Next Actions v.s. Active Actions

[Jorgen Bodde]

Hi,

What is the difference between next actions and active actions? I have three tasks, all of them can be done (they show in active) but what makes the 'next actions' algorithm decide to show me only two? What are preconditions for 'next actions'?

Thanks,
- Jorgen

[Dwight Arthur]

Hi, Jorgen. My profile right now has 582 active tasks. When I am ready to start something new, it would take too long to scan the whole list so I need a way to focus down on just the most likely things to do next. Next Actions is one way of doing that. An oversimplified explanation is that if you have a lot of projects each of which has a lot of active tasks, Next Actions will show you only one task per project: the first active task in each project. For a more complete explanation including what happens to tasks that are not in a project, see page 42 of the MLO Users Guide.
-Dwight

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[Jorgen Bodde]

Hi Dwight,

Thank you for that info. Is the manual downloadable somewhere? I only have the app, and it didn't come with any paperwork :-/

Thanks,
- Jorgen

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[Jorgen Bodde]

Hi Dwight,

I looked into "Next Actions" and although documented they are counter intuitive, or at least lack one basic feature. Priority. Also they are not consistent.

A next item to me is one that should be the item that most likely should be done next. When a task has a due date today, it should be displayed as that task before one that has no due date, as it scores higher. Same goes for "important" or "urgent" should go before "normal" priority. However there is no distinction. The place where you can see the distinction is in the "active items" which as you said shows a huge list that you rather want trimmed down to a smaller one with most likely to be picked items first.

Also when I have a single child of a task that has the same parent which already had a task, I would expect that task to show up too. Like;

- Task A
- Task B
-- Task B.1

I expect Task A and Task B.1 to be next items as they both lead to completion of a parent task. When Task B.1 is completed, Task A is again the only one picked for that branch. It does work when I make Task B a project, but why does it have to be a project?

Anyway, I get the jist of the Next Actions but it sounds like the next actions should be the next smartest action to do, because the active actions as a big list would not be the place to look what the next action would be (hence the name), if you know what I mean...

- Jorgen

[Dwight]

You can find the manual at http://www.mylifeorganized.net/downloads/files/MyLifeOrganized%20User%27s%20Guide.pdf

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[Dwight]

Hi, Jorgen. There are usually several different ways of doing any one thing in MLO, and there are usually people who strongly prefer each of the alternatives. At first review, it looks like Next Actions is not for you. You should have a look at Computed Score, which you will find somewhere in that manual that you just downloaded. I should acknowledge that I do not often use either Next Actions or Computed Score, I use a series of very customized views that exactly match the way I work and would probably be of no use to anyone else.

I should mention that the snippet you showed with tasks A, B, and B1 will never appear in that way in any task-list of active actions. No task is considered active until all of its subtasks are completed. So in the snippet shown, if B1 is shown then B will be hidden.

One more pointer, have you looked into the difference between flat views also called task-lists, versus hierarchical views? Hierarchical views are typically useful for creating, managing and reviewing your tasks while task-lists are typically more useful for working on and completing your tasks.

-Dwight

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[Jorgen Bodde]

Hi Dwight,

Thank you for clarifying that. I will look at a view sorting on computed score. I do use hierarchical views but indeed next actions forces me artificially into too much structure, like making projects when they really aren't. But every small step towards a better overview is a good one..

Wirh regards,
- Jorgen

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