In MLO - Implementing "Agile Results": 3 Outcomes for Day, Week, Month, Year

[James D]

Greetings,

I am looking for guidance in implementing the Agile Results methods/approach within MLO. I am coming back to MLO after a couple years away, and in truth I didn't really master much the first time because I wound up going back to Ecco Pro, an excellent 1997 outline-based PIM.  I'm back for good.  I will just call the system I'm implementing ARR3, as in Agile Results/Rule of 3  (J.D. Meier should come up with a catchy acronym, for marketing purposes certainly!) ARR3 is a hybrid of Covey, GTD, ZTD, and Agile.  I am liking very much so far, and can see it as my long-term approach, and that it will scale. It also seems like MLO has an excellently match of features to the approach of ARR3. Below is some summary information about ARR3.  I am currently working on setting up, in MLO, the 3 results for the day, 3 results for the week, 3 results for the year areas.  I currently have a set of 3 for Work & Personal.I will focus on the Work and Personal here.

Right now I'm just trying to get the right "feel" for working productively in MLO with this setup. So far, in MLO, I have separate outline folder branches set up for Work, Personal and RoadMap (my analog to ARR3 "Hotspots" and Areas of Focus/Roles and Goals). I primarily work in the Personal and Work areas.

Under each Work/Personal branch, I have the following 3 folders set up:  Daily Outcomes, Rule of 3; Weekly Outcomes, Rule of 3; and Yearly Outcomes, Rule of 3.  (With a "W" or "P" prefix in front of the folder name)

Then, under each Week/Month/Year "Outcomes, Rule of 3" folder, I created 3 folders, for each of the three "Projects"/Outcomes I want to create within the time period.  On the outcomes folders for week, month, and year, I marked each subfolder/project as "Goal" for Week/Month/Year, as appropriate.   Then, under each folder, I place the projects/subprojects/tasks that support accomplishment of each goal.

I would like to just work with Goals, Projects, and Tasks in outline view, and perhaps have a Goals view I can look at that would show me only my Rule of 3 outcomes for week/month/year, and not have to have these items under a "Weekly Outcomes, Rule of 3" or "Monthly Outcomes, Rule of 3"

That is where I am right now. I am curious if anyone else has tried implementing this ARR3 system, or something very similar, in MLO, and what advice they have to share. The trick is to capture things to be done in a trusted system, that then helps you remember and execute them in a productive way.  The challenge for me is spending too much time creating and managing lists of what "could" be done and not enough time "doing" it.  That is where a tool like MLO comes in as effective, to help help keep focus on the "doing"

James D.

AGILE RESULTS SUMMARY

===============================================

Agile Results:  http://www.30daysofgettingresults.com/2011/10/day-1-take-tour-of-getting-results.html

Essential Principles:

The Three Key Parts of Agile Results
Here are the three key parts to Agile Results:

1. The Rule of 3
2. Monday Vision, Daily Outcomes, and Friday Reflection
3. Hot Spots

In Agile Results, we use The Rule of Three to map out what we want to accomplish in sets of three’s:

• 3 results for the day
• 3 results for the week
• 3 results for the month
• 3 results for the year

===============================================

BACKGROUND

Recently I tried a bunch of GTD-focused tools and chose Nozbe, which works quite well for people with shorter lists of projects, but bogged down badly as my list of projects grew, and does not support breaking projects and tasks down (outlining), and does not have any linkage between projects and the goals they support. It does many, many things well though; possibly a different post to contrast/compare what MLO could learn from the GTD-Cloud-Crowd apps like Nozbe, NirvanaHQ, etc.  In Nozbe (a cloud GTD app) it was simple enough to set each up as "Projects" and each result as a "Task" under that project, but of course with no outline capabilities and no linkage of goals & priorities to projects that support those goals, it broke down. So I came running back screaming to MLO.  I am back to MLO to stay, and committed to learning it well this time.  (The availability of Android and iOS apps was the key to coming back, that and especially the active, communicative development leadership, that I can bet on continued existence and improvement of the MLO toolset.)

I have tried tons of different approaches, from Covey to GTD to ZTD to Agile/Scrum to Kanban to Forster's AutoFocus to Flylady to you name it. (And tried tons of different tools, too distracting to mention here.) The approach that seems to work best for me is a blend of GTD, ZTD, but also broken down by areas of life, like Covey's approach.  I also find I really want to keep my personal and work mostly separate. As I am also involved in software development, at my work we are recently emphasizing agile methodologies and Scrum in particular.  I recently happened to run across J.D. Meier's "Getting Results the Agile Way". I will just call it ARR3, as in Agile Results/Rule of 3  (he should come up with a catchy acronym, for marketing purposes certainly!) ARR3 is a hybrid of Covey, GTD, ZTD, and Agile which I am liking very much so far, and can see it as my long-term approach. It also seems like MLO has an excellent match of features to the approach of ARR3.

LINKS

ZTD: http://productivemag.com/1/zen-to-done-ztd 

http://zenhabits.net/zen-to-done-ztd-the-ultimate-simple-productivity-system/ 

http://zenhabits.net/minimal-ztd-the-simplest-system-possible/

[Elizabeth Lindsay]

Hi James,

This sounds interesting.  I do think the method of implementation might be a bit hard with all the maintaining of folders.  Have you considered using the contexts to indicate which group of 3 it is a part of versus folders?  I personally use GTD with MLO.  The keys for me are to have a context on everything, have projects flagged as projects, and to have everything captured in a way that is easy for me to find it again (without relying on searching).  I've found that I prefer my list to be alphabetical (I typically use the naming structure of "GOAL: ACTION" for sorting).  I will then use the star or goal to indicate items of current focus.

