Customising MLO to setup for getting things done

[boats...@gmail.com]

Hi All

I thought I would share my attempt to convert MLO to GTD and see what others think

MLO is an 'industrial-strength' app. It is far superior to apps often mentioned in favourable reviews such as Facile Things, Nirvana, and the IOS app Omni Pro

Primarily, GTD is a process of recording new todos, organizing and clarifying, and reviewing todos. The process ensures the things that must be done by the person wanting to implement GTD

I searched for others who had done tied to adapt MLO and GTD. I used the description in 2011 by Till Poppels which describes contexts, and views to get it to work as GTD however, these were still insufficient

It seems that that the GTD template needs to be modified in a couple of ways to get it to hold to the GTD process

Also, I also loaded the inbuilt templates which are described as GTD. But I found they don't really represent either the steps or the categories of GTD as per the Allen book. There are many ways to implement the GTD process because it is one of allocating many todos

One of the difficulties with GTD is that Allen's GTD approach has some gaps. These gaps are which the Covey process and categories offers, such as areas of focus.

I have made a few modifications that follow up the suggestions by Till Poppels. I contacted Till but he is no longer using MLO. Also I have made some more mods to try to make the GTD process work easier

There are a couple of non- modifiable parts of MLO which hamper this

1. Goals are mis-named. 'Goals' should really be called "Horizon" because their focus is 'when', that is, time Of course the one GTD time that is missing is "Someday/Maybe". But this cant be added to the list

2. Goals should be a separate and user definable hierarchy

3. Todos can be conveniently grouped or aggregated into parent folders or Areas of focus because it is a way of organizing todos. So this is a hierarchy with 2 levels (todos, and, different parent folders). This number of levels is insufficient. This is because todos and parent folders are insufficient to aggregate to a higher level. To group work todos together this higher level would be called 'key performance indicators' or 'Critical success factors or 'Performance metrics' or 'Key Result Areas'. At work these are defined by the organisation and the employee's manager. Home or personal todos  But this top level of hierarchy is not permitted because there is a limit to the hierarchy.

Warm regards/gary

[Christoph Zwerschke]

Am 23.11.2019 um 07:57 schrieb boats...@gmail.com:
> Goals are mis-named. 'Goals' should really be called "Horizon"
> because their focus is 'when', that is, time Of course the one GTD
> time that is missing is "Someday/Maybe". But this cant be added to
> the list

Good point. I would also recommend renaming it, and many add "real"
goals (not time horizons) as a separate function.

However, being able to enter a soft time horizon is very useful. I only
struggle with the problem that it is not granular enough, and that there
are other competing ways of defining a time horizon in MLO. Sometimes I
don't know when to set such "soft" due dates, and when to set hard due
dates. We also have the "star" which is frequently used to mean a time
horizon of "today". Plus, we also have "urgency" which is another way of
setting a time horizon. I feel "urgency" and what's currently named
"goal" and "star" should be somehow combined into a single setting.
Instead of numerical values from 0-200, it should have meaningful time
interval values like the current "goal", but on a more granular
logarithmic scale (something like "right now", today, 3 days, week, 2
weeks, month, quartal, year, 3 years, decade).

This single setting is not only easier to enter, it also makes tasks
much easier to compare and sort regarding their urgency.

I have probably suggested something like that already.

-- Christoph

[Jeff Smith]

Thank you, I also have been struggling to implement GTD by David Allen in MLO. One of the fundamental needs is I am not able to quickly process the 100 or more Inbox items into tasks in the overall structure. I find it too slow trying to say this item goes there, like I can't just drag and drop, I need to select a task from Inbox, then have my mouse and keyboard available to search for the spot it needs to go in the outline.

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 "It is not what I believe that will make-or-break; It is what I'm doing about it." --Jefferson Smith

[boats...@gmail.com]

Thanks Christopher for your support with my idea to rename Goals to Horizon

I also agree with you that it should be possible to give soft or hard horizons

It should also be possible to have a checkbox which calculates the horizon from the due date

I would also like to see a field called Goals that allow traditional goals meaning purpose or objective to be stated. Folders are really parent or groups of unrelated tasks which are not necessarily a project

Warm regards/gary

[boats...@gmail.com]

I also have problems and I think it is because the developer has fixated on other implementations of GTD and has not thought about how their own design can best implement it

Here are a few things I have done that might help you:

