That’s pretty much how I’d approach this, too – root-level folders of Old and 
New, hide Old in the Views, and gradually work through the Old folder moving 
stuff into New

 

Someone once said ‘The middle of every successful project looks like a real 
mess’ – you’ll always be in the middle of it, so don’t beat yourself up if your 
MLO profile isn’t perfectly neat

Having said that, for me the critical thing is to get the Inbox emptied daily, 
and give all those new tasks a Context and a Due Date and move them into the 
right place in the Outline

Now and then I may focus on tidying up a specific folder in the Outline, so 
it’s less of a mess – that might be a folder representing an Area of Life, or a 
Project (particularly a project that’s likely to repeat)

But many of my folders are a bit of a mess, and it doesn’t matter, because 
tasks surface when their Due Date comes round, and I don’t need to think about 
the state of the folders they’re in 

 

Wol 

 

 

From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On 
Behalf Of Stéph
Sent: 28 August 2019 12:47
To: MyLifeOrganized <[email protected]>
Subject: [MLO] Re: Strategies for re-starting with MLO

 

Hello Joel,

 

I feel your pain! I, too, generated a huge file with various uncompleted tasks, 
thoughts and someday-tasks in my in-box and completed-but-not-quite-archived 
projects. I also dabbled with Post-It notes, on-screen Post-Its and switching 
some work projects to a OneNote-and-Outlook system (shared with my Team). 

 

(Incidentally: The OneNote-and-Outlook system has several great benefits, but 
has not been great for tracking and managing a dynamic projects list - even if 
I use tags for highlighting projects and tracking their status. I've gone back 
to overall management of my work projects and all my non-work tasks in MLO).

 

To regain control of my tasks and Projects in MLO, I've created an "Old Inbox / 
Someday" folder at root level. I've set it "Hide the branch in To-Do" in 
General Properties and I've customised some of my filters (eg the projects 
filter) to exclude items or projects in that branch (Advanced Filter: AND 
"TopLevelFolderName does not contain "Someday""). 

 

I then moved everything from my Inbox to the "Old Inbox", along with some of my 
potential, future projects. I've promised myself I'll go through the Old Inbox 
during one or more long journeys or when I haven't got anything else pressing 
to do, to do, delegate, defer or delete (in true GTD style) or re-instigate any 
important projects.

 

Good luck with keeping your updated task list manageable. I think that's the 
biggest challenge that a lot of us face.

 

Stéphane


On Wednesday, 28 August 2019 08:59:35 UTC+1, Joel wrote:

So I think I'm not alone but maybe I am.  Because 'reasons' I've fallen off the 
wagon keeping up my GTD system.   Have been a long-time mlo user (like v2 or 
beginning of v3 I think) and have a fairly well formed system (for my use) but 
it is now stale.   When I say "fallen off the wagon" I mean I've been keeping 
it all in my head.  Now it's spilling onto post-it notes.  Oh fk, here we go 
again.

So it's clearly time to bootstrap myself and get back ON the wagon.  Ok, fine.

 

Foundation:  There is a lot of stuff in my existing file.  Some of it may even 
still be relevant.  Plenty I'm sure has passed, happened, been handled or 
exploded.  Nonetheless, there is a lot there.

Problem:  How do I get started using my file again ensuring I see/deal with new 
current items and not get flooded by the clutter of the 'old' stuff?  (at least 
till I can make some time and energy to start working through the backlog of 
it)  

I've started adding some items in and they are just washed out in the see of 
overdue/older, higher prio, etc items that my views are fleshing out.

 

Any others have dealt with a start/stop event like this?  What strategies did 
you use?

I don't necessarily want to have to modify every one of my views (eventually 
I'll need them back to "normal", right?) so looking for thoughts.

 

All ideas welcome.

 

I'm on Windows and Android if that that helps/matters.

 

Thx.

 

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