Please do let us know how it is going.

Elizabeth

[Philb]

James,

Another way you could implement this is using MLO's built in Goals feature.  You can set goals for Week Month and Year, and using the Automatic Formatting Feature, assign your choice of icons to them.  Perhaps you could use the Star feature for Daily Outcomes.  That way, depending on how many projects you have, and how big or complex your outline is, you would not have to start moving stuff around to maintain those Folders, as Elizabeth said.

I have read through JD's stuff which pulls together from many views on personal effectiveness.  I think he is on to something.  After all, it's nice to know you can set yourself up to win daily.

Good luck, and let us know how you decide to implement.

Phil

[James D]

Hi Elizabeth,

I try to keep the use of contexts as close to the "pure" GTD usage of contexts, so my first thought is not to use contexts.  However...

Thinking about it from the standpoint that my "Daily Planning" could be a context, in that I *try* to do it in the same way in the same time in the same place each day, I am finding I can mentally go there with you on this one.

The other trick is that I do this separately from a work and personal standpoint, so I need a (set) of contexts for each one.

In the meantime, I have been working with the Weekly/Monthly/Yearly goals approach.  However, the two approaches aren't mutually exclusive.  I think creating a context I can filter on, say, "ARR3 Planning" might make sense, and then tag my top 3 Weekly/Monthly/Yearly goals with that context.  In fact, that approach is sounding more and more appealing in terms of working with the way that MLO and the mobile MLO clients seem to work.

Thank you for the thoughts, and I'll provide updates here on what I wind up with.

James

[James D]

Over the weekend, I wound up doing much what you are suggesting, right down to starred items for the daily outcomes!  However, I am not yet versed in the Automatic Formatting, so I will take a look at that!

I think I will try that along with Elizabeth's suggestion about using contexts.

So each of my "Rule of 3" Outcomes for day, week, month, would be set up as a goal for that timeframe, and then assigned to contexts "W-ARR3 Planning" or "J-ARR3 Planning" depending on whether Work or Personal (J).

ARR3 MLO template, coming up any week/month/year now, LOL.

I will share how it's going periodically.

One huge problem I am having so far is keeping work and personal separate in MLO.  Things like Outlook Sync (Work) that I want to keep confined to Work tasks, and the views between Desktop and Mobile... a separate Work Inbox and a Personal Inbox... If there are any really useful discussions of setting up MLO to keep Work and Personal separate, I would appreciate links to them anyone can share.  My inclination for now is that I would like to keep work and personal in the same MLO file.  I have considered setting up two separate files, one for work, one for personal, but am thus far holding out on doing that, trying to make a single MLO file work.

James

[James D]

FYI, I had previously left a message on the Nozbe forum about some of my concerns.  The founder of Nozbe replied to me yesterday.  I appreciated his reply, but he unfortunately seemed to get hung up on the (to me) "religious argument" of subprojects/subtasks and why he's chosen not to take the Nozbe product feature set in that direction. I drafted a reply, which I haven't posted yet, essentially telling him he is hung up on the subproject/subtask debate, rather than addressing specific "use case" problems I am having, none of which specifically require an outline structure to solve.  It's not my intent to be critical, as Nozbe is an excellent, excellent GTD-optimized tool that particularly shines in the "capture" area of GTD and several other aspects.  It just bogs down if you have a lot of goals, projects and tasks. 

So... I've pretty much put all my eggs into the MLO basket.  Eggs in the MLO basket is an appropriate metaphor given that I have been rehearsing a community theatre play in which the final scene has me hopping through the set, in an Easter bunny costume with a basket of eggs. Oh yeah, despite the Easter Bunny, it's a Christmas play, and performances start a week from Friday. I've started using MLO to track a number of my tasks associated with it.

James

[James D]

I found this earlier post from Lisa S., in which she described certain contexts as "Locations in the mind" rather than actual physical contexts. (my paraphrase)

I think daily and weekly planning are places in my head, with the right set of "tools" (a tool can be a context), like the tools of being focused, ready to think about something, and with time set aside for that specific, limited set of purposes.  So I'm ready to give this concept a try, using contexts that way, for my "Rule of 3" (ARR3) planning setup.  Now it's time to go do it instead of writing about it.  :-)

Lisa S

6/14/12

No worries, thanks!

What I ended up trying is Contexts that have a specific focus to them -- so instead of locations in my world, I use locations in my head :)  For example, "Selfcare" in the morning...does NOT include cleaning the kitchen, checking facebook, even pulling dinner out of the freezer. "Daily planning" may involve a quick email check to see if someone has gotten back to me, but does not include responding to MLO emails or checking on the comments to my facebook post :)

I broke up my @Computer context into similar contexts with the main things I really need to focus on.

We'll see how long I stick with it though.

Lisa

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Lisa

[Salvador Bosque]

Hi

What is your feedback by now? How does your final setup looks like?

Regards and a happy and productive new year to all

Salvador