Option for newly added tasks to appear at start of manually sorted To Do list

[Richard C]

I have two modes of working as an IT Consultant:

1. Planning mode:  when I am working at home,   most of the time,  I tend to be working in quite a structured way - I won't go into the detail but this involves heavy use of MLO to plan and manage my time
2. Arrrgh mode:    (I don't have a good label for this)  but it typically occurs when I am on a client's site where I have back to back meetings, workshops,  hand holding sessions, etc.    When I am in this mode, I normally know what to do next by looking at my calendar - ie I have a meeting/workshop/event or something;  or I have to prepare for the next meeting/workshop/event.   This is when my use of MLO goes out of the window.  This is not necessary a problem except that people are throwing new things at me that I need to remember to do (and I keep thinking of things that I need to do).   It is this that I want to focus on.

 

When I am in Arrgh mode,  I don't have time to add stuff into my MLO Outline in the right place so I could be using the Inbox.    The only problem with this is that new Tasks go to the of my To Do list (which is manually sorted) where I don't see them.

 

So one solution to this would be to have a flag on a folder which says (in a shorter form that this) 'New sub-tasks added to start of manually sorted To Do lists'.   If this was ticked on the Inbox, any new items added would immediately appear at the start of my To Do list which I would see the next time I looked at my To Do list.  I can then immediately decide what to do with them (action, delay, drag to their correct place in the MLO hierarchy, whatever).

 

That's one suggestion but if anybody has another way of dealing with this 'Arrgh' mode of working, I would be very interested to hear.

 

Richard

 

 

[Dwight Arthur]

Hi, Richard. I'm familiar with the problem of tasks coming at me faster than I'm able to set them up properly.  My solution may not work for you as i have never used manual sorting.

Every one of my tasks has one or more contexts. When I'm being overwhelmed by new tasks I create them without contexts. The next time that I'm in a calm place I bring up a view of active tasks with context (none) and ove each one to the place in the outline where it belongs and add one or more contexts, along with start and due dates, dependencies,  importance and urgency as appropriate. 
-Dwight
Mlo betazoid on Android sgn2

On Feb 27, 2014, Richard C <r...@rcollings.co.uk> wrote:

I have two modes of working as an IT Consultant:

1. Planning mode:  when I am working at home,   most of the time,  I tend to be working in quite a structured way - I won't go into the detail but this involves heavy use of MLO to plan and manage my time

1. Arrrgh mode:    (I don't have a good label for this)  but it typically occurs when I am on a client's site where I have back to back meetings, workshops,  hand holding sessions, etc.    When I am in this mode, I normally know what to do next by looking at my calendar - ie I have a meeting/workshop/event or something;  or I have to prepare for the next meeting/workshop/event.   This is when my use of MLO goes out of the window.  This is not necessary a problem except that people are throwing new things at me that I need to remember to do (and I keep thinking of things that I need to do).   It is this t hat I want to focus on.

[Joel Azaria]

I've worked and work now much as I suspect you do: spurts of days to maybe weeks on end in the office, spotted days and/or spurts of days "in the field".  My current position is just that but my "field" time often takes me to construction/renovation projects rather than office buildings.  I understand things coming fast and furious and needing to capture them all.

I think I have a better way.  It's a concept I'm carrying from when I was a Life Balance user that I call the Speedbox which leverages contexts heavily and makes possible to do a limited but near instant "pre processing" so key items get to key lists immediately.  I'm trying to reimagine it a bit now for myself on mlo so it's kinda work-in-progress right now. I'd actually started a post a few nights ago about it and didn't finish because I need more time to flesh it out, take some screenshots and get it out of my head in a sensible way..   It might take a week or so.  Hang in there and I'm hoping this will be worth it for you

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[Richard C]

Thanks for the suggestion, Dwight     The context approach might work but the problem is that the next 'calm place' may be several days (or even weeks off) and when I am in this Arrgh mode  - I need to see an immediate list of tasks from which I pick the most important and postpone  (= set start date to next hour/day/whatever) or demote (=  drag lower in the list), the remainder

 

Incidentally, are you (& others) aware of Cynefin?   Worth Googling.   My 'Arrgh' mode equates to the Chaotic quadrant in his model - where it is more important to Act than to do anything else.

 

Richard

[Richard C]

Await with interest!

[althegr...@gmail.com]

Hi Joel,

I searched the forum for your Speedbox posts but no results :(

I am curious from this post what your Speedbox idea is.

Thanks,
- Al