Any explainer video for: Active vs. Available vs. Next Action vs. 'Complete Tasks in Order' ??

[J Smith]

Hello

I am just revisiting how MLO task filtering works at core.  

To be honest I am finding it extremely hard to get my head around the exact distinctions between:

- Active 

- Available 

- Complete Tasks in Order

- Next Action 

When I first joined MLO 18 months ago I found the help files to be too hard to understand and I eventually only got there only by experiment! 

And now 18 months later I've rather forgotten the distinctions.

To save me (and anyone new) the time, has anyone done any good explainer videos yet?

Many thanks

J

PS. Fwiw, I want to create a view that shows all my Next Actions of formal MLO Projects and any Tasks that are not part of any Project. 

i.e. It needs show tasks that are not part of a Project but hide any tasks that are part of MLO Projects which are not the NEXT Action. 

Also I want to hide tasks by putting them into the future (e.g. using Start Date).

But I am now trying work out if there is a standard view that already does this... !

[J Smith]

UPDATE

Okay after spending time on experimentation, I think I have now worked out what each of the standard filters does.

But I can't work out how to create a view that just show Next Actions and tasks that are not part of a Project.

i.e. I am trying to compress the full complexity of complex project but at the same time not hide individual tasks that are not part of any formal project.

Any suggestions?

J

[Dwight]

OK, we discussed this a few months ago but I don't think you were ready yet for that discussion.

Short answer: no, you cannot make a single view with the contents you want using MLO as currently implemented.

Long answer:
There are a lot of "standard" filters including Actions, Hierarchy, Completed, Text, Contexts, Flags, Start date and References. For the most part these are on or off, or involve a simple, one-dimensional set of choices. If you cannot accomplish what you want using these filters you can use the Advanced filters where you get to build complex tests with logical operations like OR AND & NOT, parentheses, and so on.

The filters you called Standard are probably the Action filters, with values All, Available, NextActions and Completed. These filters are very useful, covering the most commonly used subsets of task status. From time to time you need something that does not quite match up with the standard values, and then you need to go to the Advanced Filters to build exactly what you want. And here is the problem: There should be an advanced filter IsNextAction, but there isn't. You can only get next actions using the Actions filter, which does not allow for logical operations like OR. So you cannot build a view for Next Actions OR tasks not in a project. On the other hand, if it would help you, you can certainly build a view for next actions and a view for tasks not in a project, and display the two views side by side, or top over bottom.

So, your choices are
1. Request the implementation of an IsNextAction advanced filter and wait for it to be implemented
2. on a mobile device, create a half-screen widget for a Next Actions view and a half-screen widget for tasks not in a project and display them together on a single screen.
3. on Windows, create two workspaces, one locked to a Next Actions view and the other locked to a tasks-not-in-a-project view.  In tools>options>Behaviour turn on Allow Multiple Instances. Open two copies of MLO. In one, open the Next Actions workspace and in the other open the task-not-project workspace. Arrange the two windows on a single screen.

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[J Smith]

Dwight - my saviour. I was very much hoping you might show up.  :^)

1. How do I build a view for tasks that are not in a project?

I tried adding the Advanced filter of IsProject is false, but it only seems to remove the actual project name rows.

2. Please remind me how do I request a feature to be added?

i.e. IsNextAction to be added to the advanced filter. It seems as strange omission.

Many thanks

[J Smith]

UPDATE:

Wait is MLO still using mlo.uservoice.com ?

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mylifeorganized/yuMS4kLY_JQ

(From memory I previously became disillusioned because it seems that voting on completely different software was using up my MLO universe votes!)

[Dwight Arthur]

There has not been any announcement discontinuing UserVoice so I assume that it is still the best option available to users who are not members of the MLO Beta Test team.

Regarding a tasks-not-in-project view, try this advanced filter: ProjectName is empty
-Dwight

[John Smith]

ProjectName is empty works - Many thanks  :^)

J 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mylifeorganized/af642c43-6681-4154-9496-5ba018d49e2a%40googlegroups.com.

[J Smith]

Ah-ha! A minor break-through in my life. I have now put my folders into the following structure

[Area of Life] then a dash then [GTD list name]... } all in the directory name.

So I have folders with the following names in the root directory:

/WORK - DO ASAP/

/WORK - DO, BUT NOT YET/

/WORK - SOMEDAY MAYBE/

/PERSONAL ADMIN - DO ASAP/

/PERSONAL ADMIN - DO, BUT NOT YET/

/PERSONAL ADMIN - SOMEDAY MAYBE/

/RECREATION - DO ASAP/

/RECREATION - DO, BUT NOT YET/

/RECREATION - SOMEDAY MAYBE/

And then – here's the clever bit – I create views filtered by the advanced filter: Foldername contains [list name]

e.g. 

A view with: Foldername contains 'DO ASAP'

A view with: Foldername contains 'NOT YET'

A view with: Foldername contains 'SOMEDAY'

The result is that I get to see each list separately 

e.g. When I look at my "DO ASAP" view, I see a nice simple view of each Area of Life, *just* showing the "DO ASAP" lists, grouped by Area of Life.

i.e. All I now see is:

/WORK - DO ASAP/

/PERSONAL ADMIN - DO ASAP/

/RECREATION - DO ASAP/

i.e. I can easily open each folder in turn - which I move between simply by using the up/down/left/right arrow keys on the keyboard, and I will not even SEE the other lists (e.g. NOT YET and SOMEDAY)

Also when it come to moving a project or task between GTD lists, that's fairly easy too: I just go Control/M and put it into the desired directory - which shouldn't be too far away.

I still say it would better to have an actual MLO database field for "Area of Life" and another "GTD list", but the above makes it moderately easy to change GTD List (or even change Area of Life).

J