Confession time: Just how little of MLO am using! (Plus advice sought)

[J Smith]

Hello

Confession time:

I thought it would be helpful to this community to report back after a few months of use just how little of MLO I am using. In part I am also asking for practical advice on how to make better genuinely *time-efficient* use of more features of MLO.
 

SUMMARY

I have discovered that in practice all I am using MLO for is:

a) A glorified To-Do list - mostly for today

b) A list of major projects (although this gets less attention that it should)

HOTKEYS
In practice I am using VERY little of MLO. Here is what I am using: 

- I use Alt/Shift/arrow keys... a LOT to change priority and indentations into Projects. This is one of the best features of MLO interface.
- I use Stars (Control/Shit/S) for "do today " - however I am NOT using the Star outline because I think visually and like to see the 2D shape of projects (indentations etc) on the page.

- I use Highlighting (Control/H) to flag up IMPORTANT stuff to do (today).

 
- I sit mostly in the Active Tasks outline view(**) and insert tasks/projects directly into it using Insert and Alt/Insert.

- I use Control/S to input the Start date (e.g. "6h" or "2d") to get things to disappear off the view for a few hours or days.

From time to time I look at the (long/medium term) Goals outline view.

...and (slightly shamefully) that's about it.

BACKGROUND

I discovered that I was wasting far, FAR too much time learning the system, trying to set things up and discussing the technology... and not getting on with my life!  i.e. Not actually Getting Things Done fast enough!

 

WEAKNESSES OF MLO
I still think MLO is massively confusing to any newbie. "Bloatware" comes to mind. And until this is sorted out I don't think MLO will ever make many significant sales to consumers. I like and use this product. However I am unable to recommend this product to any of my productive/busy friends due to the hideous learning curve. This is product (productivity platform) only for my friends who are hard-core geeks.  I cannot imagine any highly productive CEO of a major corporation using this stuff.

Also the Andriod app is - to be brutal - appalling. 
1. It should sync automatically with my PC. [That's it - no discussion!]

2. I want to be able to drag & drop items up and down my lists (equivalent to using the Alt/Shift/arrow keys on my keyboard) and also sideways - in and out of a hierarchy. [No discussion on this either!]
Sorry but only if MLO gets these two things right does the app even begin to become useful to me.

ADVICE SOUGHT

a) Moving tasks between lists
From time to time I do a "weekly review" but I now have a ton of stuff (250 - 500 items) on my various GTD style 'lists' and partly as a result moving tasks/projects in out of my different lists is just too hard. i.e. I can't do it in a couple of clicks. So in practice I just don't do it!
- Is there a quick hotkey or 2-click way to move an item between my various GTD type lists?  (e.g. I have: "Someday-Maybe" list, "Definitely Do - but not yet" list, "Reflective thoughts" list ...)
If I got this going I might find GTD "Weekly reviews" become easier and became a more productive use of time
==> Any suggestions?


b) Contexts
I have completely failed to make Contexts work! Yes, when I remember I do put Contexts into some tasks, but mostly I can't be bothered. What I really mean is that it doesn't seem to be worth the input time because I don't currently actually use Contexts!  I think maybe I have too many Contexts - I ended up with about 25.

- Is there a single-click way to filter my Active Tasks to just show just the tasks that match a given Context?

[ASIDE: Because I think so *visually* ideally I would like to still see the entire tree structure of my projects, but:
i) it would be great if just the relevant tasks leapt out visually (e.g. became highlighter, or the others became greyed out)
ii) It would also be great to have some hotkey way of skipping to the next relevant task (i.e. that matches the selected Context)   ]

==> Any suggestions?

J

P.S. (**) Btw, why is an MLO Outline called an "Outline"?  This is confusing for newbies. Why not "View" or "Report" ?

[Christoph Zwerschke]

> SUMMARY
> I have discovered that in practice all I am using MLO for is:
> a) A glorified To-Do list - mostly for today
> b) A list of major projects (although this gets less attention that it
> should)

Thanks for the nice summary. One of the benefits of a more complex tool
like MLO is that it allows you to handle not only your current tasks,
but to store all your ideas and maybe-tasks and have confidence that
they are not lost because there are so many means to filter and view and
remind you.

