Thanks, Stephanie. Here's what I have ended up doing for now. I agree that time blocking is effective. I have now pre-printed paper (schedule sheets) which I use in the morning. I transfer a small set of tasks from my general task list. This is a little slower than doing 100% electronic with stars and task lists, but I find it a pleasant way to consider my morning, my day, my coffee. During the day, I use my pad of paper to track progress, and at the end of the day (or the next morning) I cross items off my long term (electrical) system. This is a less advanced use, honestly, and I've transitioned to using Monday.Com for this. I'm not satisfied with Monday, fully, because I'm paying quite a bit for team and sharing features that I don't use, but their interface is simple.
Good luck with MLO! -brian On Thu, Mar 21, 2024, 10:38 AM Stéph <stephaneenglis...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hello Brian, > > Sorry for the late reply from me - This is the first time I've taken a > look at this forum for a few months. > > I agree, it takes too much time and effort to estimate the duration of > every task and then select a set of tasks to suit the amount of available > time in the day. MLO isn't set up for time-blocking, although you might be > able to synchronise task dates with Google Calendar and then drag and drop > them into blocks in your calendar. > > There is quite a lot of guidance and YouTube videos out there which > suggest that time blocking in a calendar is more effective than To-Do > lists, by the way. > > *Here's one workaround: * > > Rather than try to estimate exact durations for tasks, you could use *flags > *or *categories *to categorise your task durations into: > > - All-day (8h) > - Half-day (4h) > - Quarter-day (2h) > - 1h > - <20 minutes. > > > Generally, To-Do apps suggest that you plan your day each morning (or the > evening before). They often have a system for you to click to select > today's tasks. > In MLO, the simplest way to do your plan for the day would be to use the > *Star* property to select that day's tasks. If you set up a view with > tasks grouped by flag, sorted into due date order within each group, it > would be easy to make sure you star no more than 1 all-day task, or 2 > half-day tasks, or 4 quarter-day tasks, or 8 1h tasks (or a combination of > these... or actually *fewer tasks*, because there's no way most people > can stick to a plan which fills an 8h working day, when 25 - 75% of the day > will be filled with unplanned stuff like calls, emergencies, ad-hoc > meetings, etc). *Before *choosing tasks, subtract the number of hours > already allocated to* scheduled activities *(meetings, travel, site > visits) and* routine daily activities *(lunch, 1/2 hour catching up on > calls, daily team scrum meeting, gym, journaling 1/2 hour, whatever else). > > Most of the rest of the day, you'll then be going through and checking off > the list in your "starred" view. > > > I hope those thoughts are useful. > Stéphane > > On Saturday 10 February 2024 at 04:49:50 UTC Brian Bulkowski wrote: > >> Hey. I am a n00b user and almost don't want to post my n00b questions, >> but, on the other hand, I'm about to start using MLO because I can't really >> find the workflow I want. >> >> I have a lot of projects, and a lot of subtasks. I love the idea of that >> view, and the day's todo list. >> >> In order to "sweep" from projects to a day's todo, I want to have time >> estimates for tasks. I find entering time estimates cumbersom. Min, max. I >> guess I have to look through the keyboard shortcuts to find the right way. >> >> I mostly want to select the day's tasks from my big lists, and have it be >> a set of tasks that fits the amount of time. I'd like a view that shows the >> amount of I'm planning for the day. >> >> I want my recurring tasks to auto-populate, and I want that task to show >> up in the next day's sweep, and those expired tasks I want to be removed (I >> saw a recent post asking how to have recurring tasks auto-close, there >> wasn't an answer). >> >> I'm also discouraged about the Android interface. I spend a lot more time >> in the morning with my android tablet (with keyboard), and the interface is >> ... not super intuitive. >> >> I'll go through the videos again, but I'm starting to think I"ll be >> better off with an agile planning tool (asana, monday) than this...... >> >> Any tips welcome! >> >> Thanks... >> > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the > Google Groups "MyLifeOrganized" group. > To unsubscribe from this topic, visit > https://groups.google.com/d/topic/mylifeorganized/Oa_ghf3cADk/unsubscribe. > To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to > mylifeorganized+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mylifeorganized/74cc022a-6424-497a-9790-6053cdb10a05n%40googlegroups.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mylifeorganized/74cc022a-6424-497a-9790-6053cdb10a05n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- 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 mylifeorganized+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mylifeorganized/CAJqMS6Xi0sXwpOLsxmi3SGNna10Kg289v27QJJsFr%2B9GbCLk6w%40mail.gmail.com.
