Hi Dwight Don't really know why my posts don't appear right away, but I hope you get to see this one.
A lot of people tell me that scheduling is a trap, but I really can't understand why. Maybe I don't explain myself correctly, I don't mean day and time 3 months from now. I just mean Sunday night / Monday Morn, see my different projects both business and personal and assign a day of the week for them. And each day try to get the musts done, then high priority. To me an important part of task management is scheduling, I know we all work differently, I just don't do well with a bunch of tasks on my list of all areas and just get done what I feel like, the way I do it allows me to get a bit of all areas and projects into my week and make progress, since I focus on the 80/20 of the day, progress is there even if I don't finish all. I might be using contexts and a view context view. What do you think? thanks! On Saturday, August 20, 2016 at 4:11:48 PM UTC-5, Dwight Arthur wrote: > > Hi, Emilio. If you are already familiar with the G*etting 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] > <javascript:>> 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. >>> >>> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "MyLifeOrganized" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected] <javascript:>. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected] >> <javascript:>. >> Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/mylifeorganized. >> To view this discussion on the web visit >> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mylifeorganized/d390a783-a78c-4ab8-a30a-cbc7cb7a49a7%40googlegroups.com >> >> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mylifeorganized/d390a783-a78c-4ab8-a30a-cbc7cb7a49a7%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> >> . >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MyLifeOrganized" group. 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