For you guys that are SO interested in a calendar view for task management there is an interesting download on Giveaway of the Day. It combines a hierarchical task manager with a calendar. If you are not familiar with the GOTD website you only have today (Mon 11th Oct) to download it for free. It's free for non-commercial use only.
http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/leadertask-personal-organizer-6-9-6/ Even if it's not a "keeper" it might put some flesh on the bones in the debate about what an MLO calendar might look like. I think this lack of clarity about exactly what people want is part of the problem at the moment. Personally, I would still be happy with just a view like those in my original posts. There are far more important developments needed however IMHO. For me, it's not so much about being against a calendar, but more about what other good stuff we'd have to wait for (see Andrey's recent roadmap for details). On Sep 16, 9:40 am, "Richard Collings" <[email protected]> wrote: > I agree that there is no easy solution and I would also like to have a > mechanism which showed the workload implications of tasks that run over > multiple days - partly to support people who work in the way that you do and > partly because I would also find it useful - particularly when looking at my > work beyond the next few days. > > However what is driving my desire to extend MLO in some way is the fact > that, if I look at my working life, my main problem (which far outweighs > everything else) is my inability to plan and execute my work in a way which > stops me a) overloading myself and b) leaving stuff to the last minute. > And I am clear that a significant part of that problem arises from my > inability to 'visualise' my upcoming work. > > And given that all these tasks are already in MLO, it would be very > valuable to me if it could be extended in some way to provide this > visualisation so as to help me with this problem. > > What I find puzzling is that nobody on the 'anti calendar' side of the > debate has proposed an alternative non-MLO mechanism to helping with this > planning issue so my conclusion is that either they are able to do it 'in > their head' or that there workloads are sufficiently light that it is not a > problem. > > What is also interesting is that all the methodologies (GTD, Autofocus, Do > It Today, etc) appear to be primarily concerned with techniques to solve > 'what should I do next' problem and have very little to say about the 'Can I > get it done by next Friday' problem. The Pomodoro Technique offers some > ideas in this area (but even here it is limited). So if anybody has any > suggestions for useful sources of ideas in this area , I would be very > interested. > > Richard > > From: [email protected] > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of phil reaston > Sent: 15 September 2010 10:17 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [MLO] Re: Calendar View - Load Balancing > > That's only going to work if all your tasks are less than a day long. If you > have tasks (like I do) that may span several days it won't work - you'll see > all the time on one day I think. And before you say I need to break the > tasks down smaller I'm not sure I want to do that - for instance "clean out > garage" - I don't want to specify all the individual tasks for this, I just > go into the garage and get on with it. I may even want to do as much as I > feel like one day and then leave the rest for subsequent days. Some of my > programming tasks are like this too - "clean up comments in code" - maybe I > just do a little each day as a breather from the hard work - I'd need a way > to put that in the schedule as "just do part of it". > > I actually agree with the "No Calendar" group for reasons that have been > stated by others, but mostly because I see any task manager as an aid to > seeing what have to do, what's getting late etc rather than telling me what > to do each day. > > Just my 2c. Back to cleaning the garage :-) > > Phil Reaston > (702) 358-4080 > > On Wed, Sep 15, 2010 at 2:04 PM, Richard Collings <[email protected]> > wrote: > > 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/?qryqphlm17zlm5shttp://www.mediafire.com/i/?e9isble16i7mnedhttp://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] > <mailto:mylifeorganized%[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] > <mailto:mylifeorganized%[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] > <mailto:mylifeorganized%[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 > 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.
