Sync MLO with calendar (eg. iCAL)

[Damo Skees]

I've been trying for years, but much as I love MLO, the one thing I have trouble doing is scheduling my tasks.

I know that GTD preaches against this, and I know that many productivity coaches also advise against scheduling tasks. I admit that I'm still terrible at completing a task in the calendar even if I do schedule it, but at least it's there, and it's a motivator.

There are a few things that keep failing me on MLO / GTD that scheduling would help:

- Planning - I can't plan a series of tasks for a due date - eg. report due end of week, and five subtasks across the week.

- Overbooking - every time I get an organisational spurt, I start planning out several goals for the week - invariably I overbook myself, fail to complete each day, become demoralised, and just fall further back as the week progresses

- Reporting - If someone asks me "what are you doing on Thursday", GTD (and MLO) doesn't give me visibility that I'll be really busy then, because I have deliverables on Friday. There's just a collection of tasks between now and then, with no depiction of how to space them out

- Modifying dates - Probably the reason for not scheduling tasks, is that you then spend hours re-scheduling them! It's clunky in almost every to-do app - manually changing a date/time without being able to see the calendar underneath it. It should really be drag'n'drop.

What I would really like, is to be able to have scheduled tasks appear in my calendar!

More than that - I would like to be able to drag'n'drop them around in my calendar!

So the flow would go something like this (and in Gqueues, below, it does):

- I look at my calendar for the week in my native calendar application (I use MacOS ical / IOS Calendar)

- On it, in a different colour (different Google sub-calendar, for example), are some tasks I scheduled for a deliverable for end of month

- I check my next 2-3 days, and drag them around to better fit any new meetings.

- The changes are synced back to MLO, and I check in the main projects to see what that does to the due dates for each

- I'm looking overbooked, so I postpone an internal project to next week, and advise my boss

- As the day goes on, I drag, extend, etc. these scheduled tasks in ical or calendar as things change

- As always, if my boss asks me for the forecast on a project, I can look at the project view and see all the dates as I currently have them

The trick is syncing to the native calendar app. Rather than spend huge effort designing a calendar UI, interaction, etc. - why not just design an API that talks to CalDAV, iCal, etc which is two-way?

I've found three apps that do this so far:

- Asana - Big Heavyweight, but not great in this feature.  Tasks can only be given a date, not a time, so they appear as 'all day'. The ICS feed to iCAL is one way, so you can view tasks in a particular day, but not move them around - you have to go back to Asana for that. But they do have their own calendar view, where you can drag/drop.

- Todoist - Also apparently claim to have implemented calendar view and two-way sync in the calendar. I've not tested it yet. The two-way sync only works with Google Calendar, for others it's one-way

- Gqueues - This is the one I'm currently testing. Again, it does permit native two-way sync in iCal, and it's very quick as well.

I've been using GQueues, and the UX is as I'd like. Whether it actually helps me meet deadlines, is something I'm currently testing.

But - MLO is so good in so many other ways. I would really like to have this feature in MLO - perhaps as a checkbox on a task for 'schedule task', to flag that it should sync to the calendar. MLO already has cloud sync, so perhaps a calendar sync could be built as an API from it?

Damo

[Nick Clark]

One thing that I think would help with scheduling tasks is for MLO to have an additional date field for Expected/Planned Do Date. This would enable views to be setup that list all that's to be done on dates ahead while still retaining the Due Date as the date past which the task is no longer valid.
This was discussed some years back but no conclusion was reached. It would need to cater for tasks with no Due Date, and also with recurring tasks, so programming would not be trivial.
At present I tend to used Due Date for this, which is about unsatisfactory.

[Roberto Penzo]

Dear sirs, finally I decided to make my own scheduler by using Excel via Visual Basic Assitant.

I admit that it was a hard work (=several nights!) and I have not finished it: I am adding the recurring tasks.

The idea is simple, the implementation not so much.

I made a task table containing two types of tasks:

-fixed tasks (APPOINTMENTS: date+hour and duration)

-floating tasks (only duration + eventually a not-before-than-date and eventually a not-after-than-date). These tasks are to be done when no appointments are on.

I also made a table of my personal working timeslots (different timeslots on each weekday).

Then, when I press the button "PLAN!", my macro generates a plan time-ordered table of tasks with start date and time for each task: the fixed tasks are simply copied with the original date. On the free pieces of the working timeslots (free=not occupied by fixed tasks) the program places the floating tasks (eventually in pieces-serie form of them) in order to completely fill the working timeslots. The planning order of the floating tasks reflects the order of the task table containing the floating tasks, so I can give to each floating tasks a priority, agains the other, simply moving a task up or down.

When the planned end datetime of a floating task exceeds its not-after-than-date, a red signal is added on the plan date. This signal suggests me to re-evaluate the priority of the floating tasks, so as to avoid the delays.

Now I am adding also the function of recurring floating tasks.

------

I am using this solution for work and home, with two different task lists and working tìmeslots. This solution is very effective for me, because I can really forecast the dates of each floating task and change the priorities by evaluating the previous plan, assuming that I get a good extimation of the durations of the floating tasks.

Bye.

