Dont know if this will help, but has anyone tried an MLO / OUTLOOK /TASKLINE combo?
http://www.taskline.com/ On 23 January 2011 21:34, <[email protected]<mylifeorganized%[email protected]> > wrote: > Today's Topic Summary > > Group: http://groups.google.com/group/mylifeorganized/topics > > - Preventing bottlenecks due to conflicting/crashing project > deadlines<#12db4cca7a606eb9_group_thread_0>[3 Updates] > - Bug (possible): Completing a task for which there is an open reminder > causes MLO to lose focus <#12db4cca7a606eb9_group_thread_1> [1 Update] > > Topic: Preventing bottlenecks due to conflicting/crashing project > deadlines<http://groups.google.com/group/mylifeorganized/t/7a93f3d7c9bf9c79> > > "Richard Collings" <[email protected]> Jan 23 11:27AM > ^<#12db4cca7a606eb9_digest_top> > > Thanks for the update on SmartPlans - won't waste time on that one in > the > short term. > > > > Toms Planner does not provide any mechanism for entering times and > calculating day by day or week by week workloads. It is just a visual > planner but I find having a visual plan which I can eyeball to see > potential > clashes very helpful, particularly if it is very quick to update (which > it > is). So not ideal but the best thing I have found so far to complement > MLO. > > > > It also good because you can put other people's work on it as well and > see > the relationship between what you are doing and everybody else. > > > > And I would agree with you with regard to the absence of anything that > helps you with the 'How much work have I got on during period x' > problem. > Microsoft Project does it but it is complicated to use and expensive as > it > is designed to support very large projects. > > > > I think it is partly the GTD mindset that says (as far as I understand) > "don't bother with forward planning it is a waste of time.". This works > fine for things like household tasks where there are no particular > deadlines > but is useless for you and I who have clients/customers who expect > things > done by certain dates and, rightly, are not very happy when you miss > those > dates. > > > > The view which was expressed recently that it wouldn't help if you did > know > whether you could take on an extra piece of work, just doesn't apply as > quite often people will accept a delay in starting a piece of work but > find > it much more problematic if you fail to deliver by the agreed date (as > they > have then planned in other activities around your delivery date). And > even > if they go elsewhere, they may come back later whereas, if you take it > on > and then don't deliver you then have a seriously unhappy client (or you > find > yourself, yet again, working an 80 hour week). > > > > So I, for one (and there are clearly many others here), would welcome > something in MLO which helps us see more clearly what is coming up in > the > next few weeks and the workload implications of that. Not easy but I > think > many of the elements are in place. And as you say, I think it would > fill > a significant niche. > > > > I would also be interested to hear how you have achieved something in > MLO > that helps you with this task. I use a ToDo view that groups 'Key > Tasks' > (which are higher level tasks that I flag) by Start Date which helps > but I > just don't find the visual layout very helpful and there is nothing > that > sums the time allocated to each task by day or week. > > > > Richard > > > > From: [email protected] > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Mary Renaud > Sent: 17 January 2011 8:05 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [MLO] Preventing bottlenecks due to conflicting/crashing > project deadlines > > > > Hi Richard, > > Yes, it is a mobile app (iPhone/iPod/iPad) and I downloaded it > yesterday to > give it a try as a complimentary tool. It's a good concept but too > buggy to > use. While I love that it allows you to enter the end date, start date, > and > total hours for a project and then it gives you a graph with your > workload > (along with a line that lets you see whether it's above/below the > workload > you want) so that you can change dates to make everything fit the > amount of > hours you have available, it crashed many many (many, many) times > during > use. So many times that I would consider it utterly unusable (I would > say an > average of less than 30 seconds of use before crashes). I tried the > company's fix as listed on their website and this changed nothing. My > iPhone > is under 2 months old so it's not that my OS is too old. > > I will have a look at Tom's Planner as a compliment as well. Thanks > > I seem to have come up with a temporary system that works inside of > MLO. It > took a long time to set up and I'm still tweaking it but I will be glad > to > share it when I see if it works properly. I'd gladly create and upload > a > template as well if there's room for that here somewhere. > > What I don't understand is why so few pieces of software include a "How > much > work have you booked for period X" feature. Any of the good ones have > you > estimate your time per task or per project as well as deadlines and > lead > times so the data's all there. How is it that SmartPlans claims to be > the > first to have this type of feature. Unless you have only one project > (or > very flexible deadlines), it can get very complicated very fast. In > fact, > when I did create my makeshift system, I realized that I had a week > where I > had 93 hours of work booked (to fit into a 42.5 hour week). Had I > continued > using the "today forward" method I would have either missed deadlines > or had > a VERY bad week! Seeing that allows me to adjust start times and spread > the > work out so that I wouldn't wind up with that kind of a crunch. > > If I can think through a helpful way to phrase a feature request (i.e. > try > to find what the minimum is that is needed for this so the programmers > can > get the most bang for their programming-hours buck) I'll do so. It > seems > like something like this would pull a program, especially as > full-featured a > program as MLO unquestionably to the front of the pack. > > Thanks for the suggestion. I'll check it out this afternoon. > Mary > > -- > 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]<mylifeorganized%[email protected]> > . > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/mylifeorganized?hl=en. > > > > > Neal <[email protected]> Jan 23 10:41AM -0600 > ^<#12db4cca7a606eb9_digest_top> > > > > I think it is partly the GTD mindset that says (as far as I > understand) > > “don’t bother with forward planning it is a waste of time.”