1. Use inbox just to add tasks as per GTD

2. Set up the contexts under the TOOLS menu as @Locations, @Take, @Tools then append the specifics that you need after them but keep the parent headings for easy recognition

3a. In OUTLINE ALL TASKS set up the column headings such as Tags, Context, Due Date, and any other you need. Just right click on the bar say up near the star to get the popup menu

3b. In OUTLINE ALL TASKS set up headings which are marked folders for the major kinds of GTD groupings that make sense to you

4. Now in OUTLINE ALL TASKS look for the headings <inbox> and then drag the item to the heading/folder where you want it filed

3. Use the TAGS field on the right properties for the GTD types "Someday/Maybe" and "Wait/Due from others" just write someday and wait

4. Now you can create views on the left for each of them. Click the properties down arrow to get the proerties and then jump down to Adanced, Setup button and create a rule to show someday for one view and wait for another iew and then you will have those GTD features working

If you want a copy of mine just holler and I'll send you a file with it to look at. I am still developing as you will see below

Now you have a simple GTD where you do the review in both the Outline and Activities. Of course your could set up more (see below)

It seems to me that Goals is wrongly named and should be Horizon and Christopher has some excellent suggestions to make that work properly. Horizon is where Someday belongs. That would free the word goals for what it should be

The tabs that allow Workspaces seems to be underdeveloped. I cannot select particular folders to appear in a workspace. Also, the advanced setup button lacks Workspace so it is not possible to create a rule to determine what appears in there

One area also that is weak is review. It needs a user-customisable tickler feature to allow selection for the future based on start date or due date with or without lead time . For example, I would like to be able to see what is scheduled for next month but the rules do not allow this to be algorithmically described

Finally, like many GTD implementations it forgets appointments by assuming these are in calendars. This overlooks the frequent problem that tasks have deadlines which are not days but also times e.g., 10am, 4pm that are before or after the traditional close of business time of 5pm, 6pm etc

Warm regards/gary

For example,

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[Christoph Zwerschke]

Am 24.11.2019 um 03:31 schrieb boats...@gmail.com:
> It should also be possible to have a checkbox which calculates the
> horizon from the due date

Or even better that should happen dynamically/automatically.

> I would also like to see a field called Goals that allow traditional
> goals meaning purpose or objective to be stated. Folders are really
> parent or groups of unrelated tasks which are not necessarily a
> project

Usually they are not really unrelated, since folders are often used to
represent life/work areas and subareas. But you're right that one goal
can be served by different tasks in different areas, and also one task
can serve more than one goal. So goals are cross hierarchy.

Currently it would be possible to define goals as flags or text tags,
which also work cross hierarchy, but flags and tags have the problem
that it is only allowed to add one of them per task. So if you use them
for goals, you cannot use them for other purposes any more, and you can
only have one goal per task.


-- Christoph

[Christoph Zwerschke]

Am 24.11.2019 um 03:57 schrieb boats...@gmail.com:
> I also have problems and I think it is because the developer has
> fixated on other implementations of GTD and has not thought about how
> their own design can best implement it

Actually, 15 years ago when the first version of MLO was created in the
age of Palm organizers, GTD existed, but was not yet widely known. The
GTD hype only started a few years later.

But I think MLO is very well suited for the GTD method. You just need to
decide how you want to map the MLO features to the GTD concepts (you
made some good suggestions here!) and then use everything in a
consistent way (I'm usually struggling with that).

> 3. Use the TAGS field on the right properties for the GTD types
> "Someday/Maybe" and "Wait/Due from others"

For me "Someday/Maybe" is everything that does not have a goal or a
start/due date, so I don't even need to enter anything specifically for
these tasks. And it's easy to create a view for them. I implemented
"Wait" with a context (I also have special contexts for persons I
frequently delegate to).

> The tabs that allow Workspaces seems to be underdeveloped. I cannot
> select particular folders to appear in a workspace.

Actually, you can create a view that filters certain folders (combined
with OR), and then assign that view to a workspace. A much simpler
solution is to use the zoom feature. You can have workspaces with preset
zoom on different folders.

> One area also that is weak is review. It needs a user-customisable
> tickler feature to allow selection for the future based on start date
> or due date with or without lead time . For example, I would like to
> be able to see what is scheduled for next month but the rules do not
> allow this to be algorithmically described

That should actually be possible with
"StartDateTime", "in the next ? months", "1".

