I agree with Dwight, although I'd add that I've tried resource scheduling in Microsoft Project and it failed miserably - It didn't seem to manage to calculate for all the time and resource constraints I put in.
Personally, I use my calendar to schedule all my time and MLO to list tasks. In my calendar, I'll have appointments, but I'll also block out time for big tasks or for contexts for doing tasks. For example, I might block out half a morning for errands and then I'll look at all my MLO tasks with the context @errand to see which I can get done, or I might block out an afternoon to progress a particular project and I'll zoom into that project in my outline to see what tasks need to be done. MLO on my phone has a Today view, so I can look at my load of tasks and appointments to make a judgement on whether I'm overloading myself. However, it does only give you a *count *of events and tasks, it doesn't add up the *time *scheduled for them all, so you have to use your own judgement to work out whether you're overloading yourself on a particular day. On Thursday, 8 October 2020 at 05:50:15 UTC+1 Dwight wrote: > First. let me say that I love MLO, I believe that it is the best and most > powerful task manager ever. But Nigel, I don't think you need a task > manager. I think you need a project manager. > > Project managers allow you to do things like estimating how many hours > each task will take, how many hours you plan to work each day, and it will > then lay out a schedule of what tasks you will do each day and when the > project will be completed. Or, you can pin tasks to a specific day and it > will tell you when you have over-committed for the day. Lots of great > project managers are on the market, most of them cost a hefty monthly fee > and take a lot of time to manage and keep updated. The gold standard is > Microsoft Project which starts at $7/month and requires lots of setup and > support. A popular alternative is Basecamp. There are many others. I think > this is what you need. > > There have been repeated requests from MLO users to expand MLO to become a > project manager. I think that would be a bad idea. It would be a lot of > expensive coding, and the market for product manager is already flooded > with mature products. > > -Dwight > On 10/6/2020 20:13, Nigel Peters wrote: > > Hi all > > Apologies for length of this question- you probably don’t need the context > to give best advice, but I felt need to spell out... > > How best to combine tasks & events in MLO to stay on top of my highly > fluid job? > > I’m a real estate agent, so therefore “mobile” a large amount of the time > and constantly having to accomodate appointment requests that I must input > to my iPhone calendar immediately so I don’t potentially end up > double-booked or missing an appointment. So those are periods in my week > when I cannot be working on “tasks”. The appointment itself often triggers > me to create a task to prepare something for it too. I try to keep to an > “ideal week” with blocked out times to ring fence certain core activities, > but even those can be put under pressure if a crisis erupts. > Incidentally I rely on the iPhone calendar for appointment entries as it > seems best compromise for dealing with head office meeting invites that > come through my Outlook MS Exchange account, and Google Calendar which my > family (and sometimes clients) use for their appointments and which I need > to see at same time when scheduling my own “after hours” meeting requests. > I don’t have a simple 5 day 9-5 work week, > > So here’s my question... > > Unless it’s an incidental task that doesn’t require any prep and is no > more than around 10 minutes (eg check car tyre pressures), or something to > do while doing something else that is a distinct time commitment (eg task > to buy birthday card while doing 1hr long grocery shop), how do people > record and schedule in a task that requires significant time, but which > isn’t an appointment? > > How to use MLO to block out time for tasks, which time period however > does not appear as an event in my iPhone calendar? I’m trying to avoid > having to check both MLO tasks coming up for the amount of time I need to > do the tasks each time I insert another meeting appointment in iPhone > calendar. > > Phew - thanks for anyone who read through to the end of this and has > pearls of wisdom to cut through my muddled thinking and/or inadequate use > of MLO!! > > -- > 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 view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mylifeorganized/CAA5U%3DSr1Mg%3DB%3D82jo128BO_%2B4Rm_PADWdKLDHEuBmHL1aA0tog%40mail.gmail.com > > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mylifeorganized/CAA5U%3DSr1Mg%3DB%3D82jo128BO_%2B4Rm_PADWdKLDHEuBmHL1aA0tog%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MyLifeOrganized" group. 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