. > > I don't think anybody has told you to NOT to bother with forward > planning. > I think people have told you that MLO is NOT geared toward what you > want to > do. Future task planning is about three things: > > What you need to do at certain times. > What you would like to do at certain times. > and > What you actually did at certain times. > > I would love a tool that would allow me to overlay my plan on my > scheduled > items. I'd love to have a dual view of my planned activities next to my > actually work. It's just that I don't see how MLO in its current > implementation can do any of that. > > As I said before, MLO is really only setup to deal with a next action > item. > In particular recurrences are NOT setup to do forward planning. There > is > only one instance of a recurrence/rotation and they are based on due > dates > (which they shouldn't be btw, they should be based on start times). For > future planning you would need a task for each future days recurrences. > So > you would have to rewrite how MLO handles recurrences BEFORE you could > even > begin to deal with "future planning" features. > > This is also true for sub tasks done in order and with tasks that have > dependencies. None of those tasks will show up for a future plan. > > So until Andrey rewrites MLO, I don't see how he implements what you > are > asking for. And that is NOT me trying to be an Andrey apologists. I > just > don't see how you get there from here with the current implementation > of MLO > > > > > "Richard Collings" <[email protected]> Jan 23 09:30PM > ^<#12db4cca7a606eb9_digest_top> > > A question and observation... > > > > Question: so how do you do your forward planning? > > > > Observation: I agree all the issues you identify are issues which would > need to be addressed in some way but those ways include not using the > facility. For example, I have significantly reduced my use of recurring > tasks because a) you can't easily reschedule them and b) as you say, > 2nd > and subsequent occurrences don't appear in the current ToDo view. > > > > Alternatively <light bulb moment>, the new 'Calendar' view could treat > these artefacts differently. So the existing behaviours would be > retained > in the To Do view (keeps existing, Calendar hostile user happy) but in > the > new Calendar view (which can be ignored by those that don't want to use > it), > things like recurring items would be displayed differently (makes > Calendar > fans very happy). > > > > Looks like I have addressed all the objections of those who don't want > the > calendar (just ignore the calendar tab). J > > > > Richard > > > > From: [email protected] > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Neal > Sent: 23 January 2011 4:41 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [MLO] Preventing bottlenecks due to conflicting/crashing > project deadlines > > > > On Sun, Jan 23, 2011 at 5:27 AM, Richard Collings <[email protected]> > wrote: > > I think it is partly the GTD mindset that says (as far as I understand) > "don't bother with forward planning it is a waste of time.". > > > I don't think anybody has told you to NOT to bother with forward > planning. > I think people have told you that MLO is NOT geared toward what you > want to > do. Future task planning is about three things: > > What you need to do at certain times. > What you would like to do at certain times. > and > What you actually did at certain times. > > I would love a tool that would allow me to overlay my plan on my > scheduled > items. I'd love to have a dual view of my planned activities next to my > actually work. It's just that I don't see how MLO in its current > implementation can do any of that. > > As I said before, MLO is really only setup to deal with a next action > item. > In particular recurrences are NOT setup to do forward planning. There > is > only one instance of a recurrence/rotation and they are based on due > dates > (which they shouldn't be btw, they should be based on start times). For > future planning you would need a task for each future days recurrences. > So > you would have to rewrite how MLO handles recurrences BEFORE you could > even > begin to deal with "future planning" features. > > This is also true for sub tasks done in order and with tasks that have > dependencies. None of those tasks will show up for a future plan. > > So until Andrey rewrites MLO, I don't see how he implements what you > are > asking for. And that is NOT me trying to be an Andrey apologists. I > just > don't see how you get there from here with the current implementation > of MLO > > -- > 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]<mylifeorganized%[email protected]> > . > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/mylifeorganized?hl=en. > > > > Topic: Bug (possible): Completing a task for which there is an open > reminder causes MLO to lose > focus<http://groups.google.com/group/mylifeorganized/t/9bcbe5bab625baf0> > > "Richard Collings" <[email protected]> Jan 23 03:12PM > ^<#12db4cca7a606eb9_digest_top> > > One thing that is very irritating about MLO is that if a reminder fires > so > that you have the reminder window open and you then switch to the main > MLO > window and clear the item which has caused the reminder to fire, the > main > window loses focus (it disappears). > > > > It doesn't always do this (can't work out the circumstances in which it > does) but it does it enough to irritate me. > > > > Would be nice if it was fixed. > > > > ________________________________ > > Richard Collings > > Information Systems Consultant > > > > Stuff that has caught my eye recently: > http://www.delicious.com/richardcollings > > > > -- > 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]<mylifeorganized%[email protected]> > . > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/mylifeorganized?hl=en. > -- <http://www.justgiving.com/Derek-Davidson> -- 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.
