Yes, using multiple fields to do the sorting is a cunning idea... but it
doesn't really help me.
What I am trying to achieve is slightly subtle.
The problem that I have found is that any form of priority that uses
"absolute" values eventually breaks down when one uses it. This is because
you end up getting lots of tasks that are of about the same level of
priority to you and for this reason, you get a sort of "clustering effect"
emerging over time with lots of task seeming to have the same priority.
So for example, I might well end up with say 10 tasks ALL of which have
Importance=120, Flag=red, and one quickly runs out of whatever your finest
divisions are. i.e. You run out of 'granularity'...
But what I was trying to do is to prioritise my tasks in two passes.
*Pass #1. *In this pass I go over my tasks in a hierarchy view. Here I
allocate an approximate absolute priority to me. [e.g. MLO's Importance
field with 7 possible values works well for this ("Max, A Lot, More,
Normal, Less, Little, Min" )] And I allocate any Stars (which to me means
"Attempt to do in the next 2 days")
*Pass #2. *In my second pass, I am looking at a flat (non-hierarchical)
view. I am just looking at those items which I have starred. In this pass
I am trying to decide in which order to actually execute my starred items.
So for Pass #1 my allocating of an absolute priority to me (e.g. using the
Importance field's popup) works well. ==> and *automatic sort,* in this
case based on the Importance will get tasks into roughly the right order
and works well.
However, for my Pass #2, I need to create a sequence of which tasks I am
going to do in what order. i.e. which tasks I am going to execute first.
This requires comparing the priority of tasks side-by-side/next to each
other. [Plus in some cases any possible clustering of similar tasks
together, as this may be more efficient, due to set-up times, mood,
location etc ] And this requires a *manual sort*.
To get clear, in the end users do have decide in which order they will
execute their tasks. I mean even if you have your 10 tasks with exactly the
same level of priority in the absolute sense (i.e. of how important/urgent
each of them is to you), what you then have to decide is: In what sequence
are you actually going to execute those tasks?
And that last bit will require a* manual sort *of all those tasks that have
roughly a similar priority to you.
So this is what I tried.
Having completed my careful manual sort, I tried to switch on the automatic
sort by Importance on a temporary basis, hoping that it would only move
tasks past each other if they had differing Importance values and that task
of the same Importance values would stay put.
I was then hoping to switch back to a manual sort to complete the
fine-tuning of which tasks to do in which order.
However what happens is that the automatic sort uses
1. Sort by Importance and then
2. It ignores my careful manual sort and instead sorts by the sequence in
the unsorted master outline...
And then the second that you remove the sort and turn on manual sorting
again, the sort order goes back to whatever it was before, completely
ignoring the fact that I had ever turned on the automatic sort.
TL;DR It seems that the only way to do a relative [task vs. task] sort is
to do a manual sort, but that it is impossible to get things roughly into
the right order first using an automated sort.
J
On Thursday, January 25, 2018 at 5:11:51 PM UTC, Alyona (MLO Support) wrote:
>
> You may assign flags of different colors to differentiate tasks that are
> equally important. After that set up sorting: first by importance, then by
> flags.
> For example, you have task 1 (importance=150, no flag), task 2
> (importance=120, flag=blue) and task 3 (importance=120, flag=red). The
> items in To-Do list will have the following order: Task 1, task 3, task 2.
>
> On Thursday, January 25, 2018 at 3:28:28 PM UTC+2, John . Smith wrote:
>>
>> Hello
>>
>> Is it possible to have a View that is only *partly* a manual sort?
>>
>> e.g. Can I have a view that is sorted by Importance, but between tasks of
>> identical Importance, I can manually sort them?
>>
>> To get clear, what I am trying to achieve is that I when I do a pass over
>> my tasks, I want to flag up the really high priority task, and also flag up
>> which are definitely lower priority, but which nonetheless I intend to do
>> during this time period (i.e. normally today). And I want it to stay
>> visually obvious as I refer to and execute my tasks as to which tasks are
>> of what 'absolute' priority... And yet at the same time, within the rough
>> ranges of priority I then wish to change which tasks are of which priority
>> *relative
>> to each other*.
>>
>> Maybe there is a better field to use other than Importance, but it would
>> be nice to be able to use keyboard shortcuts as much as possible.
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>> J
>>
>
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