If you really wanted a program that was more scheduling-friendly, I'd try Pocket Informant if you're on iOS, Mac, or Android. MLO is the superior program, and it's flexible enough to do everything you need it to do, but that program lends itself more to being a calendar integrated task manager rather than a robust task management and planning program. Not that it isn't robust in its own right. You could just click on calendar dates in that app and make either tasks or events on that day, and easily drag them around on there to change their dates, having it all roll up into a focus/today view that ties your calendar and tasks together. MLO on iOS has a similar today feature that shows tasks and calendared events.
Echoing again what we've all told you, you'd be doing yourself a favor if you tried doing things a little differently regarding scheduling, and instead planned what to do next, and set due/start dates when they actually existed or had relevance. For me personally, a task being starred means it's what I focus on ASAP/next and needs to be done that day. I use start dates to put things off into the future, like invoicing a client, or the subtasks in order feature to have things not be actionable until other things have been done. With due dates and start dates without stars, that's more for helping to pick from things, or if those dates actually exist on a project. From there, I use contexts like other people do to 'tag' things, and projects in completely mundane ways of hierarchy and breakdown. All of my attempts to use the goal feature have failed. There's a reason GANTT charts are being abandoned and things like Scrum are being embraced. Being more pessimistic than Dwight, if you did work better with a 'schedule' and not a 'plan', which is a useful distinction, then you'd probably be the first person I met that did. As long as you set aside time to work on things that need doing, and group them in ways that make sense, you don't need a schedule in the sense you seem to be after. MLO will let you decide based on your plan what things need to be done in what order and priority and importance, and by when, or beginning when, and with contingencies and sequence. If you set that up, which is easy to do in MLO and what it's designed for, you'll have something better than a schedule, and in far more flexible a form. In my experience, the only things that tend to go according to schedule are things so mundane and trivial they didn't need to be scheduled or even written down at times. Schedules tend to be a large burden that accomplish little. Plans are great. MLO makes the latter flexible and dynamic with relatively little effort to do so. On Monday, August 22, 2016 at 2:19:33 AM UTC-7, Emilio Jimenez wrote: > > > 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]> 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]. >>> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >>> 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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