Just to be clear - its scheduling that I want too but just something that shows my workload (what I have planned for each day, how much time each task is going to take and the total workload for the day) and allows me to adjust it manually. I don't want automatic scheduling.
-----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of pottster Sent: 11 September 2010 5:22 PM To: MyLifeOrganized Subject: [MLO] Re: Calendar View - Load Balancing The calendar issue is obviously close to people's hearts! I can fully sympathize with Richard's requirements but I'm probably with Steve in suggesting that the needed MLO functionality is more about scheduling rather than diary/calendar management. Talking of the latter, if you use Outlook I think that there is really good functionality in there that people don't use (know about?). I'm a great believer in employing the right tools for the job. Have a look at these screenshots as an example. http://www.mediafire.com/i/?qryqphlm17zlm5s http://www.mediafire.com/i/?e9isble16i7mned http://www.mediafire.com/i/?ijx2crq7xqock0x This is a side by side view of one day for two separate calendars. The calendars can be merged with one or the other prominent. The view can also be weekly if required. The calendar on the left is for appointments which are usually events, fixed in time, involving more than just yourself and often at a particular location. The calendar on the right contains time slots allocated for personal work which can be more flexible and usually involve just yourself. The latest consensus on personal productivity suggests these type of "appointments" with yourself can be very effective in not allowing your schedule to be railroaded by other people and other people's priorities. If you are on a team calendar this would show as non-available time. These views in Outlook make it easy to block out time in amongst hard landscape appointments for personal time. These blocks could then be broken down further, into small tasks, by tools such as MLO. In addition, there could be another calendar to show actual v planned activity for the day for review/billing purposes (where did the day go?). As a self-employed consultant, Richard's day may be more in his own control and be more a dilemma of workload balancing. However, use of a separate calendar in Outlook (or similar) for individual tasks, if they warrant it and are long enough in duration, could easily be handled by drag and drop of blocks of time representing the task and/or pomodoro units in this intuitive interface. It's simplistic but it is also easy. Capacity planning/scheduling (which is essentially what we're talking about) is a VERY complex subject - I know, I spent many years in Manufacturing. Trying to look for an automated solution is something which has taxed better brains than most for many years without a solution. Keep it simple ;-) On Sep 11, 3:51 pm, "Richard Collings" <[email protected]> wrote: > This is a good step in the right direction. In an ideal world I would like > the time units be configurable as I use Pomodoro's (30 minutes long) as my > unit of time recording > > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] > > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of pottster > Sent: 11 September 2010 1:22 AM > To: MyLifeOrganized > Subject: [MLO] Re: Calendar View - Load Balancing > > Further to my last post, here are a couple of mock ups to show what I > had in mind... > > http://www.mediafire.com/i/?d9p2dxhpb5me9uw > > http://www.mediafire.com/i/?7izej6wb52smeda > > On Sep 10, 11:48 pm, pottster <[email protected]> wrote: > > The debate about a calendar view goes on! > > > I suspect that the level of disagreement about whether this is needed > > or not means that it is unlikely to be implemented in the near future. > > In the meantime, it may be that Andrey will be most open to small > > changes which partly deliver what people want within existing > > functionality. > > > An example of this is where a calendar view has been requested to help > > balance daily workload. Take a look at this view. > > >http://www.mediafire.com/i/?252esf71qop7o62 > > > With a tweak to include the total time for that day's tasks in the > > grouping header and/or some sort of traffic light system (red/amber/ > > green) to give visual feedback on over/under a standard daily hourly > > capacity, a "quick and dirty" assessment can easily be made. > > Furthermore it would be a simple matter to balance the daily workload > > by drag and drop between groups or right click on the due date. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "MyLifeOrganized" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group athttp://groups.google.com/group/mylifeorganized?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MyLifeOrganized" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/mylifeorganized?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MyLifeOrganized" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/mylifeorganized?hl=en.