> - I use Stars (*Control/Shit/S*) for "do today " - however I am
> NOT using the Star outline because I think */visually/* and like to see

> the 2D shape of projects (indentations etc) on the page.

It's not really either/or. I use the outline mostly during reviews, and
the flat views mostly when I'm actually working.

> - I use Highlighting (*Control/H*) to flag up IMPORTANT stuff to do
> (today).

Good idea. Anyway, there should always be only a handful tasks marked
"today" (Star). But if something is really crucial or special, an
additional marker can help to not overlook is. If they are all done and
I still want to work more (rarely happens ;), I go through my "Active
Goals" or other views and put some more on my plate, and then I switch
back to my "Today" workspace (Starred View).

> - I use *Control/S* to input the Start date (e.g. "6h" or "2d") to get

> things to disappear off the view for a few hours or days.

Yes, that's a good trick. That's why I'm actually not used "Starred" as
my "Today Workspace", but a custom view "Starred Active". So I can
pre-select important things to do in advance, and use the annoying
reminder function less. The tasks will then automatically appear in my
"today" view on the appropriate day.

> WEAKNESSES OF MLO
> I still think MLO is massively confusing to any newbie. "Bloatware"
> comes to mind. And until this is sorted out I don't think MLO will ever
> make many significant sales to consumers.

I think "bloatware" is not fair. I think of MLO as a tool for
"productivity geeks/powerusers", and as such, it is not bloated. Even
Excel and Word have lot of functions that an average user does not need.
But I would not consider them "bloatware" either. Bloatware also has the
connotation of software that is oversized (in megabytes) and slow, but
MLO is not overly large and it's snappy.

There are already enough simple nice-looking todo list apps that miss
critical functions, we don't need yet another one. But there is a market
niche for one that has all the power user functionality. Particularly
things like switching between nested and flat views, user-definable
views etc.

> I cannot imagine any highly productive CEO of a major
> corporation using this stuff.

Yes, because such people do not need to sit down and actually DO all the
critical work. They just sit in meetings and mastermind stuff that we
ordinary people have then to implement. So much stuff to implement that
we are overloaded and would be unable to cope with it all without a
powerful management tool like MLO ;-)

> Also the Andriod app is - to be brutal - appalling.

It's ok for me, but I'm not using it very much. A new and completely
rewritten version that should be much better is currently in beta test.

> a) Moving tasks between lists
> From time to time I do a "weekly review" but I now have a ton of stuff
> (250 - 500 items) on my various GTD style 'lists' and partly as a result
> moving tasks/projects in out of my different lists is just too hard.
> i.e. I can't do it in a couple of clicks. So in practice I just don't do it!
> - Is there a quick hotkey or 2-click way to move an item between my
> various GTD type lists? (e.g. I have: "Someday-Maybe" list, "Definitely
> Do - but not yet" list, "Reflective thoughts" list ...)
> If I got this going I might find GTD "Weekly reviews" become easier and
> became a more productive use of time
> ==> Any suggestions?

The idea of MLO is that you don't create these lists manually. You just
put things in an outline, set some attributes and then you create views
to produce the lists using the attributes.

My outline is structured along life/work areas.

Someday/maybe are simply all tasks that have no due date and no goal.

Items on the "reflective thoughts" list could be marked with a special
flagged.

"Definitely do - but not yet" could get another flag "important", a high
importance set or maybe a goal of week, month or year depending on the
time frame in which you want to get it done.

All tasks which have no goal and no due date should get a "review date".
This makes sure that you revisit these items and check if they are still
interesting. Maybe you will remove them, or give them goals or due dates
so that they will eventually get done.

> From time to time I do a "weekly review" but I now have a ton of
> stuff (250 - 500 items) on my various GTD style 'lists' and partly as
> a result moving tasks/projects in out of my different lists is just
> too hard. i.e. I can't do it in a couple of clicks. So in practice I
> just don'tdo it!

