I would agree that you can do most of these things in MLO and indeed I do, in order to manage my broad list But it all takes time and worse, thought, and when it comes to the point of wanting to manage my task flow over the next few hours it would be so much easier to be able to drag tasks into the order in which I want to do them.
And as previously indicated, I have found it almost impossible to get MLO to order things into an order that makes sense to me. So I do indeed do what you suggest - namely create a list in EverNote of what I want to do in order I want to do it - which is completely bonkers (Brit word meaning totally stupid) as the tasks are sitting there in MLO - stubbornly stuck in an order which does not make sense to me. And finally, yes you are right that the tasks do not have to be in order - but I find it helps enormously - spend some time thinking about what I want to do for the day and then work through the list without needing to think about it again. And again what's the point of having a bit of software that could so easily do this and yet doesn't. > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Philb > Sent: 14 February 2009 4:28 a > To: MyLifeOrganized > Subject: [MLO] Re: Prioritizing Items ToDo Today - Suggestions Wanted > > > > I think you can tackle all this with the existing features in > MLO. Capture the time you think it takes to do the tasks. > Have an @Braindead category for those items to do when you > are tired, like filling your stapler as David Allen says. > Use other contexts as needed. Use the filtering to build a > view that shows you things to do when you only have 2 minutes > or less. Use the Due dates. You can have a filter to show > you tasks that need to be done today. You also have > dependencies, to make one task appear before another. You > also have complete tasks in order - another way to control > your todo list. Does the task actually have to be at the top > of the list for you to work on it? At some point you have to > make the decision what to do at any given moment. No > software is going to accomplish that for you. MLO certainly > gives you the tools to make a better decision though. > > Worst comes to worst, you can always write down the top items > you need to focus on on a piece of paper. That way they will > be right in front of you all the time, which is far faster > and more efficient than any software could be when things are > coming at you hot and heavy. Then at the end of the day or > when you next have breathing room for processing time, get > your outline up to date again. > > On Feb 13, 7:46 pm, "Richard Collings" <[email protected]> wrote: > > > As to manual priorities - I don't really think it is good idea. > > > > > Just imagine: You have thousands of tasks in your MLO > database - all > > > waiting for your attention. And some day you think "oh - > it's good > > > idea to complete task1 today! - and assign it highest > priority". But > > > for some reason - you can't complete it - and it stays until next > > > day. Next day - you may change your mind and prefer to complete > > > task2 - so you will constantly have to struggle all those > old tasks. > > > > An interesting point which has some truth but I think there is a > > simple solution. > > > > Like the previous correspondant I just can't make the MLO > > prioritisation work for me at the detail level because the order in > > which I want to work on things does vary by day (and by hour) - > > clients phone up and need things doing urgently; I am > feeling tired > > so I want to do some easy tasks; somebody emails me to say > they want > > to talk about x at 4:30 today but before I can talk to them about x > > and I have to do w and z and so on. Trying to order these > activities > > in MLO at the moment in this way is impossible. > > > > So my vision for the manual sorting is that one uses the broad MLO > > priorisation tools to bring the most important tasks to the > top of the > > list for today but one can then drag them out of that list and put > > them in a manual order that makes sense for today. > > > > And then tomorrow, there is an option which says 'Clear > manual list' > > which just puts everything back into the natural MLO order. > > > > That would be a great step forward. > > > > The next step would be to have multiple manual lists so > that one can > > sort a set of tasks for a project into a sensible order for that > > project by creating a manual list for that particular > project and then > > using drag and drop. A much better mechanism than trying > to create > > dependencies. > > > > And finally > > > > > You can find manual priorities in Outlook TODO - it doesn't work > > > for me. With MLO I change the way of choosing what to do > > > - I influence it indirectly - by assigning it start/due > date, goal, > > > putting it into specific place in my outline. > > > > Nooooo. Surely the whole point of having a tool like MLO > is that you > > create an Outline that makes sense to you eg typically into > some form > > of work breakdown structure and then **without disturbing the > > outline*** you switch to a different flat view which allows > you to put > > the tasks into an order than makes sense. If you have to put the > > tasks into order in which you are going to do them in the outline > > itself, then what is the point of the ToDo view (and MLO). You can > > just use Word - put the tasks into an outline and then just > drag the > > tasks out of the outline into a list in the order in which > you want to > > do them. > > > > Richard > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MyLifeOrganized" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/myLifeOrganized?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