> Finally, like many GTD implementations it forgets appointments by
> assuming these are in calendars

It helps that you can now sync with Google calendar. But actually, GTD
does not care about the "hard landscape" (the appointments in the
calendar), it cares more about what you do when you are "free".

-- Christoph

[MG]

Hi,

Can you send a copy or some screenshots of what you describe?

Thank you

BR

MG

[boats...@gmail.com]

Thanks for your comments.

The major achievement of Allen and GTD was to emphasise capturing all tasks. No-one had worried about making the task list complete until he came along (they just focused on what was important). He may also have initiated the 2 minute rule but he does not build on earlier time management writers who argued for batching up small and like tasks and thus making them have a time period that counts

I think you were far too quick to dismiss appointments. The kind I was talking about belong in GTD. I wrote: This overlooks the frequent problem that TASKS [emphasis added] have deadlines which are not days but also times e.g., 10am, 4pm that are before or after the traditional close of business time of 6am, midnight etc.This is not just a weakness of MLO but most GTD and I cannot understand why it never gets mentioned in reviews. I cannot understand why developers havent done something about it because all it requires is a field called "time" or "time due" which would make it parallel with TaskDue.

Your suggestion to use context flags for "someday" and "wait" is a common work around but it is a work around not a proper implementation of GTD. Someday and wait status tasks still have a context and using context for someday and wait means they do not show up in the location context for serendipitous action and will get overlooked. My simple suggestion was to have them as tags. They really belong in goals which should be called horizon

Thanks for your suggestion to try zoom for workspaces and I will do that tonight

I am playing with the tickler some more and will hold my comments on that as I may not have been clear

[boats...@gmail.com]

Here are the main screen shot files - hope they help you

My list of contexts and I really liked Till Poppels idea of "take" so it is there slightly different to his

I show the inbox with no columns to ensure rapid entry because i do not use the dialog box because I keep 3x5 card in my pocket for quick notes and dump them in as a batch (see my comments on batching above)

In outline i show all tasks with the columns I have added. i dont use start date for tasks very much because i never hold to it

I show I use a "text tag" to get someday and waiting instead of wasting a good context functionality

I dont use many of the Covey ideas because they require a matrix and most apps do not offer this feature

Warm regards/gary

[Susannah]

Thanks for the screen shots.  These are so helpful b/c I still don't have mine setup like I want.  I recently added some new contexts that are working well.  I have a Delegate and a Followup context.  Similar to your locations I have DelegateSally, DelgateKevin... They are all included in the main Delegate context and the same for followup....  I have about 20 of each.  Then I have a tab that just shows the Delegate and Followups grouped by context.  Delegate is I want to Delegate.  Followup is what I have delegated already and now need to check that it is done.  So far it is working nicely much better than my previous attempts using tags and contexts and folders....  So now if say my programmer comes today I can look up what I want to give to them next and also what I need to make sure was done.  Or if I have someone that I work with everyday I just check it first thing in the morning.

Susannah

[boatshed36]

Glad Susannah it has helped

Many apps including MLO have insufficient parameters for GTD. You used context which most MLO users do. The consequence is you lose the location or tool context which GTD reserves as the expected context. 

What MLO lacks is a supplier/performer field to capture responsibility at the person or title level. I suspect this may be easily addressed by giving folders a property. As they stand now folders have an effort and importance property which is meaningless, so potentially properties can exist.

I am still developing and hope to have some notes ready next month. The next thing is to develop some broad categories that zoom can select for workspaces. I need to read the new edition of GTD to see what it says about the number of manageable high level categories. I have a 15 page summary of the 2003 edition

Warm regards/gary

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[Stéph]

Hello Gary,

Interesting thread. I haven't contributed so far, because I've set out my system (hybrid of GTD, with Steven Covey's 7 Habits for my planning) in other discussion threads.

I'd point out that, while Importance and Urgency are meaningless to the GTD system, there will be people who use it for their non-GTD or enhanced-GTD planning - for example, those who like to use an Eisenhower Matrix to help them with prioritising their tasks.

Another thought - You suggest that MLO has insufficient parameters. However, it does have a lot of parameters already. The best task management system is one which is quick to implement and minimises the time you spend entering task parameters, so let's look at what we've got: Although there isn't a dedicated field for contact names, linked to you contacts address book (wouldn't that be good!), there are options such as reserving the Text Tag field for names. I work with too many contacts to start creating a context for each one, so my own solution is to put the contact name at the top of my task notes, using a hashtag (well, actually a query symbol) to make it easy to search or filter for a particular contact. So, for example, if I'm waiting for Jim Smith to send me some project information, I'll set the task context to "?Waiting" and my note will start with "?Jim Smith".