The trick to weekly reviews is to create a checklist, and arrange it so
that it does not take too long. Going through such a checklist can even
be fun. For instance, my MLO checklist looks something like that:

1. Go through the inbox tasks - handle them right now if < 2min, or set
attributes and then move to proper folder (Ctrl-M).

2. Check if there are tasks in my custom "too vague" view - these are
tasks which have no dates set, or importance and urgency at 100, or have
no context. Set proper attributes.

3. Go through the "review" view and check if there are tasks that need
higher priorities or goals set, or need to be reviewed more or less
frequently. Then mark everything as "reviewed."

4. Go through the "Active Goals" lists. Here I look which "weekly" goals
should be marked with a star, and which monthly goals should become
weekly goals, or which yearly goals should become monthly goals.

5. Check the "due next 7 days" list.

> - Is there a *single-click* way to filter my Active Tasks to just

> show just the tasks that match a given Context?

I use the "active actions by context" view, and then F6 and F7 to fold
and expand.

I also use workspaces and filters.

> P.S. (**) Btw, why is an MLO Outline called an "Outline"? This is
> confusing for newbies. Why not "View" or "Report" ?

Everything in MLO is a view. The nested views are called "outlines", in
contrast to the flat todo views like "Active Actions".

Hope this could help a little bit.

-- Chris

[pottster]

Hi John,

I was wondering how you were getting on. The good news is that you're still using MLO!

Christoph has done a fantastic job of responding to specific points you made so I'll just make a few general observations.

My personal breakthrough with MLO came when I stopped trying to learn and utilize the complete feature set and, instead, adapted MLO to meet my personal requirements and way of working. I'm pretty sure that is true for most, if not all, users. Everybody has a different setup. This is the big appeal of MLO, that it can be configured to support any task management system or methodology. The key here is that YOU have to decide how you're going to work, MLO won't dictate to you what that should be. With respect, if you need that level of hand-holding you should probably look elsewhere. MLO certainly isn't bloatware! It has always been, and is still, very fast and has a very small footprint in terms of program and data size. It's a mature software product with a large feature set but that does not equate to bloatware. I think it was Joel Spolsky who made the observation about another software product that users may only use 20% of the functionality but it's a different 20% for each user.

You are right in saying that it appeals to power users and isn't completely intuitive or friendly for newcomers. That's not ideal but the reason people persevere with MLO, or return to it having tried everything else, is it rewards the investment of effort.

Spending too much time on your set up is not a unique problem. Far from it. The addictiveness of the personal productivity phenomenon as evidenced through the amount of software and writing even has it's own euphemism - Productivity Porn. You'll never achieve the perfect set up so just get a good one and start doing stuff. Your setup will change with your role and responsibilities anyway.

A couple of questions for you John - tell us why you are still using MLO? What are the things you've found useful?

[J Smith]

Christoph - Thank you, I shall digest later and revert.

Pottster (good to see you're still here too!) - here is some feedback for MLO:

When I used the word "bloatware" I used it cautiously. My point is not that it *is* bloatware necessarily, but more that it *feels* like bloatware. i.e. To the new user, the shear complexity of MLO is completely overwhelming and this is a SERIOUS problem commercially for mainstream users.

To recap from previous discussions, the psychologically speaking "early adopters" (i.e. many people here??) enjoy new stuff, they don't mind complexity and they thrive off new, cutting edge ideas. 

However "Mainstream" users hate it. They say "don't waste my time" and "it should be obvious". And every minute spent learning a new system is a minute the software 'owes' them - and not only do they want it back, they want it back at a multiple.

If I owned MLO itself I would stop all new developments and build a hugely simplified interface using the MLO platform. (Actually if you boil down what all advanced users are doing there are probably 4 or 5 fundamentally different ways in which 80% of them are working. I would show each of these to new users and I would then do user trials to choose between them.)

I would then create a big obvious button with 3 modes "novice / intermediate / expert" and only show the absolute minimum options to the user when in Novice mode. But what should be on the Novice mode would be the fruit of extensive user trials using with total newbies to see how much noise & clutter of non-essential features we could get rid of. 

