Trying to Get Started

[Darryl Brooks]

Hello, just downloaded the app and trying to get started. Would like to get up and running soon to get the most bang out of my 45 day trial.

I've read through the first 4 chapters of the PDF and watched a couple of videos, but a bit confused. The PDF feels more like a reference than a tutorial, and both have the same problem. They both show views of the software that I don't have. The PDF shows a bunch of tabs and the video has two, Ouline and To-Do. The PDF even states that, "When you create new MyLifeOrganized file there are two default tabs are created: Outline ...and To-Do ...

My software has one tab, My Workspace. 

Should I keep reading and watching and all will be made clear, or is there someplace with an actual, hold my hand tutorial. I've worked with software for 30+ years, including just about every task manager on the planet, so I'm not a newbie, but this software is obviously very deep and I don't want to get off on the wrong foot. 

Or should I just dive in? After all, I can start over with a clean file.

Thanks - and I'm sure you'll be hearing more from me.

[SRhyse]

I recommend diving in. MLO is flexible enough that you can reorganize things as needed without much issue. I’ve regularly made large plans and outlines and structures that I scrapped with a click by dumping it into another folder set to be hidden.

Nothing you read about MLO will make as much sense until you’ve actually used a bit of MLO. After that, it’s there for reference. In general, there’s the full on outline view, and other views that show only parts of that outline based on parameters you can setup, or that are built in. That’s 90% of the core functionality right there. Start off simple and grow based on your needs. Don’t be the guy that makes 30 contexts and 50 folders with 50 folders in each from the get go.

[Stéph]

Hello Darryl,

I'd second SRhyse's suggestion to dive in and try it out. There are a couple of things you can do to start off with, though:

I'd keep the main, left-hand tab (Workspace) locked in an outline view showing all your tasks - Right-click on the tab to lock it to a particular view and adjust other settings. If you don't have a second Workspace tab set up, try creating one and assigning one of the "to-do" list views to it. To-do views basically show every task which matches the filter, but as a flat list, rather than a hierarchical outline. 

The left-hand pane (made visible by typing Alt-F1) is used selecting views well as defining your own views. It also has a button at the bottom for bringing up the filter criteria, so you can define your own filters to allocate to your views. With the combination of Workspaces (tabs), views (either outline or flat to-do list views) and customised filters, you can narrow down your list of tasks and view them according to almost any filter and sort criteria you want. If you're used to programming and software, then you'll find the "Advanced" group of filter criteria a powerful tool to view whatever subset of tasks you want, whether you're looking at the big picture (projects or goals) or you're zooming into the detail of just one project or client.

Depending on the system you've been using for organising your tasks (I use a combination of Steven Covey's "7 habits" and David Allen's "GTD" method), you'll need to start thinking about how to set up your hierarchy of folders, projects and tasks and how to use some or all of the tasks parameters which MLO has available. These include:

• Categories (pre-defined by you, inherited from parent task, multiple categories can be assigned, you can make them active only at certain times of day) - Many people use this to organise by David Allen's categories.
  
• Flags (pre-defined by you, not inherited, any task can only have one flag assigned) 
  
• Star (on/off, for highlighting tasks)
  
• Start and Due dates
  
• Importance score (used by MLO for sorting)
  
• Urgency score (used by MLO of sorting)
  
• along with several others
  

As an example - I use categories as per David Allen's system (@home, @call, @computer, @errand, etc). I use customised flags to highlight my roles and goals. I use star to highlight things which  are important and urgent. I don't use the importance and urgency scores (because I don't want to get bogged down with setting parameters).

There's a lot to learn, to develop the most effective system for you. Good luck.

Stéphane

[Darryl Brooks]

Thanks. This is helpful. Still wrapping my head around a lot of it, but I am getting started. Unfortunately, I'm still in the approval process on the group so there is a long lag between writing and posting, so everything is behind a bit. Right now, I'm entering tasks almost as a flat file like my old system, while I learn all the parameters you listed, plus, workspaces, goals, folders, projects, and other things I rear here that I haven't even found yet.

I think I can make this work, and will appreciate all the help you guys can give me. 

[Darryl Brooks]

Thanks, that's very helpful. I've already done a bit of that and have a couple of small projects/folders set up to play with.  I have more questions on here, but the approval process keeps a lag between when I ask a question and when it shows up, so I'm sometimes beyond it by the time it shows up. I'm spending a lot of time reading old threads here and learning a lot.

[Jan Thomä]

I think there is not the one true way of using MLO. The main reason why this program is so great is that you can adapt it to your process so easily. So I'd recommend that you just try to make your current work flow run with MLO and then go from there and explore. 

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[MG]

Hi Darryl,

Welcome to MLO :)

As per my own experience (reading the book GTD), I found much easier to use it since MLO flexibility has a lot to match with Get Things Done methodology, I would suggest you to dive in the book Get Things Done by David Allen (but not only) mixed with some reading on the threads here.

You will notice much easier to use MLO for your intended purposes, so will never stop using it.

If it helps, I want to point that MLO has no recipes on task management and so, for your life. 

And here resides its grateness, since most MLO features, if not all, are customizeable.

I hope you enjoy it and this community is here to help.

BR

M