Strategies for re-starting with MLO

[Joel]

So I think I'm not alone but maybe I am.  Because 'reasons' I've fallen off the wagon keeping up my GTD system.   Have been a long-time mlo user (like v2 or beginning of v3 I think) and have a fairly well formed system (for my use) but it is now stale.   When I say "fallen off the wagon" I mean I've been keeping it all in my head.  Now it's spilling onto post-it notes.  Oh fk, here we go again.

So it's clearly time to bootstrap myself and get back ON the wagon.  Ok, fine.

Foundation:  There is a lot of stuff in my existing file.  Some of it may even still be relevant.  Plenty I'm sure has passed, happened, been handled or exploded.  Nonetheless, there is a lot there.

Problem:  How do I get started using my file again ensuring I see/deal with new current items and not get flooded by the clutter of the 'old' stuff?  (at least till I can make some time and energy to start working through the backlog of it)  

I've started adding some items in and they are just washed out in the see of overdue/older, higher prio, etc items that my views are fleshing out.

Any others have dealt with a start/stop event like this?  What strategies did you use?

I don't necessarily want to have to modify every one of my views (eventually I'll need them back to "normal", right?) so looking for thoughts.

All ideas welcome.

I'm on Windows and Android if that that helps/matters.

Thx.

[Stéph]

Hello Joel,

I feel your pain! I, too, generated a huge file with various uncompleted tasks, thoughts and someday-tasks in my in-box and completed-but-not-quite-archived projects. I also dabbled with Post-It notes, on-screen Post-Its and switching some work projects to a OneNote-and-Outlook system (shared with my Team). 

(Incidentally: The OneNote-and-Outlook system has several great benefits, but has not been great for tracking and managing a dynamic projects list - even if I use tags for highlighting projects and tracking their status. I've gone back to overall management of my work projects and all my non-work tasks in MLO).

To regain control of my tasks and Projects in MLO, I've created an "Old Inbox / Someday" folder at root level. I've set it "Hide the branch in To-Do" in General Properties and I've customised some of my filters (eg the projects filter) to exclude items or projects in that branch (Advanced Filter: AND "TopLevelFolderName does not contain "Someday""). 

I then moved everything from my Inbox to the "Old Inbox", along with some of my potential, future projects. I've promised myself I'll go through the Old Inbox during one or more long journeys or when I haven't got anything else pressing to do, to do, delegate, defer or delete (in true GTD style) or re-instigate any important projects.

Good luck with keeping your updated task list manageable. I think that's the biggest challenge that a lot of us face.

Stéphane

[Susannah]

I'm kind of in the same boat.  I started yesterday making sure everything is captured.  I got my email inboxes to zero (b/c they have been creeping up) with all the tasks that were in them as email as tasks in MLO now.  I have my 100 post its that have accumulated back in MLO and am down to just today's postits.  I still like working with my postits.  Number 1 problem was MLO is my main system and was not complete so I couldn't trust it.

Last time I got in this state I reorganized my MLO tree. I have as top level folders: Procedures to Copy (for irregular routines), Followup/Waiting, Routines, One time, Skills/Practice, Reference, Someday Maybe (this is more like probably not ever but didn't want to lose my outline of tasks just in case).  Here is the change I made in The One time folder I have each area broke down under Personal and Work.  Under each area I have Active Tasks which include anything I am working on now and anything with a date attached.  Then I have a Prioritized folder where I put everything else for that area that I am not currently working on but needs to be done at some point.  One day I will actually prioritize these lists so it feeds the next priority as I finish the active tasks.  Until then I will have to manually select and move during my Review.  Eventually I would like to move my someday maybe under the area it affects also instead of it being one big bucket.  

So yesterday I went through and moved as many things as I could out of active and into these Prioritized folders which don't show up on my active lists.  Or in a couple areas where I have no active tasks they are shown to complete in order so the top task is active.

I am not good about doing reviews and I think that is a major issue with my system getting out of date.  My new thinking is I have to get my active tasks to a smaller number so that reviews are not so time consuming.  Awhile back I added routines built in that take care of some of the review tasks on a daily or weekly basis.  For example at the beginning and end of my day I clear off or set up my desk, take inboxes to zero etc.  The review I am talking about adding is only to choose next weeks active tasks.

For backlogs which I have several right now.  They aren't hot projects but I want to clean them up.  I put a reoccuring tasks in to deal with it.  If I have several I put them on different days or I make one dependent on the other finishing.  For example I have a folder from an intern that helped a few weeks back that I need to go through and figure out what was done and what still needs to be done and basically clear out the folder.  I have a task that reoccurs daily that says clean out that folder 5 minutes at a time.  When it is gone I will delete the task.  As for cleaning up MLO that is my only active project under my system heading.  Yesterday's task was to capture everything.  I did it as one task but if I didn't do it that way I would have made it a daily reoccuring timed task until it was done.  My system has tasks, projects and routines just like my work and personal life do.