The final version should be minimalist, slick and completely obvious.  
==> I would then promote and market this like crazy (esp on social media)

==> And then and only then I would conquer the known universe with MLO.

More advanced users could do whatever the heck they like in Expert mode, and newbies could understand MLO swiftly, get on with using it, rave about it and tell all their friends using Novice and then Intermediate mode.

On reflection, the interface I would start on would be mobile (using both iOS *and* Android simultaneously) rather than not computer (because that is where the buzz is these days).

Another problem MLO has is that, if I'm correct, the old timers (most people here) no longer contribute financially to MLO.  There is probably a way to make at least some money out of them, but I don't know what it is.  Listening to their advice regarding development is extremely dangerous because they no longer see through the eyes of a newbie.  But if we had an Expert mode then fine I guess. 

*     *     *

Btw, this has been an unexpectedly useful exercise to me because I may have solved one of my own problems for myself. If I now cut down the number of Contexts to something sensible - say 10 - then I can create a filter for each one in the left hand menu of views, simply by creating a filtered copy of my All Active Tasks outline (view) for each Contexts.  This way I end up with 10 things to click on in the left hand menu, which with a single click will show just the Context I'm interested in. 

P.S. Christoph 

Regarding my problem of how to move tasks out of my Active Tasks and dump them into my NON-active lists (folders), using a small number of keystrokes....

Yes, F6 (collapse) and F7 (expand) look potentially useful, however I still can't work out how to move items out of my "All tasks Active" view into different lists that are NOT active.

Wait - what very nearly works is Control/M. However it behaves in slightly surprising ways i.e. if I hit Control/M and then cursor down, it goes to the last place where you left off. Yes v useful in some cases but not for me.
Whereas I need a way for it to go to the FIRST item in the list (in my case a folder holding a GTD list). Using the Tab key doesn't help either. Neither does Control/cursor down, Shift/ cursor down nor Alt/cursor down behave any differently.  :^(

Ah okay so if I go Control/M, cursor down, and then Home, then yes, that does get to the 1st item in the list... but that's starting to be a lot of keystrokes if doing a LOT - which is after all my plan...! 

Must dash

J

On Thursday, 13 August 2015 13:17:15 UTC+1, J Smith wrote:

[Christoph Zwerschke]

Am 13.08.2015 um 18:38 schrieb J Smith:
> However "Mainstream" users hate it. They say "don't waste my time" and
> "it should be obvious". And every minute spent learning a new system is
> a minute the software 'owes' them - and not only do they want it back,

> they want it back at a /multiple/.

The users that come to MLO are those who have already tried all the
"mainstream" solutions and were frustrated because they look nicer and
simpler but in the end turn out to be insufficient for them. ;)

> I would then create a big obvious button with 3 modes "novice /
> intermediate / expert" and only show the absolute minimum options to the
> user when in Novice mode.

That could be helpful. However, as pottster said, different users need
different features, and use MLO in very different ways. This is not only
due to different preferences on how much structured people want to plan
their work, but also because the tasks and projects can mean so
completely different things for different people since we all have very
different jobs. So there is no one ideal configuration or way of usage
for everyone. A "rookie mode" might attract some users, but if that's
all they want then they might be better off using a simple tool like
Wunderlist.

Also, just keep in mind how extremely difficult it is to create a user
interface that works in these 3 modes equally well, or to create three
different versions of the user interface, and not increase complexity by
doing so again. It's easy to say "you just need a button here and
there", but if you're a developer things are not so easy to implement.
Particularly if you already have a product and a customer base and you
need to stay backward compatible so people can use their old data and
and do not want to learn things anew. And if you need to serve very
different platforms (Win, Android, iOS) and customers are always unhappy
because you are hanging behind in one of these platforms.

> On reflection, the interface I would start on would be mobile (using
> both iOS *and* Android simultaneously) rather than not computer (because
> that is where the buzz is these days).

Sure, mobile is important. Still, most people who do serious mental work
are sitting in front of a PC when working. It's also much easier to
organize and plan on a big monitor with the mouse.

> Another problem MLO has is that, if I'm correct, the old timers (most
> people here) no longer contribute financially to MLO.

