STILL can't get MLO to work for me

[damoski]

Hi,

I've been trying to figure out how to get an efficient daily process with MLO, but I'm still left with a mountain of tasks and no clear view of how much I need to do to get on top of my workload, or how I can plan my days.

It's frustrating, because MLO  has so much functionality that it should be the right tool for me, but I can't ply it to my will.

Right now, I have a number of projects that I want to focus on, some with due dates, and other with dates that I want to aim to complete by. When I get a new project, I may flesh it out with some tasks, and put due dates for those tasks based on when I need/expect to work on them. That's all good.

I can mark it as a project, so when I view 'projects' I can clearly see all the tasks assigned to it, and that they should all have dates. I can then check a 'Due 7 next days' view (desktop), or calendar view (mobile), to see how many tasks I have from various projects on various days, and that I'm not over-extended on any one day.

It's just very clunky, and burns a huge amount of time doing manual sorting and re-ordering to the point where I give up on the overall daily review process. It's compounded by the fact that it's relatively clunky to assign dates - ideally you could just drag and drop them around the days on a calendar just like you can drag and drop appointments in iOS calendar or Outlook, and then check back on the project view to see that all tasks are assigned and when the outcome is going to be. MLO does actually support good drag and drop between contexts, but not dates.

I'm reconsidering my GTD process, and I'm seriously considering just using MS Outlook tasks, since they can be displayed inline at the bottom of each day, and drag/dropped between days easily - but those don't offer the Project-focused views that MLO offers, nor the same view as mobile.  Another tool I quite like is XMind, which now has Gantt charts for assigning timeframes for tasks and provides a great overview of project completion, but unfortunately doesn't offer an effective 'current task' view.  Mindjet does offer a current task view, and even syncs active tasks with Sharepoint, but costs a fortune.

Anyway - I'd be interested to understand how others perform their GTD or workflow with MLO, and how that gives you a clear picture of your task list and your forecast project completion dates.


Damo

[Francesco Consoli]

When you choose to stick to MLO, you choose to act as a power GTD user.

After one year of usage, i'm at 80% productivity level thanks to MLO. I am tweaking it to reach that 20% more. MLO is very open minded. You choose your tabs, you choose your rules. Always around GTD.

Of course you can use it as basic too.

Suggestion: Try to use Next Review rule. That is my main rule and my GTD runs around it.

 

Francesco Consoli

 

 

 

------ Messaggio originale ------

Da: "damoski" <dske...@gmail.com>

A: "MyLifeOrganized" <mylifeo...@googlegroups.com>

Inviato: 23/03/2016 23:29:47

Oggetto: [MLO] STILL can't get MLO to work for me

 

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[damoski]

Thanks :-)  So as an example, how do you use it to work for you?

[J Smith]

Damoski - How long have you been using MLO?

I have been using it for about 1.5 years.  I agree that although MLO is amazingly powerful and intuitive but only in certain ways, it is profoundly confusing and clunky in other ways.  Advanced users have called it more of a "productivity platform" than a "productivity application" as such.  

This means that you can waste VAST amounts of precious time trying to get things set up the way you want. And personally I came here to save time (!) not build systems... and  I want a productivity application that I can use and get on with my life!  [grrr]

On the up-side it is worth learning a few MLO hotkeys. The one I use most is:

   "Shift/Alt/ [arrow key] "  To move stuff up and down tast/project trees.

I also use arrow keys a LOT to expland/collapse tasks.

(note: in both the above cases, up, down, left & right all work - I find this VERY useful.)

I have wasted way too many hours experimenting with completely different ways of using MLO. 

I have recently re-structured my entire "Areas of Life" and so far it works quite well. 

See my thread: "I am trying to apply GTD to my MLO data..." here:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mylifeorganized/pJLmMLPLedw

As you can see I use one folder for each Area of Life, and then have 'actionable status' lists within them.

However I am still not convinced that I have a slick system. 

To grasp the nettle, I personally am pretty unhappy with the way MLO handles Area of Life. If you want the truth I think MLO should definitely have another field for "Area of Life". But MLO's interface is already so complicated that (very sadly) I can't see that many people voting for that. 

Nonetheless and although I'll probably get shot down for saying this, the MLO authors and the cosy friendly club of old timers that is this (genuinely) wonderful usergroup really need to wake up and smell the coffee. MLO has really tough learning curve and even months later it simply is not as good as it ought to be. Moreover other competing applications will eventually steal MLO's lunch if MLO doesn't raise its game.

Recently MLO has been focusing on developing the apps which is part of the reason Window MLO now looks pretty dated.

Before I moved to MLO I briefly tried about 20 competing systems. Where a lot of rival systems fail, is that they do not freely allow tasks to be come projects and to have as many levels of the task tree as you like. If you like GTD, another weakness of many systems is that they fail to show the NEXT action within each project. And to be able to pull out tasks by starring them to give "focus". And to be able to sort that list.  MLO does both very well. 

But the structural problem of a lack of decent way of handling "Areas of Life" in MLO is not going away. 

One competitor to MLO that might be worth checking out, which DOES have an Areas of Life field is GTDNext.com - have you had a look at it?  For better or worse (mostly worse IMHO) it is a web application, and this means it can be a bit clunky. (e.g. I never could work out how to delete multiple tasks at once. Likewise I couldn't work out how to insert a new task in the place I wanted it rather than at the top of the page...)

In short GTDNext has it's own quirks & problems but on the up-side GTDNext does have a dedicated Area of Life field, an it's use of screen space is vastly better than MLO, in my opinion.  Anyhow, if you try it please let us know how you get on.

J