Hi, John. MLO is a tool or platform that can be used to manage tasks according to numerous different methodologies. For the most part, the questions you ask impress me as being about the methodology and not the tool. In those cases, the answers you will get from the tool and its documentation will be flexible and imprecise in order to avoid pushing any methodologies off of the tool. For example, if you believe that a project without any remaining uncompleted subtasks is itself a task, MLO will support that. If you believe that a project is a container for tasks but not itself a task, MLO will support that too, though not quite as fully. MLO will never tell you which approach is correct. And so on.
But I do have some further comments on active action and next action. There are seven conditions that will make an uncompleted action considered inactive. They are documented in the User Guide section 5.2.1 starting at the bottom of page 37. You mentioned many but not all of them, some of them will probably surprise you. The definition of an active action, then, is that it is any uncompleted task which does not have any of the seven conditions that signal inactivity. I think that you are trying too hard to make a distinction between tasks and projects in next actions. Either a task or a project or a folder may or may not have subtasks. The differences are, a task cannot have its own next action – the task and its subtasks are all candidates to be the next action of any project or folder above them in the hierarchy. Also, a folder cannot be active and therefore cannot be an active action or a next action. Other than that I believe that they are identical – if any type of item has uncompleted subtasks it cannot be active. If an item has subtasks but they are all completed, the item becomes active (unless it has any other reason to remain inactive, such as being a folder). Next actions by project shows all next actions, grouped by the project that contains each. A project without subtasks is active (one way of interpreting this is that you have one remaining task which is to ensure that the project has accomplished its objective and close it.) This task/project is a next action, being the next thing to be done for the project in question. But it does not qualify for a place among the group headers of the NextActionByProject view, because it does not contain any tasks that are next actions. It does not contain itself. -Dwight From: mylifeorganized@googlegroups.com [mailto:mylifeorganized@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of John Smith Sent: Tuesday, December 09, 2014 3:10 PM To: mylifeorganized@googlegroups.com Subject: [MLO] MLO use of English Hello Sorry - another new user question... I have realised that I am slightly confused about the MLO use of English. What is the exact definition of: A) Task ? B) Project ? C) Action ? D) Active Action ? E) Next Action ? Here is my best attempt at defining each of them: (please do correct me where I am wrong!) A) TASK A "Task" is something you the user need to do. A Task that involves more than one-steps can divided into "sub-tasks", (thereby forming a heirarchy). B) PROJECT Alternatively, a multi-step task can instead become a "Project" (i.e. if the "This is a Project" box is ticked) A "Task" is something that you need to do that is NOT a Project [True ??] and not a Folder obviously. C) ACTION I think an "Action" in MLO can be either a Task or a Project [True??] (ASIDE: In GTD theory, a "Project" is supposed to be written as a desired outcome. Whereas an "Action" is written as a more physical/visible activity that needs to be engaged in order to move the current reality towards a desired outcome.) D) ACTIVE ACTION For simplicity, if we ignore Start Date, and ignore Dependency, and if we assume "Complete subtasks in order" has not been ticked anywhere, and if we assume we are only talking about things that have not been ticked as being Completed... then "Active Action" refers to all Tasks AND all Projects that do not have uncompleted sub-tasks in the hierarchy below them. Personally I was surpised to discover Projects appearing in the "Active Actions" View at all, however in MLO Projects seem to behave just like Tasks in as much as they will appear in "Active Actions" view ONLY if they do not have any children. i.e. Neither Tasks with children nor Projects with children will appear in the "Active Actions" view. In fact the "Active Actions" view does not seem to care AT ALL if something is a Project or not, (other then the fact that the Project name can (optionally) be inserted into the row containing a Task name if that Task is part of a Project). E) NEXT ACTION A "Next Action" must meet all the criteria to be an "Active Action", however only the *first* task in each heirarchy will appear in a "Next Action" view. However here Projects *are* treated slightly differently from Tasks, in as much as where there is a Project located within any given heirachy, the system tries to find a Next Action within that Project. And also the existance of the Project does not intefere with the current need to find a Next Action in the heirarchy in which it is located. A Task does not need to be part of any Project in order to appear in a "Next Actions" View. Also a Project with no children will appear in a "Next Actions" view. The fact that is a Project forces it to appear, however, perhaps surprisingly, it will not get a mention in the "By Project" component of the view of a report like "Next Action by Project". In fact if a Project without children is located outside of any other Project, it now appears within "Project: (none)", which feels slightly strange... but understandable given its other behaviours. QUICK SUMMARY: A) Task - stuff you need to do that is not a project B) Project - a collection of Tasks C) Action - A Task or a Project ?? D) Active Action - A Task or a Project that is not made invisible by - Start Date - Dependency - Complete subtasks in order (in the hierarchy above it) - Completed being ticked E) Next Action ? An action that is next in the hierarchy whether or not it is part of a project. OK I wrote all that mainly to straighten out my own head! Am I broadly correct / what did I get wrong? J -- 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/80ec0c2d-b661-444b-b023-8022bfa72b4b%40googlegroups.com <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mylifeorganized/80ec0c2d-b661-444b-b023-8022bfa72b4b%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- 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/005d01d01431%2445ff0bc0%24d1fd2340%24%40dwightarthur.us. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
