Hi, Emilio. If you are already familiar with the Getting Things Done (GTD)
methodology by David Allen please delete this email. If you are not,
perhaps you should check one of his books out of a library and have a read.
You don't have to follow GTD to use MLO, and a lot of people (like me)
start out following GTD and then modify and customize it. But people who
use MLO are usually trying to spend less time managing their tasks and more
time working on their tasks, and GTD is one of the most effective ways of
accomplishing that.
To me, assigning dates to tasks is a trap. It's ok if the task is
inherently dated, like registering for a permit on the day on which
registration opens. But if I am assigning a date just to prevent a task
from lingering, I am starting to dig myself into a hole. Instead, I work on
a task at or near the top of my to-do list. I use MLO to ensure that the
next thing I should work on gets high on the list. The GTD methodology
describes ways of doing that.
I am generally pretty accurate in estimating how long a task will take,
but I consistently underestimate how much time I will spend on
interruptions and unplanned tasks like unjamming the printer. As a
consequence, when I manage by dates, I end most days with unfinished tasks.
I end up spending time rescheduling when I could have been getting one or
two more things done. To make it worse, I often end up rescheduling tasks
onto days that are already overcommitted, makingfor an even bigger
reschedulin effort some day in the future.
I know that there are definitely people who unexpected MLO who schedule
their tasks, maybe one of them will comment.
Just one hint: instead of starting two copies of MLO try this: bring up one
of your views, then hit f3. This creates a new window with a snapshot of
your view. Go back to the main window and bring up the other view. You can
tile the two windows next to each other. The snapshot view has limited
functionality but you can drag tasks back and forth without needing a
second instance.
-Dwight
On August 20, 2016 12:48:39 PM Emilio Jimenez <[email protected]> wrote:
thanks SRhyse!
Well actually it works for me very well. Because part of my Workflow is
marking the "must do" of important projects. And then drop them at
different days, with other tasks. And mark the priority.
The since each tasks has a guesstimated time, then I know I might have tons
of tasks one day, but they are emails so I can get a bunch done in 1 hour,
versus 2 tasks that take 2 hours each another day. So number of tasks is
really not that important vs duration.
Unless it is a meeting or something that needs specific time, I do not
assign the time for the task until that days morning, I just let it linger
off my to do list until I reach the day I assigned at the begining of the
week.
Of course sometimes I don't do everything, but since I marked my musts and
priorities, if anything is left it is either delegated, deleted or moved to
another day. And of course if I finish early then I start planing the next
day, of do other day task I feel like doing.
The thing is to focus on the musts, and if something comes up then you know
your day had an important milestone.
I find if I don't assign a day to tasks, they will linger, and if they
have a due date I will probably be rushing them at the last moment, and
then as you said if something comes up, it falls apart but if instead of
putting it on its due date, I assign it a day of the week 1 or 2 days
before, if I procrastinate or something comes up, no problem.
although I agree that if you try to schedule everything to the minute with
no time cushion between tasks and use the 24 hour of the day, you will
fail, but if of the lets say 8 hour work, you assign 4 or 5 hours of tasks
and plus you know you gave each a bit more time than you really thought,
then you have other 3 or 4 hours to deal with other / personal stuff.Or if
you have assigned every tasks to your week, and gives you 12 work hours
for each then you know you won't be able to do it, either move, delegate,
delete or at least know you probably won't finish them all, and you start
with your musts, then by priority, and see what you can move at the end.
Sorry for the long response.
Thanks for your reply, this is my reasoning for wanting to put tasks into
week days, not necessarily schedule them to the exact time.
Oh, btw I found something that might work, not ideal but could do. open 2
instances of MLO. Then have contexts and folders for days of the week. Copy
and paste from one to the other to plan the week, forget about the first
one and work with the last one. New tasks or projects come up, either
assign them a day or if not for this week you can open the other instance.
One would be the weekly 20,000ft view (projects, goals, etc), the other
your day to day.
Still seems kind of complicated, please any feedback of how you guys use
MLO and plan your week would be greatly appreciated.
On Thursday, August 18, 2016 at 5:11:17 PM UTC-5, SRhyse wrote:
Hi Emilio!
I'm not sure there's any way to assign specific dates to tasks or groups
of tasks other than to select them and then pick them from the
calendar/date wheel depending on what platform you're using MLO on. For
reference, however, how often are you accurate when it comes to things
being done on certain days or at certain times? I ask because one of the
nice things about MLO is that it can easily help you prioritize things and
get to them when you can. In my experience, though I do use start and due
dates to help with that on some things, most things are really 'when I can
get to them and in terms of their importance/urgency', not so much 'this
needs to be done on Tuesday or we're all gonna die'.
Most of the attempts to precisely schedule things I see people do all tend
to fall apart because things never go as planned. Relative urgency,
importance, and priority, however, are more forgiving, flexible, and
accurate for a good number of things I see people having trouble when it
comes to trying to over structure them in terms of the date they'll be done
on.
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