New to MLO

[Peter Van Harmelen]

Hello all,

I am very new to MLO and just started playing around with it a while ago and found that I actually really like it.   I am a long-time GTD practitioner (10 years plus) but never looked at MLO even though I knew it was out there. 

In 2020 I reached a frustration level with my system:  too bloated, too "not the way I really like it", too many hacks to make it work for GTD, etc and declared system bankruptcy.   

Spent a big part of 2020 looking for something that is simple and down-to-earth.      Now, I really MLO is a complex tool with a lot of features yet I think I can build a back-to-basics GTD system here that I like.   I really like outliner based systems.  For a good while, I used GTDNext but found the lack of mobile apps a hindrance.    Also used Dynalist for a while.  Yet here I am at MLO.

I really enjoy seeing screenshots of other systems and if you have any tips and tricks that may be useful, I would welcome your advice.    Happy to share at some point what I come up with.   

I enjoy community around software tools and was happy to find this group.    I am an accountant by trade and live in Nova Scotia in eastern Canada.

Peter

[Stéph]

Welcome to MLO, Peter. You'll find that MLO is very flexible, so there are lots of ways to achieve almost anything you want. I've just posted a note about my outline structure in Joel's recent thread, here. I use GTD contexts (I was thinking of using them for flags, to assign one exclusive context for the next step on each task, but have ended up using the "Context" parameter for that. I can recommend taking the time to understand how to set up Advanced Filters, to get exactly the views you want.

At some point I'll post a couple of screenshots.

Good luck with setting up your system.

All the best,

Stéphane

[Peter Van Harmelen]

Thank you for this, Stéphane.  Much appreciated.   One question:  if I would drill down into one of your area folders, do you keep single, non-project related tasks just loosely in the area's folder or do you have another folder for just single actions?  Or perhaps you don't have non-project related actions.

Peter

[Stéph]

Good question. Generally, I don't have any loose tasks just related to an area of life. The tasks are all related to some kind of Role or Goal, so are in a folder. To give you a feel for the kind of structure, here's a selection of the Roles and Goals I've set for myself in each Area of life:

Personal

> Get fit and stay healthy

> Get organised

> Philosophy, Religion, etc

> Creativity

> Adventure & Learning

> Entertainment - (This folder tends to be a dumping ground for things I want to see, listen to, taste, visit, etc)

Home

> &Shopping and errands

> &Husband

> &Father / Family

> &Friends

> &Home Improver & Maintenance - (with sub-folders for indoor, outdoor and car)

Work

> &Line Manager

> &Knowledge Coordinator

> &Bid support

> &Electrical / ICA Engineer

> &SCADA consultant

> &Process Safety - SIL Assessor

Community

> Well, this Area is a little more messy, possibly reflecting the reactive way I respond to community, charity or other events and activities. I should plan this area of my life a bit better, really.

OK, I do cheat a little - There's an "Admin" folder under each life area too, where I keep some folders of notes, contact names, etc which I haven't yet transferred to Microsoft OneNote. 

The projects and some loose tasks (single-step projects?) are grouped under each Role or Goal. My philosophy (taken from bits of GTD, along with bits of Stephen Covey's "7 Habits") is that, if I have a task which doesn't fit in with any of my Roles or Goals, then I should delegate or ditch it. So sticking to these defined roles and goals helps me to filter out the unnecessary stuff.

Here's a snapshot, with an example branch showing structure and formatting of an example role, project and tasks in various states.

 

So, how does that compare with how your own outline is developing?

All the best,

Stéphane

[funjul...@gmail.com]

Stéphane, where do you get those awesome custom icons? I would love a phone or computer icon to show the context - really good idea!

I tried to download and import some but they didn't seem to work.

What do you do when a task has multiple contexts each with icons?

[Stéph]

I'm glad you like the icons. I used to do a lot of trips, for a while, and spent a bit of the time creating my own, custom icons. I used simple shapes with specific colours for particular groups of icons, so that they would be quick to recognise at a glance. Back when you could get a Google Groups conversation thread pinned to the top of a forum, I started this thread to share icons and useful formatting and filtering examples.

