My GTD use of MLO

[Erwann Laville]

Hi

I don't know if it'll be interested someone but I want to share my use of MLO with the GTD methodology.

I use two root folders to distinct professional and personal stuff.

With this, I can easily use workspace to quickly switch between work / home tasks.

Inside these folders, I have one or two levels of area of focus.

And inside each AOF, I have project and tasks.

I use context for...context :) Each tasks have one context. I try to assign only one context for each task.

I use flag to set statut of a task or project : waiting for / someday maybe / on hold

I used text area but on desktop I find it's quicker to set flag with shortcut.

For the views, I have :

- inbox

(Clarify & organize)
- tasks without context
- tasks without energy
- tasks without minimum time

(Engage)
- focus : starred / due today or before
- active action
- active action by context
- active action by project
- active action by area

(Review)
- complete 30 days
- due next 30 days
- start next 7 days
- waiting for tasks
- someday / maybe tasks
- project list : group by flag
- project w/o next action
- empty project

That's my setup currently.

MLO is very powerful, I like the active action part to see only what's can be done right now.

I can see many ways to improve things :

- be able to disabled project name on tasks list. When you disabled hierarchy for a view, each task have project name in front if them. It will be nice to be able to not show that. I know a lot of people like to quickly see project but for me, when you write the right name for your task, you don't need to see project.

- a great improvement will be to add properties to a task / folder / project with some condition like the automated format.
For example, when the project doesn't have a next action, put this flag on it or add an area tag.

- more options about filter like limit to only see x tasks. Or a filter to see if a project have a subtask directly or inside one of his folder.

- be able to specify our own project statut like waiting for.

- on android, a button to add task on the quick setting bar.

- on windows, a quick capture tool to add stuff from anywhere with a shortcut (don't know if it's possible)

Sorry if I don't know options, I'm still on trial period :)

Thank for reading !

[Richard Emes]

Hi Erwann,

Welcome to MLO!

I'm not able to answer all your questions but using the Automatic Formatting rules (in the Tools menu) , I have a rule that adds an icon to any projects without a completed sub-task. This might work for you; the rule uses the 'Not(Has Incomplete Subtasks)'

You can use the Rapid Task Entry Dialog (tools - options) which places an icon in your taskbar in Windows which you can call up with a shortcut

Hope that helps

Richard

[Erwann Laville]

Hi

Thank for your answer !

Very nice for the shortcut to quickly add task.

As for the automatic format, the problem for me is that I use mainly on mobile so automatic format doesn't work.

If we have automatic properties, we can make view with updated tasks based on conditions.

[Richard Emes]

Ah, ok - I guess on the mobile version, any projects with no sub-tasks would not have an arrow  next to them (the arrow only appears when sub-tasks are present and allows the project sub-tasks to be collapsed/expanded). Not ideal but at least it's a small visual  clue that it's a project with no next steps.

On Thursday, 23 January 2020 08:25:30 UTC, Erwann Laville wrote:

[Steve Neas]

On Thursday, January 23, 2020 at 3:25:30 AM UTC-5, Erwann Laville wrote:

- be able to disabled project name on tasks list. When you disabled hierarchy for a view, each task have project name in front if them. It will be nice to be able to not show that. I know a lot of people like to quickly see project but for me, when you write the right name for your task, you don't need to see project.

In the Windows version you can change how the project name appears in the task lists.

Go to: Tools menu / Options / To-Do list format

You can choose whether or not to encode the project name in the task name, how it is formatted, and whether to put it before or after the task name.

[Erwann Laville]

Thank for the tip, it work great :)