How do you use "On the Agenda"?

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Agenda’s ability to flag notes as being “On the Agenda” (orange dot button) is a seemingly simple feature, but has the potential to be used in many different ways. You can put many notes on the agenda, or just a few. The definition of what “On the Agenda” means is different to each individual. But what works best in the Agenda app?

Because I was involved in developing Agenda, I was also one of the first to start using it. In the beginning, I used the “On the Agenda” feature as something like an “active” flag. Basically anything I didn’t consider as “done” was put in there. But I actually didn’t go into the On the Agenda overview very often — there was just too much in there to be worthwhile. I tended to select projects and navigate that way.

Lately, that has all changed. I’ve started to reinterpret what On the Agenda means for me, and it is working much better. “On the Agenda” has come to mean “focusing on” in my system. In the same way some apps allow you to enter a focus mode, in order to declutter your mind, On the Agenda lets me go to what I am working on right now, with no other distractions.

This means I only put things on the agenda when I am going to be actively working on them, and I am aggressive in removing notes from the agenda. Once I am not actively editing them, they are removed. Typically, this means I only have 2-3 notes on the agenda at any one time. Notes I am working on at some point today.

That’s the system I have grown into, and it is going very smoothly. I can focus by simply going to On the Agenda. When I need a broader picture, I dive into my project lists.

Of course, this is just one usage of what is a very flexible feature. Are you using On the Agenda differently? If so, share with us how it is helping you.

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I also do the same. And it helped me to focus more on my Important Notes.

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Oh, good! It’s my first day using Agenda & I’ve been experimenting with both those ideas. For exactly the same reason as you, I’ve settled on showing only the things I’m actually planning on doing or discussing today or in the next couple of days. I was wondering if this was maybe going against the intention of Agenda, so I’m pleased to see it isn’t :blush:

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I have recently started using On the Agenda and I am loving it. One question I had was, if I add a note to a specific event on my calendar, on the day of the meeting will the note be added to “On the Agenda”?

For instance, this weekend I am reviewing some emails and planning out my week. I have a meeting on Thursday that I am prepping for and have added a list of notes. I have the note linked to that calendar event. What I would love is that on Thursday, it is added to “On the Agenda”…

Am I looking at this wrong, or any other ideas?

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If (like me) you’ve set your items not to be automatically put On The Agenda, tap or click on the empty orange-rimmed circle at the top left-hand corner of the item’s screen. You may need to tap it twice (or maybe I don’t do it hard enough!:smile:), but you should find the circle will turn solid orange & you’ll get a message saying that it’s now On The Agenda. Go to your Agenda, & you should see it listed :blush:

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I use it to manage tasks and reminders.

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I didn’t notice the “Mark new notes as On the Agenda” until today, and that resulted in all my notes being on the agenda, which isn’t really helpful.

Is there a way for me to unmark all (or a selected number of them) as On the Agenda? I haven’t found a way to do it, and had to use the shortcut (Cmd + Shift + U) for each of the note. It’s slow.

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Not yet, in the next update you will be able to do this in one go indeed.

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I have this question as well. This would be AWESOME if Agenda works this way!

I will try and create a few things today to test if they show up in the future as On The Agenda

*** UPDATE ***
Nope, it doesn’t work… once you choose On the Agenda, that’s where it goes regardless of the date.

So, +1 for an option to put a note and/or project On the Agenda on the date it is due

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I haven’t used due dates in Agenda yet (I think with some tag?) so I’m not sure if this is what you mean… but it is important that “On the Agenda” doesn’t automatically show every note assigned to today.

There’s a “Today” saved search that shows all of the notes assigned to today. And from there you can add today notes to the agenda, and filter today notes to only show those on the agenda.

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agenda today.png2368×326 61.9 KB

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Exactly, On the Agenda is like a flag that you manually control (deciding yourself what On the Agenda means for you), Today is any note that is due today. These are subtle differences but important to keep separate. It sounds like the Today view is what you need, as in, if you link a note to an event it should appear in the the Today overview on the day of the meeting.

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Got it! Yes, that totally makes sense now! Thanks guys! :+1:t2:

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This would be a pretty nice feature to have, is there a place where we can vote on features being built?

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The on-the-agenda feature is designed to be manually controlled. You turn on the yellow button to have a note on the agenda, and turn it off to remove. It’s like flagging a note.

For dated notes, it is better to use Today, or make a saved search for a particular date (eg tomorrow, 2 days from now, the coming week). You then have an automatic date controlled way to see what is coming up.

We would rather not have on-the-agenda controlled automatically. That was designed so you could make a shortlist of really important stuff, rather than a automatic list. You can always pick things out of the Today list to put on the agenda.

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I appreciate the benefits of using the saved search/Today feature and have been finding those options useful! However, sorting by date would still be helpful on the On the Agenda feature (perhaps undated notes could stay at the top?).

I’m thinking it would be analogous to “flagged” emails in Mail. When I click on “flagged” I can of course sort by flag colour, but Mail also lets me sort flagged emails by date. I find it helpful to toggle back and forth.

The On the Agenda feature would be even more useful to me if I could toggle the sorting of my “flagged” notes in the same way. Is there any chance you’re considering such a “sort by” feature? Sorry if Agenda already has this feature and I just missed it.

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Absolutely. We want to add exactly that.

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You read my mind! Can’t wait! :relaxed:

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Honestly, I don’t use “On the Agenda”. At least, I haven’t found a real use for it in my workflow, yet. I can see the use cases, I’m just not sure they apply to me. It would be really cool to be able to sort the items on the agenda by date or whatever. That would be a little more helpful for me.

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I use On the Agenda in the way as it mentioned above.
All my things that are proceeding (open task, notes, project) have a date-range and so appears in “Today”. So I use Today more like “current”.
And than at the end of the week I have an overlook, clean up the current week and set up the next, by go to “Today” and chose the things I want to work on the next week, by putting them “On the Agenda”.

In details I also use due-tags and some smart-overviews to set up the Agenda.

A nice side-effect of putting things on the Agenda is the Table of Contents. If I want to work on a specific project I normally don’t have a look “On the Agenda”, but on the “Table of Contents” overview in that specific project. There you can see at a glance what you decided to work on, and what are steps that maybe belongs on the Agenda too or after completion of the current note.

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I spend probably 95% of my time in On the Agenda. Once I find a note I need to work on, I immediately put it on the Agenda, and continue in On the Agenda for the rest of the day.

I can see some uses for other sort orders, especially in an overview like Today, but for me it would actually get in the way. It is powerful that the notes don’t move much in relation to one another. That way, I know I can skip quickly down about 2/3 to get to that meeting note etc etc.

If it was ordered based on edited date, or something that changes a lot, I would lose spatial awareness. As it is now, On the Agenda is like a desk where I layout a bunch of folders I have pulled out of a filing cabinet. I know that the meeting notes are on the left, and my home renovation is on the right etc. Everything is easy to find.

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