The key with getting your icons to work, is to assign them to automatic formatting rules sorted into the right order (so the ones you want to see don't get overwritten by later rules). Here are screenshots of what I have at the start and the end of my automatic formatting rules list:

 

I don't have the problem of viewing icons for multiple contexts - All of my tasks have only one context at any particular time. Having said that, though, it would be possible to group your icons into different categories and then set up autoformatting to post them into different icon positions. As I recall, you get positions 0-3 (with position 0 being for the checkbox and folder icons. 

[Peter Van Harmelen]

Thanks for this amount of detail, Stéphane.    Very interesting and helpful.    I suppose what I meant by loose tasks is tasks that do not relate to a project.     All my loose tasks would relate to an area, too.  You asked how my outline was coming along.   It looks like this at the moment.   Each Area of Focus has projects within it AND also loose tasks that are not part of a project. 

I'm of course very new to MLO and maybe this is not the best way to set up but so far it feels right for me.    I still trying to find  a workflow with keyboard short cuts etc.    What is the most efficient way to enter data, type thing.

I'm not fully transitioned yet but here is where I'm at:

Peter

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[Stéph]

Interesting. Pretty similar in structure to my own outline.

Thanks for sharing.

[Peter Van Harmelen]

I thought the same when I saw your outline. I have been using these areas for years and it seems to work well for me.

I was curious about how the “&” functions in your outline?

I have taken the plunge now that my trial period is over and bought the pro versions for windows and iOS. Looking forward to working with MLO and being part of this community.

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[Stéph]

& is a hashtag for me, for searching or filtering my outline for roles. (Why use & as a tag - just because "& here's another thing I do").

Similarly, I use "?" to tag a name of someone when they are the prime contact or given responsibility for a task. So, typing &SCADA in the search box takes me to the branch where my role is as a SCADA engineer. If I just type SCADA in the search box, then I get a list of all the tasks which have something about SCADA in their notes. If I type "Jim" in the search box, I'd get everything in which someone called Jim is mentioned in the notes, whereas "?Jim" returns a much shorter list of all the tasks for which I've asked Jim to give some help or I'm "@waiting" for some information from him.

One other tag I'm currently using: "+" in front of a word means it's a project name.

[Dwight Arthur]

Another reason for starting a context with a character other than "@" is to allow some natural groupings whenever contexts are shown alphabetically. For example, five or six contexts that I use constantly start with "*" or "#" which puts them to the top of the list, while some that I access a couple of times per year are at the bottom, starting with "☆"

-Dwight

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[Peter Van Harmelen]

Thanks Dwight and Stephane.  Very helpful.

Peter

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mylifeorganized/d185d9fd-e327-452b-9c58-747723d4979a%40gmail.com.

[funjul...@gmail.com]

On Sunday, January 24, 2021 at 4:16:20 PM UTC-8 Stéph wrote:

I'm glad you like the icons. I used to do a lot of trips, for a while, and spent a bit of the time creating my own, custom icons. I used simple shapes with specific colours for particular groups of icons, so that they would be quick to recognise at a glance. Back when you could get a Google Groups conversation thread pinned to the top of a forum, I started this thread to share icons and useful formatting and filtering examples.

The key with getting your icons to work, is to assign them to automatic formatting rules sorted into the right order (so the ones you want to see don't get overwritten by later rules). Here are screenshots of what I have at the start and the end of my automatic formatting rules list:

It looks like it's the other way around for me - the earlier rules take priority over any later ones.

Thanks for the icons! I love them! Now I have icons for writing, phone, house, computer, and errands.

You can have more than positions 0-3 by the way! I'm using up to 4:

position 0 - tells me if it's a folder or an active action

position 1 - notes

position 2 - location, tells me if it's errands (little car icon), computer, or home

position 3 - tools, tells me if I need a phone or to do some writing (pen and paper icon)

position 4 - reminder

On 2/15/2021 7:28 AM, Stéph wrote:
> & is a hashtag for me, for searching or filtering my outline for roles.
> (Why use & as a tag - just because "& here's another thing I do").

This cracked me up - thanks!

I use @ for location (errands, computer, home),

! for status (waiting for, next action, daily task),

and no symbol for the role, just a short name for it.

That keeps them ordered in the way I like - status, location, role.

[Stéph]

There's a position 4? So there is! I'd neglected that one. Thanks - I may well start to use that for some kind of category of information. Might be for my !Learning Notes category.

Glad my icons are finding uses. My personal favourite might just be the Someday/Maybe flying pig, because it sums up a chunk of my to-do list.