I use other symbols to tag other defined information in my notes, for easy filtering of my tasks by a particular keyword.

I'll be interested to see how your system works, once you've written it up or if you post an example template to this thread.

Stéphane

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[boatshed36]

Thanks Steph I appreciate your comments very much

Yes I agree MLO has many outstanding features. I would also say it is well ahead of two well regarded competitors that I have used and abandoned: Nirvana and Facile Things even in its basic form. 

My view of its shortcomings are specific to making GTD work consistent with what Allen describes as it's essentials. So context should not be used for temporary status like waiting. So i have used tags which I agree I'd not ideal but keeps context pure.

In many ways MLO reminds me of the famous Lotus Agenda from DOS days. That is why I am making the suggestion below to expand the items listed in the columns list. I think columns are a really powerful yet under developed tool

I understand what you say and do with context. Many others say and do the same. And of course it works

My counter argument is that using context this way shows very poor GTD implementation. GTD says context is what you need to carry out an action. So using context for "waiting" robs the action of its true context and requires it to be re-updated. Both these are definitely not what GTD says. Waiting is part of time and there should be a view which calculates and reports time. Context should always be "resting" ready to come into play at any time. 

Early time management writers strongly recommended grouping tasks with common features together. This was in the time when they would recommend making phone calls to different contacts one after another using energy and awareness generated. One attribute of task is supplier. It seems to me that it should be possible to add a column in a view for supplier and it should be then possible to create a view with the heading of supplier names and show the activities that relate to them below

I am currently experimenting with INBOX view to see if it is better to have a view without columns for uncluttered entry  or have the columns there ready to complete when in the clarify and organise phase. GTD doesn't have an answer and the carry over of INBOX to task view makes it clear what the developer thinks. But I suspect if the column had a folder view that could be selected it would be better. I am mindful of a David allen comment that initially when starting GTD the user will have many many activities requiring actioning 

Warm regards/gary

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[Dwight]

Hi, Gary. I'm enjoying following your comments on this forum.

I've used MLO for a lot of years; I learned about GTD after a few months of MLO. My methodology was heavily influenced by GTD but I never tried to be orthodox about it.

Your comment 

using context for "waiting" robs the action of its true context and requires it to be re-updated. Both these are definitely not what GTD says.

Does not work for me.

My lifecycle for a waiting task is new, due, done. There's no case where a task is finished waiting and then goes on to something else. If I had such a case I would use a dependency, future start date, or some other construct.

Here are a couple of use cases:

I am printing a couple of envelopes and notice that my supply of envelopes is getting low. I add envelopes to my pending office supplies order and create (new) task to check in two weeks whether I have received the envelopes. Two weeks later the start date arrived and the task appears on my daily to-do list. Within the next few days the task gets to the top of my list. If I have received envelopes I mark the task completed. If no envelopes these there is a problem and I work on solving it.

I am working on a project that requires custom envelopes. I have several tasks marked complete-in-order within the project. After completing the envelope design and getting it approved the next task is to order the envelopes from the printer, then wait for delivery then stuff the envelopes and then mail them. The context for the wait-for-delivery task is @wait. There isn't something I need and there isn't something other than "waiting" that's happening during this task. In a project management system this would be an external event with the envelope stuffing triggered by the event. I could set up envelope-stuffing with a start date of the day the envelopes are scheduled, but that's not a good match for what's happening. If the envelopes are delivered early or late I will start the envelope stuffing before it's ready or I will miss a chance to get ahead of schedule 

-Dwight

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[mrrosenthal85]

Hi Gary how is you system coming along. I also followed tills outline as my core. I would like to know more what you created and added.

I'm currently trying to mentally map out how to do contact management in CLO as my work and tasks revolve around many different non email contacts.

[boatshed36]

The short answer is Tils never had/gave/released a copy so I interpreted according to the GTD I had been taught and sent to MLO in February for advice so they could turn it into a template and haven't heard anything. I'll follow up with them

On 26 Mar 2020 at 8:51 pm, mrrosenthal85 <mrrose...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Gary how is you system coming along.  I also followed tills outline as my core.  I would like to know more what you created and added.   



I'm currently trying to mentally map out how to do contact management in CLO as my work and tasks revolve around many different non email contacts.   

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