I have taken a long time replying to this thread because I have wanted to make sure that I had a clear view of the issues before I replied. I now think that I have. I think that this version of Chandler does not properly implement the clearly articulated vision available at http://chandlerproject.org/vision The current interface is too complicated in the wrong ways.
The vision talks about software that mirrors the ways in which people actually work, and talks about the need for flexible items of information that flow naturally, and not within artifical channels. (I am paraphrasing.) The vision talks about: 1. Managing Information Managing Focus and Managing Progress Am I done with this or not? Of all the stuff I'm not done with, what should I work on now? When I defer things, how do I keep track of them so that I don't forget about them? 2. Processing Information Defining items What is this? An invitation? A task? Just a note for reference? 3. Organizing Information into Projects. I have been using Chandler since the start of this year as my *only* information organiser, and my understanding is that, whether it admits it or not, Chandler handles three fundamental types of information: 1. Notes. these are simple items that consist of a title with a detail field. 2. Tasks: these are notes that have been given a triage status of Now or Later. If the latter then they have a due date, signaled by a tickler alarm. 3. Events: these are notes that have a date and a duration. That is, they have a due date, and a start time and an end time that are different. This is not surprising because these are the three types of information that almost all information manages and organisers use - including completely paper-based organising systems such as the Filofax system I used years ago. These are also one of the key building blocks for the Getting Things Done system. Chandler makes it uniquely easy to move items back and forth between these three states, and that is its major strength. Howver the current implementation does not make it easy to view these states in a clear and simple way. Let me illustrate with a real life example. I start a collection called Conference paper, and begin by adding a number of notes for reference. these are quotations, links to relevant documents, survey results, and other basic building blocks for writing a paper. They have no due dtae, or any particular triage status, because I will be referring to them time and again through the project. I then add another note: "check the deadlines". This is an action I intend to do when I have a spare 15 minutes. I haven't got time this week, so I set it for Later and give it a tickler alarm for 10 days time. It is a task. I then add some further tasks, mapping out the sequence in which the project will happen: "write abstract", "show Wendy and Bill", "submit abstract", and so on. these are all set to Later because I do not yet know when they will be done. Once I have found out the deadlines, I DO know when they will need to be done. I therefore convert the first one into a calendar Event for the first available day when I have 3 spare hours, and the second one into a task now named "arrange meeting with Wendy and Bill". As the project develops I will want to look at all three views. I will want to refer to the reference notes frequently, and maybe add or modify. I will want to check the Task List to make sure I am on top of it, and to continue turning tasks into Events where necessary. I will want to check my calendar daily. I have been using the Star to delineate Tasks because (as described above) I need to regularly look at my Task List, without having to pick the tasks out of a larger combined list. I have currently found no way of looking at my Notes in this way. I also use 01/01/3000, 02/01/3000 and so on as the tickler alarm for yet-to-be-scheduled Tasks, since this forces them down to the bottom of the collection's Later list in the correct sequence. I do not understand why Tasks were removed from the released version of Chandler, since they are a fundamental part of any personal information flow (as are notes, for that matter). Graham asked for less not more in the UI and I agree with him. I would suggest that Chandler 2 has something like the following UI: The Sync and Triage buttons as they are, and then just two Main buttons: List View and Calendar View. these would be binary - selecting one deselects the other. The List View would have three subsidiary buttons: Events, Tasks & Notes. The view would open with Tasks showing, but the buttons would work like the Bold, Italic, Underline buttons on word processors. You could select or deselect as many as you wanted. Thus, with a couple of clicks you could see any combination, including a blank screen. The List View would allow you to sort Starred Items in the way that it does now.. The Calendar View would have two subsidiary buttons: Events & Tasks. (Notes do not exist in time, so are not relevant in this view). You could thus see the events for a particular day / week / month, or the tasks, or both. I fear that Graham's suggestion that the Task View problem could be solved by plug-ins in Chandler 2 would only make the core problem worse. In my view the core problem is that All-Starred-Calendar do not assist the very clearly expressed vision for Chandler in any way at all. Because of this their prominent placing is unhelfully confusing. Finally let me stress what I mentioned at the start. I have been using Chandler as my only information management system for six or seven months now, and I intend to keep on doing so. these are the ramblings of a long term user who wants to help make Chandler better :) -- View this message in context: http://n2.nabble.com/Unscheduled-Tasks%2C-Views%2C-Calendar-Events---the-Triage-tp2931519p3341646.html Sent from the Chandler users mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ [email protected] mailing list unsubscribe here: http://lists.osafoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/chandler-users Chandler wiki: http://chandlerproject.org/wikihome