If they use cloud sync, they still contribute. Also, most of them will
surely buy upgrades.

> P.S. *Christoph *

>
> Regarding my problem of how to move tasks out of my Active Tasks and
> dump them into my NON-active lists (folders), using a small number of
> keystrokes....
>
> Yes, F6 (collapse) and F7 (expand) look potentially useful, however I
> still can't work out how to move items out of my "All tasks Active" view
> into different lists that are NOT active.

As I said, I try to not move tasks around very much. My folders are
organized along work/life areas, and tasks usually don't change in that
regard. What I change are mainly goals and dates, and details in the
notes section.

But if you want to move a task, can't you just press Ctrl-M and then
select any folder or task (even inactive ones) in the move task window?
You can use cursor left and pos1 in the move task window to go to parent
tasks. Also, did you notice that it has a live search? I find this
extremely useful for moving tasks.

-- Chris

[Dwight]

Hi, John
Three comments
1. To remove a task from your working view (the one where you work,  not necessarily the same as "active") - create a context for each non-active list. Exclude these contexts from your working view by creating an advanced filter that says ((context isnot xxx) and ( context isnot yyy) and (etc.... I'm doing this on mobile from memory, you might need "doesnotcontain" instead of "isnot" and you might need "context text" or something like that. Anyhow,  then you need to create a workspace tab for each inactive list and create a view that shows each. That way one or two taps will assign a context to a task and drop in from the working view, one more tap will bring up a view of the relevant list showing thenewly added task and its new neighbors. There are no folders required, the tasks don't physically move. If relevant you can display a different set of columns in each inactive view and sort and group differently.  Also, it may be helpful to have some tasks that appear on moore than one inactive list.

2. While you are imagining ways to open big new markets for MLO, consider an HTML5 version.  It would involve big new risks to security and privacy but the people in the big new market are famously not that interested in those kinds of risks. It would instantly implement mlo on ios, Android,  windows, windows phone, the Chrome os, blackberry, browser-enabled game consoles and a lot of stuff not invented yet.

3. The power of mlo is that most users build something that suits them well  rather than dropping them into a bracket with lots of sort-of-similar people and providing them all witb a solution that doesn't really fit. At the end of the spectrum where simple solutions work there are vastly more customers, so a small payment per customer becomes a lot of money quickly.  But there's a huge number of competitors so it is a hard fight to get a few points of market share, product quality may not be relevant, social skills may be the main determinant of success and this is not the mlo  team's strength, and that small payment per customer is all you will ever see.
-Dwight
Mlo betazoid on Android sgn2

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[J Smith]

Dwight - Comment 1. Ingenious as ever! Thank you - I shall investigate in due course and revert.

General comments:

Yes although I too do love the power of the MLO 'platform', let me say clearly that overall I am pretty UNhappy with MLO and despite my huge investment in time learning my way around MLO, I am still on the lookout for something easier and better.

To be fair my psychology is more Mainstream. i.e. My main priotities are that  time is valuable and I just want to get things done. In short I do not want a 'Platform', I want an excellent 'Application'. What I want is something simple, intuitive and with an easy learning curve and which doesn't waste my time.

MLO is a bit like selling someone a computer language and saying "go build your own system". Yes that's great for a number of users who enjoy that sort of thing - the geeks. In this case Productivity Geeks. But the rest of us want to get stuff done and to get on with our lives! 

So I am arguing the case for someone to build a really nice, simple, uncluttered MLO "Application" (rather than a platform) that would become "a platform" only when you click the Expert mode button. What this would look like, I have no idea - only extensive user trials and testing would decide this.

(Clue: If any of you have read The Lean Startup or the work of Steven Blank then you will know what I'm on about!)

It seems to me that MLO is what you get if you try and please ALL the people at once, and add almost everything everyone asks for. Yes it's amazingly powerful and yes, it's fine for geeks but it's very, VERY cluttered.

I concede that it is just possible that unlike other types of application (think graphic design, email etc) there may be something about productivity / time management which means that certain users can ONLY operate in their own particular way.

