Hello Mary, We have had this conversation with Richard in the past. Here is the link:
http://groups.google.com/group/mylifeorganized/browse_thread/thread/1831641b58ec4747/4fb039f575aa3715?lnk=gst&q=unschedule+nschm873#4fb039f575aa3715 As to answer your question, I'll review what I posted at that time. To forward plan you really shouldn't try to place your actual tasks in a calendar. You only use a calendar to figure out how much time you actually have available to you. So the steps are: *Figuring out time needed to complete tasks: *First you use MLO, or GTD, or whatever tool you use to gather all of the work you really need to do. You then take this work and figure out how many 30 minutes time slices you need to complete all the tasks you have given yourself. >From there you add your interruption percentage. Basically, what percentage of your time at work gets interrupted by others needing something from you. You have to add enough additional time slices to cover this loss of time. Now you know how many time slices you need to complete your tasks. *Figuring out time available:* Now you use a calendar to mark all of your commitments. Read unschedule for more information on how to do this. Basically, you place all of your scheduled meetings, your travel time, your lunches, your personal and leisure time, etc. Once you have this you now know what free time is actually remaining for work. Then you add up this time in 30 minute time slices. Well you add up how much of this time you are willing to give to work. You can read about the pomodoro technique as an example of this phase. So now you know how many "gross" time slices you have available. *Putting it all together: *Since you now know how man time slices you need and how many time slices you have, you simply add them up. You go back to your unscheduled calendar and start counting time slices available for each day, until you reach the total slices you determined that you need to complete your tasks. *Advantages: * The advantage of this method over trying to put tasks directly into a calendar is its flexibility. You don't have to spend any time "sliding" tasks to a later time slot if you add an emergency task. By having time needed and time available as separate lists you can add or subtract tasks to your list and readjust your dates accordingly. So to recap, you would use MLO or GTD or your personal task collection methodology. You then use a calendar and the unschedule technique. You would then use pomodoro or the dash method for your time segment technique. Combine them all together and you can now forward plan. Anyway, I hope that is what you were looking for... On Tue, Jan 25, 2011 at 3:56 AM, Mary D. Renaud <mary.d.ren...@gmail.com>wrote: > Is there any way we could steer this away from the gtd discussion? If > GTDers have ideas for using it with tight, competing deadlines, great; I'd > be grateful to hear them and see if I can implement them. But I need > multiple deadline management (as do many program managers, project managers, > and students - who also encounter bottlenecking issues) and I'm really > hoping to share ideas and tweaks with people about how to do that rather > than go back and fourth on the gtd thing. > > > Sent from my iPhone > > On 2011-01-25, at 1:54 AM, Mike T <kenr...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > Have you actually read the GTD book? Just asking. > > > > GTD as I understand it is a system approach to seeing in one place all > > the things you have promised yourself you'd do now or in the future. > > Its up to you, not GTD, to estimate how long its going to take to > > complete them. Now it might be worthwhile to use a tool like a Gantt > > chart or MLO or Microsoft Project to estimate how long the things you > > have as active projects are going to take to complete and to look for > > places where you've scheduled too much to be finished at one time, but > > GTD has done its part if its let you keep track of all your > > promises. > > > > > > > > On Jan 24, 1:45 pm, "Richard Collings" <r...@rcollings.co.uk> wrote: > >> But unless I am missing something, GTD has nothing to offer in helping > me > >> see that I am overcommitted next week (or whenever). > >> > > > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "MyLifeOrganized" group. > > To post to this group, send email to mylifeorganized@googlegroups.com. > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > mylifeorganized+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com<mylifeorganized%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com> > . > > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/mylifeorganized?hl=en. > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "MyLifeOrganized" group. > To post to this group, send email to mylifeorganized@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > mylifeorganized+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com<mylifeorganized%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com> > . > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/mylifeorganized?hl=en. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MyLifeOrganized" group. 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