How to recognize Goals from normal tasks in Outline view?

[Thalamizer]

Hi Everyone:

I've looked for quite awhile,but just can't find how to make a Goal show differently from normal tasks in the Outline view. I realize that they will show in Active Goals view, but it would be helpful to have them 'STAND OUT' in the Outline where I'm setting tasks under the appropriate Folders.

Do I really need to setup an Auto-format condition to set a flag to do this?

I'm not new to time management systems, just new to MLO and struggling to climb the MOUNTAIN of features (as others have said, it's a truly rich system).

Thanks,

Thal...

[Stéph]

Hello Thal,

You can use Themes and Formatting to make projects stand out, but for goals you would indeed need to go into Tools-Options-Automatic Formatting and set up a rule. I've set up a rule which puts an archery target icon in position 0 (next to the checkbox) for my goals - I posted that theme on a thread near the top of this forum and you could use that as an example if it's something near to how you would want your outline to look.

MLO is very flexible but the downside is that there's a lot to learn about it and you have to do a lot of tweaking and clicking to get your outline how you need it. Good luck with it!

Stéphane

[Thalamizer]

Hi Steph:

That helps a lot! I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't missing a simple 'Turn-On-Goals' checkbox somewhere. I'll look for your illustration.

From what I've read on this forum, it appears that MLO is very Feature / Automated-code rich!

It doesn't sound like I will have to worry about 'Hitting the Wall' (finding out that it's too limited in features to be powerful), anytime soon.
It seems like you can use as much or little of the automation as you like. Right now I'm easing into it, but I really like how the tree works for organizing and how the Time features can put deadline things 'In Your Face'.

Thanks again,

Thal...

[Lasse Pedersen]

Yeah - it is very flexible and can thus be adapted to most of the vital needs. You may not get it 100% as you like, but the risk of running into a blind alley, or hitting the wall, as you say, is fairly low.

The downside is that the learning curve is high.

The challenge is that it is difficult to set up a lot of default settings since everyone has different preferences.

Some more examples or "usage scenarios" would be helpful though, to get into it.

One other aspect in all this is that most users, when starting out (including myself) don't really know what we are doing, in terms of productivity setup.

In other words, very few would be able to specify completely what they need until they dive in and start challenging their "mental system" by putting up a system with tools.

So for most people, besides the learning journey with the tool and its possibilities, there is also a learning journey in "How am I actually doing things - when I do them properly?" and "Now that I realized that - how would I REALLY like to do things".