However even these would surely fall into clusters of users with similar requirements and it is just possible that there might be space for a small handful of application variants (maybe as many as say 4 or 5??) that would need to exist in parallel with each other.

I contend that the reason why MLO still has any significant number of new customer is because all the other productivity tools are frankly terrible. In my case I spent about a week of my life trialling all the market leaders and I was appalled at how useless the basics of their interfaces were - I just couldn't believe it!

But that won't last. Eventually someone will build something that will blow MLO out of the water. (Or maybe it will be 5 different companies building 5 different applications - each of when are suitable for each different section of users who insist in thinking in a particular way...  ) 

And that will be a huge shame for everyone here. 

OK, I've said my piece. The reason I mention it is mostly because I fear that MLO is too niche and geeky and will ultimately go bust, or at best die a slow death gradually wither on the vine.

PS. Did MLO ever get around to at last building some explainer videos for newbies yet?

[J Smith]

Dwight

I have some problem with your Comment #1.
a) When I am in a view of what is in effect a GTD List (e.g. say my "~SomedayMaybe" list) I cant really add stuff straight in there, because if it doesn't have "~SomedayMaybe" as a Context then as soon as I create it, it disappears of that view SomedayMaybe view.

b) The presence of "~SomedayMaybe" in the Context field rather gets in the way and clutters up view of my 'real' contexts, particularly if the "~SomedayMaybe" was added before the other contexts!

c) Please can you tell me what the difference is between "Context" and "ContextText" when I am setting up an advanced filter. i.e. Which should I use??

d) I am now wondering if I would be better off using Flags rather than Context to achieve what you suggest.

On Thursday, 13 August 2015 13:17:15 UTC+1, J Smith wrote:

[J Smith]

Dwight - OK I've dome a few experiments and it now looks like using flags to indicate which GTD list a task is in, is the way forward for me.

For ease of adding tasks in, I think my main Active ("Do ASAP") list of tasks needs to have no flags and to be filtered as make sure that no flags are present.

And if I want to see any of my GTD lists I click on a View set up to show just tasks with those flags.

I think this will work - quite exciting!

I have one problem - what is the hot key to clear a flag?
If I cant clear a flag with a hotkey (so as to put a task onto my "Do ASAP" list then maybe I should use a flag (e.g. a green flag) to indicate this too. HOWEVER, if I'm going to do this then I need to I need to find a way to make new task automatically have a (e.g.) green flag by default at the time of their creation.

e.g. Is there any way for a new Task to inherit the flag of the Task immediately above it? (This would also be useful when attempting to insert tasks directly onto on of my GTD lists)

J

PS. Can someone remind me what the difference is between clicking on a View in left hand menu as opposed to a Tab along the top?

[Dwight Arthur]

On 8/13/2015 7:09 PM, J Smith wrote:
> PS. Did MLO ever get around to at last building some explainer videos
> for newbies yet?

see http://www.mylifeorganized.net/support.shtml#windows and look at the
section "video tutorials"
-Dwight
MLO Betazoid on Windows, Cloud and Android SGN2

[J Smith]

Dwight - wait I've had another idea! Due to the fact that I can't see a way to hotkey to clear the flag, I could have my Active (Do ASAP) list be filtered to be either "No flag" OR "Green Flag". So if I want to bring a task out of one of my other GTD lists I could change it's flag to "Green Flag" using a hotkey. However that would create a list of Tasks some of which have no flag, some of when have green flags, but this would be a useless distinction - pure noise being as both having no flag and a green would mean the same thing. Not ideal. 

Is there any way to open the list of flags using a keyboard shortcut? (i.e. as if you had right-clicked on the flag column)

OR is there a way to change my "green flag" to no icon at all so that it looks visually the same as a No Flag task?

[Gads: There's always some darned problem - grrr!]

J

[pottster]

You can clear a flag by using the same hotkey again that you used to apply it.

