating reimbursement, whereas Ernie makes use of them to verify incoming rebates (whereas all of us lament that it could be higher to obtain in-store financial savings as an alternative).
- Kelly makes use of scheduled transactions to remind herself to skip meal package deliveries – one thing I’m notoriously horrible at doing (though as soon as, I requested to cancel and so they refunded me, solely to ship the field anyway—which was nice for my grocery funds).
Use the notes subject
The notes subject can be extraordinarily useful—you’ll be able to add month-specific to-do’s within the class header, or class particular notes within the—you guessed it—class. The “✅” emoji can be utilized to maintain you on observe.
Ashley G. makes use of her notes to maintain observe of birthdays and essential occasions and to assist handle her Christmas purchasing, however her use of the “✅” emoji is downright genius! Extra on that beneath.
Use classes and class teams
Ashley makes use of a class group to arrange all of her Christmas to-do’s, with every class representing one thing that must be bought and accomplished, like shopping for stamps and sending out playing cards. As soon as it’s full, the class will get the magic verify mark (✅) and is moved to the underside of the record.
Classes themselves could be standalone to-do’s, simply saved out of view by collapsing the class group. As soon as they’re accomplished, you’ll be able to even delete them—YNAB will immediate you to decide on a class to ‘merge’ them into, so your funds can be muddle free.
Create a to-do “account”
I created a selected account in my funds referred to as “✅ To-Do Record”. Whereas it could be superb if YNAB might import the contents of my operating psychological to-do record, that is the following neatest thing. On this account, I exploit scheduled transactions to create date-specific to-do’s: the date is when it’s due (repeating as obligatory) and the ‘activity’ is the payee. For the class, I’ll select whichever is essentially the most related.
For instance, if my canine wants her flea medicine, I’d select the “Pet” class. If I want to purchase a birthday current for my mother, I’d set it up like this, with “Purchase Mother’s Current” because the payee, with “presents” because the class:
I can use the memo subject to maintain observe of any particular particulars, like concepts for her present and even the URL of the merchandise on Amazon. The great thing about that is that I don’t must enter an quantity for the “transaction”, however it’s preserved in my funds. As soon as the duty is full, I’ll “clear” it, so I nonetheless get that satisfaction of marking a verify field. The cool half is that I can use the To-Do Record account as a option to see every little thing that’s on my plate, and might filter by class as wanted. And if I don’t wish to see the finished to-do’s anymore? I can reconcile, and simply filter these out.
Whereas I feel I’ll eternally experiment on the subject of my to-do record, utilizing YNAB on this means has been a game-changer. It reduces the friction that comes from checking one more app, web site, or notepad, and makes it much more doubtless for me to work together with my funds. It’s a win win!
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