Hi Mike: What you see below is the tip of my iceberg. What it does not include, which I may screen grab at some later point are dozens of checklists I use for projects I do with many moving pieces.
[image: Inline image 1] USE AUTOMATIC FORMATTING: Notice that I use Automatic Formatting quite a bit. Automatic Formatting changes the appearance of your tasks based on context and other variables. That makes things stand out. Just everything thing I do eventually winds up in a mindmap called Simplemind. But the hierarchy is similar to the screen grab above. IF YOU PROCRASTINATE HERE'S WHAT WORKS FOR ME: Maybe this is a little off-topic, but it is integrated into my MLO usage. I have found, over the years, that it doesn't matter how fancy I get. I used to use roles, priorities, effort and urgency. The truth is that I spend more time maintaining the structure than actually getting important things done. Where I'm getting the most traction has been: 1) Realizing that a mere list of tasks and projects does nothing to motivate me to get them done. 2) What motivates me are things that I want in the here and now. So in MLO, I have a list of things that motivate me. So, I use MLO and Simplemind to structure my flow of work as follows: 1) Prioritize tasks and projects 2) Group them in bite-sized chunks 3) Make a list of little things that you can reward yourself with. I will take a 24 oz of vanilla flavored coffee in a thermos and take one big sip. I will place it on the other side of the room. Then, I will not take another sip until a accomplish the set of tasks. The I'll do another set, using perhaps some other motivation. There's a lot more to than that. But that gives you the gist. It's a big paradox. Most motivational experts tell you that the key to success is delayed gratification. But really, it can be used to way of tricking yourself into getting things done. I know this will sound stupid to a lot of people. But this is the only approach that consistently enables me to step away from my computer at the end my work day patting myself on the back. Eddie On Mon, Apr 10, 2017 at 8:38 AM, Michael Mroczka <[email protected]> wrote: > Alright, so I know some of us have private things in our MLO lists, but > I'm looking for this post to open up the secrecy of how you structure your > personal MLO. In an effort to share I've provided some pics to get an idea > of how I personally use it. You can always blur tasks that you want to keep > private with a quick online tool like this ( > http://www196.lunapic.com/editor/ ). > > It took me forever to figure out how I wanted to structure my Projects and > Folders so that they weren't a total mess. I finally stumbled across this > amazing post <http://andrewminer.tumblr.com/omnifocus> showing how to use > Omnifocus effectively by setting up folders by ROLES in your life. See the > picture below. > > > <https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-iEw6mHDA8xA/WOuhwbHklHI/AAAAAAAAAxM/zmiPbXsEsCUezB0t6Tw-ZBk_Dccg1keRQCLcB/s1600/omni.jpg> > > After I had that revelation, I modified it slightly to better fit my > life's priorities and ended up with this... > > > <https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-yAM6I5j3ryQ/WOuiQkbMKKI/AAAAAAAAAxU/5hxL9F940A47tLpZTL4nHn0X9teQovpEACLcB/s1600/mlo.jpg> > This is a cool configuration I've used for the last 2 years. The best > thing about using this type of folder hierarchy is that if you prioritize > these top level folders into what is most important to you then all your > tasks in your default views will 'default' to this priority. So for > example, if I looked for tasks due in the next 7 days it would first show > me my '12 Week Year' tasks, then my 'Husband' tasks, then my 'Spiritual' > tasks, etc. That is super cool! > > With this said, however, I've seen other people use simpler structures > like just 2 folders Work and Personal with much success and many variations > apart from this. The biggest drawback I've found with using this folder > hierarchy is that there are many cases where a task could easily fall into > more than one folder and you're left with either needing to duplicate the > task (BAD) or only seeing it in one of the folders. For example, I may > personally want to work on "Improving my Python coding skills", but should > that go in the Hobbyist folder? Or perhaps Career Development? Or maybe > Education? And if I need to "Do the dishes", should that go into the > "Husband" folder or the "Owner" folder, or the "Misc" folder? > > > I also found a problem with identifying tasks that were relavant to do NOW > vs. seeing things that I may someday want to do. Grouping them by context > can work, but for me using folders seemed to work better, so in each major > folder I have a 2 sub-folders. I keep projects and single tasks that I'm > actively working on this week inside the major folder and then sort > tasks/projects that are not in progress into a folder called > "Someday/Definitely (But Not This Week)" folder and tasks that I have not > started or even committed myself to doing into the "Someday/Maybe" folder. > I then hide the 2 sub folders from the task list using the "Hide branch in > To-Do" option so that none of those tasks show up in my views unless I move > them into the active workspace in the folder. See below for a better > understanding. > > > <https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-H4a8UL-YBHs/WOumfL74klI/AAAAAAAAAxk/eTR2XTlbAbIUewb2F9K5ycVByo9QDhl-QCLcB/s1600/mlo%2Bsubtasks.png> > > > Please post a picture on how organize your MLO tasks folders so we can get > some other ideas! Do you organize by ROLE like I do? Maybe by EFFORT? Or > perhaps by TIME? > > Let us know! Share your structure! :) > > -Mike > > -- > 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/ms > gid/mylifeorganized/efb98d18-7c74-4d48-be13-11be77e43b77% > 40googlegroups.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mylifeorganized/efb98d18-7c74-4d48-be13-11be77e43b77%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. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. 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