I'm looking forward to others responses b/c I still have too many active tasks.  I want to get them down to where I can actually start using the app.  Right now it is not helpful at all.

Susannah

[Wallace Gilbraith]

That’s pretty much how I’d approach this, too – root-level folders of Old and New, hide Old in the Views, and gradually work through the Old folder moving stuff into New

 

Someone once said ‘The middle of every successful project looks like a real mess’ – you’ll always be in the middle of it, so don’t beat yourself up if your MLO profile isn’t perfectly neat

Having said that, for me the critical thing is to get the Inbox emptied daily, and give all those new tasks a Context and a Due Date and move them into the right place in the Outline

Now and then I may focus on tidying up a specific folder in the Outline, so it’s less of a mess – that might be a folder representing an Area of Life, or a Project (particularly a project that’s likely to repeat)

But many of my folders are a bit of a mess, and it doesn’t matter, because tasks surface when their Due Date comes round, and I don’t need to think about the state of the folders they’re in

 

Wol

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[Jeff Smith]

My solution is in the GTD book, basically start over but use the old list as a resource to remember things

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[Dwight Arthur]

The old-folder/new-folder approach suggested by Wol and Stéph is probably best, but there's one drawback: the old tasks are now essentially in someday/never mode. If there's stuff in there that's actually current/important you will probably miss it, until some day when you view the hidden tasks and say, Oh, I should have done this one.

If you want to still see the old stuff but want it in the background, giving prominence to the new stuff, I would suggest modifying your views to have a first group of new stuff followed by a second group of old stuff. One way to do that, if you are not using flags for anything would be to create an "old stuff" flag then modify your views to group by flag. If you are using flags that wont work. Find some other field you are not using. For example, every task in my profile is urgency 100. I could set all the old ones to urgency zero and then change my view to group by urgency. If there's some other field you are not using (goal? effort? there must be one) then group by that.

Hint: to set all old tasks to some value like urgency - zero, make a view that shows all of your old tasks. You might want to use filters like created date before 3 May 2019 or something similar. Select all tasks in the view by selecting the first one then scrolling to the bottom, holding down the shift and selecting the last one. look at the sidebar on the right and update your special, eg urgency = 0.

after this you can collapse the bottom group in your view and work out of the top one, but from time to time you can expand the bottom group and see what you are missing.

You should not have to change your views to "go back to normal" - just from time to time look at the old tasks - if one is still needed clear the special field to make it a normal task again, if the task is no longer needed, just delete it. When there are no more tasks with the special field, the bottom group will just disappear.

-Dwight

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[Joel]

Thanks all for some thoughtful replies.

Stephan, my system is in further disarray than that (idle probably 6+ mos) and my problems span past just an unprocessed inbox.  Appreciate the input and ideas.

Susanah (and Wallace), thank you.  Good thoughts and glad you've made something work for you.  I think our systems are a bit too fundamentally different as what you describe would be a lot of fundamental changes to a lot of my outline(s) and probably to a lot of my views as a result.  I could probably make it such that it would be able to continue to work after "I'm clear" but it's more up front work than I can be "bothered" with right now.  I need the energy to get rebooted, not just to tinker with my system.

I feel your pain about reviews.  I'm in the boat too, probably a multitudes worse offender.  Probably/partially as a result (and for better or worse) my system is set up such that my "doing" views are pretty highly leveraged on Contexts and my Inbox is *highly* structured to apply many contexts on input.  This makes it so that many tasks are ready for doing, and even often get done, before they ever get processed out of the inbox.  (think within the same day and even within a couple days of getting input, eg when inbox processing is "slow" or neglected.) 

And finally, as I mentioned to Stephan, my stagnation sprawls far beyond the inbox, into projects large and small.  There's a metric crap-ton (scientific term) of stuff that's just "expired" and can be purged but some in there is probably important to follow up so I can't just purge wholesale.  Things lent & unreturned for example, other @waitingfor items, commitments to some long term projects that may or not have blown up yet (because I've been tending the project, but out of my head), sales pipeline that may or not be dead (prob. more dead but still)

Dwight, I like your idea about stealing a field and using it for a grouping and I'm playing with it.  For the most part I can probably make it work (Goal = Year I think).  The problem I'm finding is that the grouping doesn't seem to affect views with an outline (ie non-flat).

Any tricks for that or is that a limit I just have to live with?

Thanks all.

On Wednesday, August 28, 2019 at 3:59:35 AM UTC-4, Joel wrote:

[John Hughes]

Everyone is doing well and I wish the best for them.

Putting items into folders can result in difficulty when you create a view and the items in the folder are hidden.

A less aggressive approach would be to give your forgotten items a context, such as “forgotten”. When you create a view just say that you don’t want to see items that have the context “forgotten”.

A flag would also work.

[Laurence Glazier]

Without getting into the technical aspects, I think with MLO, as with many things, daily attention is needed. Clearing the email inbox, forwarding emails as tasks to MLO as appropriate, and then processing the MLO inbox till it's clear again. Everyone will develop their own approach, as it's complicated!