[Dwight Arthur]

Hi, John.
a) That is a real and annoying problem. Here's a workaround: you could
try creating a folder for each list. I would name the folder "add MAYBE
tasks here" - assign it to the relevant context and make sure that the
setting for added tasks to inherit contexts is on. The folder will
appear in yyour view. If you add a child it will inherit the context but
(if it's a flat list) will appear right there in the body of the list.

b) you could make a wider column for context. Or you could try assigning
one-character contexts for the 'unreal' contexts; for example using "~"
to mean Maybe.

c)If I recall correctly context provides a list f contexts, and you can
click off the ones you want to filter on. It's easy to specify multiple
contexts (I forget if it tests for "all" versus "any") and it can ignore
contexts that are closed (a big deal for me). I'm pretty sure that it
can also handle included contexts. context text is doing a string match
on the context field. so you can find all tasks that have a context that
includes the letter "w" - silly example to make a point. If you have
contexts like &mymoney, &ourmoney and &mom'smoney you can filter on
"money" - you will not only get all of them but also you will get other
money contexts that you haven't created yet. I haven't tried it but I'm
guessing that if you have a task with contexts @a; @b and you test for
@b; @a that context will say "true" and contexttext will say "false"

d) for the reasons that you brought up, flags might be better for you
than contexts for this purpose. Just as long as you are not planning to
do much work on mobile platforms, where flags are not supported. I do
nmost of my work on Androuid so as a consequence I know very little
about flags and I can't answer any of your questions.

-Dwight
MLO Betazoid on Windows, Cloud and Android SGN2

[John Smith]

pottster - N

> You can clear a flag by using the same hotkey again that you used to apply it.

Interesting, thanks. OK, but this could get confusing if the task you tried to move disappears off the view, because you cant get it back simply by hitting the same hotkey for the second time, because it will then have lost focus (!).

For now my workaround is to make what was my "green flag" flag use a completely transparent (16 x 16 px) icon so that it looks identical to a cleared flag. And like I say to filter my Active "Do ASAP" list on either No Flag OR what was my green flag...

J

[pottster]

Good luck, but it's beginning to sound more like a kludge than a solution. The irony is you're demonstrating exactly why MLO is different because the options to shape it to your will seem endless. You would struggle to even start this conversation with another tool. Anyway, don't blame the software if you spend a whole lot more time chasing rainbows just because you can!

[Christoph Zwerschke]

Am 14.08.2015 um 02:51 schrieb J Smith:
> PS. Can someone remind me what the difference is between clicking on a
> View in left hand menu as opposed to a Tab along the top?

Using workspace (tabs) you can quickly change several filter settings,
particularly the view, but also filter changes you made to the view, and
a possible zoom. I have some workspaces for quickly zooming in to
different life/work areas or current hotspots, this is very useful.

-- Christoph

[Dwight Arthur]

I agree with Christoph but there's another benefit to tabs. Most of us
have to deal with a lot of interruptions and then the eventual task of
getting back to whatever we were doing before the interruption.
Sometimes this goes several layers deep. If you need a different view
for dealing with the interruption, and you just pop it into your main
workspace, then what you were working on is gone. You may have dug down
a few layers into a hierarchy, collapsing some branches and expanding
others, searched for something, filtered something using the quick text
filter or context filter. If instead you go to a different workspace for
the interruption, when you are done you can go back to the original
workspace and just resume what you were doing. There's a cliche movie
scene where an office worker has had one too many interruptions and
sweeps everything from the surface of the desk onto the floor or into a
drawer. That's what I feel like when I change the view in one of my
workspaces. I guard against that by using the lock workspace option.

I wanted to respond to one other thing you mentioned which is the
visibility of multiple contacts. I almost never examine a task in order
to see what contexts it has. I would view that as a waste of my time -
that's not my job, it's my computer's job. I have views constructed for
when I am at my desk, when I am on the phone, when I am at a customer,
when I am in my yard, etc. Each one filters for the appropriate
contexts. So, if a task is in my current view I know that it has the
right contexts for me to be working on now. If I have to check the
contexts on a listed task and decide whether to work on the task based
on those contexts then my view needs to be refined.

-Dwight
MLO Betazoid on Windows, Cloud and Android SGN2

[Hank]

Thank you - those first Videos are good - but there are many missing yet.
Anybody have an idea when the next ones will be released?

regards