Ed,
It seems as though you are asking for a methodology. That's hard. MLO is
a powerful and flexible tool that can support a wide variety of
methodologies. Even better, it will let you start with a defined
methodology and then tweak it to better fit your own personal needs and
habits. There's no methodology that works for everyone and no one can
predict what sorts of methodological tweaks you would most benefit from
without knowing all about how you work, what goes wrong, and what you
wish for. You are already aware of GTD, so my suggestion is to start
with a getting-started-with-gtd book and follow the steps, except
whenever it says to write something on an index card or make a list ona
piece of paper, use MLO instead. When something seems awkward, or
something has more effort than benefit, or you missed a task you didn't
want to miss, tweak the process. If you can't figure out how to tweak
something, come back here and ask.
-Dwight
* Does it work well for grocery lists or should I stick with paper?
When you make a grocery list on paper, is it hard for you to remember
everything you need? If you use up the ketchup, you can pull out your
phone and type "ketchup" into the grocery list without looking for and
managing scraps of paper. If you are at a restaurant or friend's and
have some delicious rutabaga fries, you can quickly add rutabaga to the
same list. When you are getting ready to go shopping and you are looking
in the closet at what's running low, maybe you should use paper or maybe
MLO, depends on how fast you type versus write. I usually end up with
paper but I check MLO while writing the list for a reminder that I want
ketchup and rutabaga.
* Helping pick a direction in the morning before that 1st cup of
coffee is kicks?
I have found MLO better at reminding me what task is next for each major
initiative than it is at picking which initiative to pursue today.
* Is this better suited for mundane reminders (water the plants, take
out the trash) or large projects (finish my basement, restore an
antique car)?
I think MLO is great at both, and it is the very best at simple tasks
(replace washer in bathroom faucet) that grow into projects (replace
bathroom faucet) (replace bathroom sink) (repair flood damage in
basement under bathroom)
* Remembering recurring tasks that MUST get done TODAY (pick up the
kids from daycare) versus tasks that really SHOULD get done
TODAY(enter client billing for the day).
For the most part MLO does not say anything until you look at it. If you
get all involved with replacing the bathroom sink and forget to check
what else is due, MLO for the most part will not reach out and poke you.
To avoid the OMG-I-forgot-to-get-the-kids experience you might want
something more intrusive than MLO, like an appointment with an alarm and
snooze reminders. You can put a reminder on an MLO task and a lot of
people do so. I hate that because if you are not careful, got get times
when several tasks are ripe at the same time all ringing the reminder
bell at once which makes me crazy.
* Tracking honey-do lists (pick up milk on the way home, "dad I need a
check for the field trip next week")
That's great as long as you remember to check the list. Try using
location alerts to show you, for example, the going-home list whenever
you depart your work location/
* spending one hour per week cleaning and organizing my hard drive
(which will really never truly be finished)
MLO will remind you to clean your hard drive but cannot tell you how
long you should spend, or have spent, or still need to spend.
* paying bills on time
Excellent
* writing policies and procedures for new business.
MLO will remind you to do it but does not help much with actually doing
the writing.
* Actually sending the XXX to the client like I promised.
Very good. What's even better is if there is a routine, or set of best
practices around each customer deliverable (have someone else review for
readability and typos, print a copy of the high quality paper, check
envelope weight for appropriate postage, store tracking number with
client record, check for delivery before deadline, call for client
feedback, update billable hours, store copy of document in archive.
You can make a project with all of these steps and save it as an MLO
template. Then, when you have a client deliverable pending you can
instantiate a project from the template and start checking stuff off as
it happens.
* Starting and finishing that really important XXX, instead of
watching the really interesting UTube video, that just came in my email.
MLO will remind you that xxx is important but will not block you from
watching utube. You might want to check out the Pomodoro methodology,
which will not stop you from watching utube but will limit the damage to
less than 25 minutes.
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