[Wallace Gilbraith]

Wow

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[Mandie Kramer]

This is exactly what I'm looking for! I don't suppose you would share the code?

On Jul 6, 2017 4:14 AM, "Wallace Gilbraith" <ho...@gilbraith.co.uk> wrote:

Wow

 

From: mylifeorganized@googlegroups.com [mailto:mylifeorganized@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Roberto Penzo
Sent: 05 July 2017 22:29
To: MyLifeOrganized <mylifeorganized@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [MLO] Re: Sync MLO with calendar (eg. iCAL)

 

Dear sirs, finally I decided to make my own scheduler by using Excel via Visual Basic Assitant.

I admit that it was a hard work (=several nights!) and I have not finished it: I am adding the recurring tasks.

 

The idea is simple, the implementation not so much.

 

I made a task table containing two types of tasks:

 

-fixed tasks (APPOINTMENTS: date+hour and duration)

-floating tasks (only duration + eventually a not-before-than-date and eventually a not-after-than-date). These tasks are to be done when no appointments are on.

 

I also made a table of my personal working timeslots (different timeslots on each weekday).

 

Then, when I press the button "PLAN!", my macro generates a plan time-ordered table of tasks with start date and time for each task: the fixed tasks are simply copied with the original date. On the free pieces of the working timeslots (free=not occupied by fixed tasks) the program places the floating tasks (eventually in pieces-serie form of them) in order to completely fill the working timeslots. The planning order of the floating tasks reflects the order of the task table containing the floating tasks, so I can give to each floating tasks a priority, agains the other, simply moving a task up or down.

 

When the planned end datetime of a floating task exceeds its not-after-than-date, a red signal is added on the plan date. This signal suggests me to re-evaluate the priority of the floating tasks, so as to avoid the delays.

 

Now I am adding also the function of recurring floating tasks.

 

------

 

I am using this solution for work and home, with two different task lists and working tìmeslots. This solution is very effective for me, because I can really forecast the dates of each floating task and change the priorities by evaluating the previous plan, assuming that I get a good extimation of the durations of the floating tasks.

 

Bye.

 

Il giorno martedì 4 luglio 2017 00:22:01 UTC+2, Nick Clark ha scritto:

One thing that I think would help with scheduling tasks is for MLO to have an additional date field for Expected/Planned Do Date. This would enable views to be setup that list all that's to be done on dates ahead while still retaining the Due Date as the date past which the task is no longer valid.
This was discussed some years back but no conclusion was reached. It would need to cater for tasks with no Due Date, and also with recurring tasks, so programming would not be trivial.
At present I tend to used Due Date for this, which is about unsatisfactory.

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[Stéph]

All that hard work! You should find a way to hard code it as an app which you can sell.

[Roberto Penzo]

I have no problem to share the whole Excel file. Let me only insert also the floating recurring tasks.

Obviously it is "as is": no full control of user entries. Example: if you insert a text as date, it runs a Excel exception.

But as a matter of pleasure, I can share it. You can also inspect the code. The variable names are in italian.

If someone is interested in converting it in a app I will be happy.

[Roberto Penzo]

Oops..I forgot to say you that every floating task can have 1 predecessor (i.e. another tast to be completed before the current task can be scheduled).

[Roberto Penzo]

I have just finished the recurring tasks (fixed and floating). Several nights awake!!

But now the number of bugs seems to have start decreasing.

If the work seems stable I will evaluate to send you a copy just to understand what is it.

Bye.

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[Robyn Webb]

Hi,
adding a +1 for a sync between Calendar apps (Google and/or Apple) and MLO.

I use android and my Google Calendar is what I use to run my life.

However, I like to use MLO for my plans, goals and things to do, including scheduling when I start these things and when they are due.

Having 2 apps to do all this just doesn't work.  It's inefficient and things get lost between the 2.

There is a sync between MLO (desktop) and Outlook, however this comes with all sorts of other problems, mainly because of Outlook.  I still can't get the Calendar sync with Google to work reliably. 

The 2 key calendar & task cloud platforms are Google and iOS.  MLO already has a cloud sync and Outlook sync.  When can we have a sync for Tasks for Google and iOS?

[Mandie Kramer]

Roberto, I missed your email when you said you finished. I must confess, I have no ability to make your work into an app, but I would love to learn what you've done. Mind sharing still?

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[Roberto Penzo]

Hi Mandie.

I've done a loto of work to get my Excel works and now I use it usefully. But I sometimes discover bugs that I fix every time I discover, so I think it is better for you to wait until it seems that no new bugs arise.

I also have to update the document describing the functions, mainly for me (hard to remember all the details).

[Lake Norman B2B Homes Boats]

[Lake Norman B2B Homes Boats]

I too would like to be notified.
Thank you, Roberto Penzo!

On Monday, August 14, 2017 at 2:43:41 AM UTC-4, Roberto Penzo wrote:

[Mun Thung Lew]

Hi Roberto Penzo,

I am interested in your excel worksheet to plan tasks. Once you have done the fine tuning, I hope to be notified, thanks in advance!

Regards,

LEW

[Roberto Penzo]

Ok.

In the meanwhile I am fixing several bugs. It's a complex sheet...