GitLab To-dos for async productivity

During my workday, I get to open many browser tabs with ideas and tasks. Often times this involves GitLab issues, epics and MRs from Slack discussions or Twitter threads.

Adding my thoughts immediately would stop the planned tasks on this day. I have found myself jumping in there often, loosing focus and thus feeling not completely successful.

Roman gave me a tip during our collaboration on a quick actions blog post:

Use the /todo quick action in an issue to add it as a To-do, and follow-up later.

Quickstart

Open an issue.

Press r to immediately put the cursor into the reply text form.

Start typing / followed by t and o. Use the cursor to select from the quick search, or continue with d and o.  

Once the text is added, use the Cmd + Enter keyboard shortcut on macOS to submit the comment. Since the comment text only contained a quick action, it is not saved as a "real" comment visible to everyone.

Navigate into the to-do list at the top next to your profile avatar.

Verify the newly added to-do :-)

To-do Done?

When you'll get the time to follow-up on the To-do, no need to navigate back to your To-do list. Just use the /done quick action to do so.

More productivity tips

Dive into GitLab quick actions and productivity tips in this blog post👇