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 Submit-it notes, pens, and fancy journals. Nothing ever appears to stay!
YNAB is nice as a result of I by no means must “system hop” in terms 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 like that I don’t must “hack” it to make it work.
How I take advantage of YNAB as a to-do record
Recently, a part of my productiveness experimentation concerned YNAB. In spite of everything, I’m in my funds each. single. day. Typically (okay, most occasions) a number of occasions a day. Might there be a technique to make it work for me as a to-do record? Whereas I’ll neglect to open my planner or unintentionally toss that post-it notice, there’s little question 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 benefit from scheduled transactions. For instance, because of YNAB, I do know that my library card is because of expire in a number of weeks. Sadly, the “cool” library (sure, there may be such a factor) is simply over the state border, and I’ve to pay $50/yr to have the ability to take a look at 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 have to be returned (almost certainly)? It’s the nudge I would like.
My teammates had all kinds of enjoyable makes use of for scheduled transactions:
- Does a examine have to be written for an expense, one thing that may’t be paid by way of auto-pay? Kat makes use of scheduled transactions to remind herself to do exactly that.
- Jen makes use of scheduled inflows to let her know she’s anticipating reimbursement, whereas Ernie makes use of them to examine incoming rebates (whereas all of us lament that it might be higher to obtain in-store financial savings as an alternative).
- Kelly makes use of scheduled transactions to remind herself to skip meal equipment 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 possibly can 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 monitor.
Ashley G. makes use of her notes to maintain monitor of birthdays and necessary occasions and to assist handle her Christmas buying, 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 prepare 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 examine mark (✅) and is moved to the underside of the record.
Classes themselves could be standalone to-do’s, simply stored out of view by collapsing the class group. As soon as they’re accomplished, you possibly can even delete them—YNAB will immediate you to decide on a class to ‘merge’ them into, so your funds will probably be muddle free.
Create a to-do “account”
I created a particular account in my funds known as “✅ To-Do Record”. Whereas it might be wonderful if YNAB might import the contents of my working psychological to-do record, that is the subsequent neatest thing. On this account, I take advantage of scheduled transactions to create date-specific to-do’s: the date is when it’s due (repeating as mandatory) and the ‘job’ is the payee. For the class, I’ll select whichever is essentially the most related.
For instance, if my canine wants her flea remedy, I’d select the “Pet” class. If I would like 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 monitor of any particular particulars, like concepts for her present and even the URL of the merchandise on Amazon. The fantastic thing about that is that I don’t must enter an quantity for the “transaction”, but it surely’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 examine field. The cool half is that I can use the To-Do Record account as a technique to see all the pieces 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 ceaselessly experiment in terms of my to-do record, utilizing YNAB on this means has been a game-changer. It reduces the friction that comes from checking yet one more app, web site, or notepad, and makes it much more probably for me to work together with my funds. It’s a win win!
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