Running out of fields! How do you plan today's periods of time? How do you allocate goals to tasks?

[John . Smith]

Hello

How do you allocate tasks to specific goals to tasks?

How do you plan today's periods of time?

i.e. For any given day, how do you plan which Contexts you are going to do in which order?

[I apologise in advance that this is so long. Partly I am trying to get my own thoughts clear!

I've marked it up to make it easier to skim-read. ]

BACKGROUND

For any task like to know, some or all of the following:

1. What Area of Life it's in 

   ==> this I do through which MLO Folder I've put it in.

2. (If it's part of a larger project) what major project it's part of 

===> this I do by 

a) using a hierarchy

b) using the MLO Projects field in the parent task

3) "Priority" - what is the real-world Importance & real-world Urgency

==> I use the MLO Importance field, but because I find it too hard to enter both values for all tasks

Importance means importance, except if it's importance is "max" in which case it means must be done urgently, irrespective of importance!

4) "Do today"  status

==> I use the MLO Star field to flag up at the start of each day what I want to take on today. 

5). Different types of "contexts"

A) What "where context" 

i.e. Physically where must this be done

==> Use of MLO Contexts field (e.g.  @PC, @Office(paperwork), @Home, @Errands...)

B) What "mood context" 

==> I *also* use the MLO Contexts for this (e.g. @Calls, @DeepThought, @LowEnergy ...)

C) What "task size" 

This helps me pluck any quick wins - low hanging task 

==> I *also* use the MLO Contexts for this ( @Quickies..)

D) What "time of day context" 

I only use this occasionally, but it can be important.
Normally tasks get done at the correct time of day depending on their Area of Life

But sometimes a work task must be done during the evening

And sometimes a person task MUST be done during working hours 

==> I *also* use the MLO Contexts for this too (e.g. @Evenings, @WorkingHours...)

E) What resistance history?

For tasks that have been around too long, I also want to flag up "Frogs" - harder/high resistance stuff (witness by the fact that I have put them off). I like to start the day with tackling one of these tasks.

This ALSO goes into the MLO Contexts field  (e.g.@Frog)

6) What "Executable Status" (when would I like see again & execute) 

==> 

a) Partly I kick into the future (change MLO Start Date field) so task disappears of Active view  [GTD "Tickler" file]

b) Partly I also use the  MLO Context field too [@Soon/Later, @SomedayMaybe, @Bonus ]

GATHERING MY THOUGHTS

So I am now using the MLO Contexts field for SIX different types of thing: 

A) What "Where context"           ==>  (e.g.  @PC, @Office(paperwork), @Home, @Errands...)

B) What "Mood context"            ==>  (e.g. @Calls, @DeepThought, @LowEnergy ...)

C) What "Size" is the task         ==>  (e.g. @Quickies ) 

D) What "Time of day context"  ==>  (e.g. @Evenings, @WorkingHours... )

E) What "Executable Status"    ==>  (e.g. @Soon/Later, @SomedayMaybe, @Bonus )
F) What "resistance history"     ==>  (e.g. @Frog )

But I'm now running out of fields!!

a) How does one track which personal GOAL any task is part of?

[Explanation: I do find by using task management software it's all too easy to keep yourself busy executing lots of tasks... but it's not clear WHY you are doing stuff. In fact it's very easy to do all the wrong stuff.]

==> So I am really going to allocate Goals using the MLO Context field, as well as for the other SIX things listed above?

b) How (the heck) does one plan which Contexts I'm doing to do today and in which order... 

...And hopefully tie in which task area part of those Context?

J

[Michael Emerald, CFA]

Hi.

 

Once in awhile I experiment with an idea that most of the time I DON’T like:

 

I create contexts called 0800, 0900, 1000, 1100, and so on.  Each represents time.  Each has hours set to, for example 10:00-17:00.  Then I assign tasks to each so the day is more balanced.  In other words, at 0800 a bunch of tasks become active.  Then an hour later another bunch starts.

 

It doesn’t matter what the start dates are for each task, since they won’t be visible until its context becomes active. 

 

I do this so I don’t start the day with 100 tasks staring at me.

 

Again, most of the time I DON’T use this idea, though it has merits in my opinion.

 

HTH

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[Stéph]

Hello John,

I use 1, 2, 4, 5a and 6a out of your list.

I have a bit more hierarchy than you - Area of Life (four quadrants for me: personal, home, work or community) --> Role --> Goal --> Projects which fit in with the role or goal --> tasks to complete that project. Sometimes, with a big project, I group my tasks into project stages.

I also identify my roles and goals with custom flags. I don't use the weekly/monthly/yearly goal fields.

I set start date and due date and I bump my start date if I want to defer something.

I try not to use any of the other fields, such as importance or urgency. I'm trying to minimise the time I spend on MLO and maximise the time I actually spend doing the tasks.

I do use hashtag and other tag characters in front of key words: + to identify a project, ? to identify a person I need to speak with, && to identify a keyword as one of my roles. Hashtags are really good for filtering and searching.

Now to your questions:

a) A task or project is aligned to a particular role or goal when it's under that role or goal in my outline hierarchy. This helps me to watch progress towards a goal and to prioritise work which helps to achieve my goals.

b) Yes, your list of contexts looks long and complex, so I imagine it takes up more time than you'd like, in order to maintain it. I can see how that makes it difficult to sort through the list and use it to prioritise your tasks and decide on the next step. In my case, only using contexts for GTD-style purposes, I only have a small number of contexts and it's quick to use those to group a few more tasks to when I'm in the relevant context (@calls, @errand, @office, @home...). My recommendation would be to remove the contexts which don't help you to decide what to do next and go for a simpler, lower-maintenance task management approach.

