Hello Damian, I've been trying out Timeful on my iPhone. I'm also a beta tester for MLO, so I've been playing with the timeline / calendar view in the iOS beta.
Timeful has some benefits - You can defer tasks with a single tap and it will reschedule them within the timeframe you've set for them. Incomplete tasks get carried forward and rescheduled. You can define "habits" (repeating tasks in MLO) and set how many times you're aiming to put them into practice each week. Items are sync'd with your calendar and you can even see a "tick" character in your iOS calendar when you check them off in Timeful. However, there's a lot it lacks, which makes it's suggested times for tasks generally wrong. For example, it has no way of taking account of your context (location) and allowing any time for travel - tasks are just placed immediately into any clear spaces in your calendar, running in immediately from any appointments you have. I still find Timeful useful for scheduling timeslots in for important tasks, though I could easily do that by setting appointments straight into my calendar. MLO's upcoming calendar view / timeline view / today view is going to be really useful. I find myself working in that view a lot of the time. It gives me a count of appointments and tasks, though it doesn't take account of the duration of each event or task. However, having them all in view and having a total count makes it much easier to see which days are likely to be overloaded. For me, a total of 8 items (2 per 1/4-day) is an indicator of a busy day and 16 events + tasks scheduled for one day is a warning of overload. I'll still schedule appointments in my calendar (or Timeful) for any big tasks or projects I want to progress, but otherwise the upcoming view makes a big difference to my management of my tasks. Stéphane On Sunday, 12 October 2014 12:48:11 UTC+1, damoski wrote: > > I just checked back to see what's changed in the last 18 months or so :-) > > I've had a great, relaxing weekend, camping, hanging out on the beach, and > getting all these great ideas that I've put into my MLO inbox and promised > myself that THIS time, I'll get them done! Now I just need to make that a > fact... and I logged in to check whether there's any progress on making MLO > a bit more helpful for me in that! > > As always, the feature that I really miss from MLO is a calendar view. I > DO see that the iPad v2 version proposes that there is one in development, > with a tasks-per-day view. That looks great.... but... I still need more. > > You see, there's two ways of thinking about the calendar view. I presume > most people are talking about being able to see the tasks in MLO that have > a date and time, in their calendar, so that they can plan around them. Now, > that's very handy - but it only really works for tasks you create that have > fixed dates and times. > > For me, the problem is completing the tasks that DON'T have an assigned > date/time. What I need a calendar view for, is to be able to drag-and-drop > *un*-dated/timed tasks that are highest priority in my list, INTO my > calendar - to take the tasks that otherwise lurk in the background with no > assigned timeslot, and fix them with a solid date/time in my calendar so > that I commit myself to work on them! > > It not only helps me to commit, it also helps me avoid planning to "do > that tonight", forgetting that I'd already planned to do some other task > tonight. Ideally, it would even force me to cancel meetings and > appointments, to make way for more important tasks that I would otherwise > only put in the gaps between those meetings. > > I recently found yet another new app that comes close-ish. I saw a review > for Timeful on Lifehacker: ( > http://lifehacker.com/timeful-intelligently-arranges-tasks-and-events-on-your-1616073913). > > While it looks nowhere sophisticated enough to replace MLO (nor is on > Windows, etc), it does do one thing that I want to do - allow me to > drag-and-drop tasks into specific timeslots (see 00:30 in the video). It > even autolearns and autoplans - again, something I can do without - but in > its place, having MLO consider the place/context that I will be at (and is > open) when it auto-schedules, would be great! > > Ideally, I could sit in the MLO interface and see all my calendars (synced > from Outlook, say) in a day/week view, along with my next tasks by priority > on the side. I could then drag-drop the tasks into the gaps in my calendar > - maybe allow a few tasks to be dropped into the same timeslot (eg. "I'm > going shopping from 10-12 tomorrow, and I need to do these things - in this > order" // "I should call Marcel at 9am tomorrow, and I have these 5 > different things from different projects to discuss with him"). > > At present, the best case is that in the evening I will look at the next > MLO tasks, then switch to Outlook and create appointments for those tasks, > to ensure they're scheduled in. It comes to the same end, but it requires > me to manually transpose everything from MLO into Outlook, which a lot of > additional manual effort. It also clutters my schedule, and requires > switching between tools a lot. > > I guess another way of saying it, is that I'm looking for a Gantt chart > auto-integrated with my existing Outlook schedule, in a Calendar View! It > would just be nice to be able to do all of this management in one tool - > MLO - in a quick and productive way! > > <cross posted to a few other relevant threads> > > > Damian > > > > On Thursday, January 3, 2013 1:57:32 AM UTC+11, damoski wrote: >> >> Hi, >> >> I was going to propose a calendar view, until I searched here and checked >> Uservoice, and realised it's already the most frequently-requested feature >> :-) >> >> However - I wanted to extend this a little further, by proposing that the >> calendar view doesn't just show the deadline dates of the various tasks, >> but actually allows you to tentatively schedule some tasks for a certain >> day and even timeslot - and, going one step further - would allow you to >> view your prioritised ToDo list, and *quickly and easily *drag-and-drop >> the tasks into the free slots on your calendar (alongside your calendared >> appointments). >> >> I keep reasoning that if I execute GTD correctly and use MLO correctly, >> then I should just be able to keep ticking off the 'next in the list', and >> everything will magically get done. However, the reality is that I often >> end up scheduling what I know I need to do, in that particular timeslot >> that I know I can do it in. At present, I often end up 'double-entering' >> (ie. re-writing the existing MLO task as a calendar appointment), to >> co-ordinate this. Using MLO flags up what I need to do on a day-by-day >> basis, but I'll still manually compile my 'Today' list from that, and then >> work on that. >> >> Currently, I use a 'Today' context, and Starred view, for that, so I can >> quickly look at the Starred view on my phone, but every time I look at it, >> I still have to make that mental review of "OK, * task 6... was I going to >> do that before OR after the 3pm conference call?". Much better, if I can >> drop them directly into a calendar view for today, then glance at that. >> >> Anyway, I've posted this as an idea on Uservoice: >> >> >> http://mlo.uservoice.com/forums/9235-general/suggestions/3509561-close-the-gap-between-the-todo-list-and-the-schedu >> >> Cheers! >> >> >> Damian >> >> -- 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 post to this group, send email to mylifeorganized@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/mylifeorganized. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mylifeorganized/6d64188e-ca11-4e5e-bf80-634f609e38d8%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
