Setting up MLO for GTD

[Gary Oliver]

I am trialling the new windows version

I am trying to set up for GTD because the GTD template doesnt follow the david allen book

Please help answer 4 questions:

1. What is the difference between "Outline" and "To Do" on the left hand panel? Is it possible to have a third area? (See point 2 below).

2. Is the outline section on the left where I add my areas of focus? (e.g., Home, Family, Leisure/Fun/Hobbies/Interests, Finance, Work, Mental & Physical Wellbeing, etc)?

3. Is the horizontal tab where I add my weekly review  process? As per the book, it is divided into inbox, last week’s completion, projects, areas of focus (horizon 2), goals (horizon 3), and vision(horizon 4).

4. Do references which apply to multiple projects or across an area of focus go in a horizontal tab or on the left. (As per david allen's book, references material associated with a specific project goes with that project).

TIA/gary

[M. Leigh Bender]

Gary,

This is a fairly broad request so I'll try to help. First thing though is to read through the help guide in MLO and refer back to it as needed.

For your questions:

1. The Outline and "To Do" on the left side are views. You can see the whole outline and subsets of the outline i.e. projects, goals,etc. The ToDos are filtered views of items in the outline. The way it works is you populate the outline and then get your specific action lists (To Dos) that are filtered. You can filter by context @home, @computer, etc. to get specific lists.

2. Your AoF go in the outline itself as either Top level parent tasks or Top level folders with nested folders/tasks under it. So you could have AoF Home with subsections of Home projects, Outside, garage, vehicles, etc.

3. The horizontal tab on the top are customized workspaces where you have saved filtered views to quickly get the the information in  your outline or To Dos easily. I have workspaces for Work, Personal, Projects, Finances, Overdue tasks, due today, and others. You could very easily create HoF views in different workspace tabs based on your customized views.

4. Most people don't keep references in MLO as its more a task management program. You can keep references in there as a folder-type task as a sub-task under the outline AoF section. Other options are to keep references in another app like Evernote or OneNote.  You can create links to those apps and same them in the MLO notes section, that's what I do.

Hope this helps. 

Leigh

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Respectfully,

Leigh

[Elizabeth Lindsay]

I've used MLO for GTD for over 10 years. I approach it differently than Leigh described. Hopefully this will give you some perspective between our two views.

1. I concur - Outline and To Do are views. For me, my Outline is everything out of my head and in GTD for tracking. I use "To Do by Context" so I see things that are "on computer" or "away" or "phone". 

2. I don't track area of focus in MLO. Rather, those are part of the weekly review to add things to my Outline. As above, my primary method is contexts, which as David Allen describes can be modified to fit your needs. For me, my contexts for house related things are which room is involved (@Bedroom, @Master Bathroom, @Guest Room, etc.). Then you can create views that focus on contexts.

3. A Leigh describes, the tabs are to create slices of your world. Mine are "active by context", "by due date" (limited to next 30 days), "projects", "waiting for", "starred", "someday", and "recently modified".

4. I concur, I don't put references in MLO, unless it is a "read XYZ" and then I link to whatever XYZ is. If a task or project needs a reference, I have it in the notes section (I love that you can put a ton of characters there).

Just a few other points:

1. While GTD says to only put a due date if it is a true due date, I don't 100% follow that rule when using MLO. I have several tasks that are targeted to be done daily, weekly, etc. For them to show "properly" in my to do list, I have then set with a due date. For each, I have a recurrence that puts it back the next cycle when I complete it (such as next day or next week).
2. Projects are key to putting GTD in MLO. In my outline, for example, I have a "Crafting and Sewing" folder. Under that, I put the title of the project and check the "this is a project" checkbox. Below that item are all the "next actions" - for a few things, I know all the actions and have them listed (often in a "complete subtasks in order" fashion). For others, I may not know all the steps, which is where the view of "projects" is helpful, because if I see a project and no action, I know I need to define the next action.
3. Project Status is also helpful because I can differentiate future (not started) from active (in progress). I hide "completed" from the view.
4. MLO is extremely flexible and it is worth the time to figure out how to mold it to fit you and your style.

Good luck!

Elizabeth