I don't have the perfect system and what I do might not suit you, so really I should just wish you good luck with coming up with a system optimised to your needs.

Stéphane

[John . Smith]

Hi Stephane

A) Yes. I do like your concept of building goal into project hierarchy. Excellent concept... will require further work & deep thought to implement.

B) What do you do for standalone tasks?
I find physically moving tasks to be massively painful in MLO, whereas allocating a context is trivial as I have them on hotkeys. Without hotkeys I'm not even sure I would use an electronic system at all (as many on the GTD world have pointed out there is much to be said for paper lists!).
I do take your point about needing to simplify my Contexts and I shall keep watching myself to see which I can remove. Although what really happens is that some of them only get added after a task has been on my system for a while and are being reviewed a number of times... and again whilst a task is being re-reviewed it's trivial to add/remove a Context.

C) But I don't quite understand how you are using your keywords. Are you putting the
 # 
 +
 ?
characters into the title of tasks? Or the body? Or using the Context-tag field? Or what?

Cheers

J

[Stéph]

It's about time I sent a reply:

b) I'm not sure I follow the question about standalone tasks. I don't always work from the view which groups tasks by their context (although it helps, if I'm making calls anyway, to check my list of tasks which are @call and to try to complete a couple of additional ones). A lot of the time I'm working from my role-goal-project hierarchy and just doing the tasks which have become important at the time or which are related to my project.

c) I use hashtagged keywords in either the title or the note to help me find items in my list, by search terms or text filters. For example if I have a couple of tasks for which I'm @waiting for ?John Smith to contact me, I can run a search or a filter with the term "?John". This will filter out everything else which has John Smith's name in it and only show me those two tasks for which I'm waiting for ?John Smith to contact me. Likewise, if I'm trying to find my project for +Sheffield +water +treatment works, I can use the + symbol in my search term ("+Sheffield") and my search or filter will ignore anything else to do with the city of Sheffield. I find hashtags are quite helpful in this respect, but only if I have a small number of hashtag symbols and I use them consistently.

Does that help, at all?

All the best,

Stéphane

[John . Smith]

Hi Step 

To get clear, my question about standalone task was more about where do you put them?

I mean I seem to have lots and lots of them. And in true GTD fashion I like to go into "Capture" mode to just add them into my MLO system and get them off my mind. 

The problem then becomes where do you move them to?

I mean if you have the more complex your hierarchy the more time consuming it becomes to physically move each trivial standalone task into the correct part of the hierarchy - even if that hierarchy is only "role-goal". I have 7 roles and that's before adding a layer of goals!

To recap - do you bother to move them at all? Do you move them into the correct role? Do you move them into the correct goal within that role?

J

[Fletcher Kauffman]

I have adopted my own system similar to yours, but just slightly more organized, which is using a prefix on the context name.

This way, I have contexts that are grouped by this prefix.

@act_Coding

@bsk_Coding

@bsk_Environmental_Care

@bsk_Personal Maintenance

@bsk_Tech Fuctionality

@frq_Daily

@frq_Monthly

@frq_Once

@frq_Quarterly

@frq_Weekly

@frq_Yearly

@loc_Home

@loc_Home Reminders

@loc_Kitchen

@loc_Lowes

@loc_My Closet

@loc_My Room

@loc_Nearby

@loc_Outside

@loc_Ralphs

@loc_SMC_Airport

@loc_SMC_CMD

@loc_SMC_Main Campus Lati

@loc_WeHo Gateway

@nrg_High

@nrg_Low

@nrg_Reflective

@req_CLion

@req_Camera

@req_Computer

@req_DataGrip

@req_GearVR

@req_IntelliJ

@req_Linux

@req_MLO

@req_Maya

@req_PHPStorm

@req_Pencil&Paper

@req_Phone

@req_PyCharm

@req_Tools

@req_Unreal

@req_Webstorm

@req_Windows

@res_Colin

@res_Fletcher

@res_Luke

@res_Waqas

@st_NeedPickMeUp

@st_Social

@st_Stacking

@tm_Afternoon

@tm_Biz_Hours

@tm_Evening

@tm_Midday

@tm_Morning

@tm_Night

@tm_Working_Hours

@why_Contribution

@why_Effectiveness

@why_Financial_Integrity

@why_Fun

@why_Functional_Environment

@why_Share_Passion

^act - Activity (to prevent tool-switching)

^bsk - Basket (where should the finished task "accrue points")

^frq - Frequency

^loc - Location

^nrg - Energy level appropriate

^req - Something required

^res - Resource (Usually who will do it)

^st - State (Mood or Situation)

^tm - Time (for things during a specific time of day)

^why - What's the reason for doing this

[Stéph]

Hello John,
According to “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”, the important tasks are the ones which move you towards your goals. This makes sense to me, so I try to align my tasks with a goal. If I have a stand alone task which doesn’t fit within any of my goals (including general goals like “be a good father”), then I don’t delete it, but it’ll be deprioritised and just sit in a “pending” folder, hidden from my to do list, until they match a future goal. I have loads of wish-list actions, for the future, but you can’t do everything at once.

[Stéph]

That’s a lot more contexts than me, Fletcher. Thanks for sharing. I only use the equivalents of the @loc and some of the @req contexts on your list. @res names go in my task notes. For me, adding any of the tags for energy or other criteria means that I would spend too much time in my planning tool, swapping contexts in and out.