MyLifeOrganized & GTD

[Holmes245]

For those of  you who practice GTD and use MLO, how do you assign tasks to the calendar for actions that must be done? I'm reading David Allen's book right now and was wondering how you guys handle dated tasks that must be done. Do you enter them on the calendar and then check them off in MLO once you do or wait to check them off after you've completed the action? 

To be honest, I'm not crazy with the idea of having to create the task a second time just to add it to my calendar but I figured I'd do it until MLO 5 was released. I was just wondering how others work with that?

Joel

[Dwight]

I don't put tasks on my calendar just because they need to be done on a certain date. If something has to be done at a specific time on a certain date I consider it more of an appointment rather than a task; I put it on my calendar and not into MLO.

If some task must be done on a certain day I add it to MLO with the particular day as the start date with a star and an importance higher than 175, which puts it onto most views that I might be working from, and at the top of most of them.

If you are talking about something that must be considered a task but that must be done at a specific date and time, I would need an example.

[Holmes245]

My problem with is may lie in the fact that I don't properly understand the GTD process. As I said, I'm still reading through the book but here is a simple use-case scenario of what I'm talking about:

I realize that I need to buy more milk as I'm out so I put that in my MLO inbox.  I know I need to do it this week but I don't know when at the moment so I enter it in MLO. When I get home and I'm doing my daily review, I see the 'Purchase milk" task and look at my calendar. I notice that it's something I can do in the morning since nothing scheduled until 1pm. What do I do? Do I enter "Buy milk" in my calendar for a specific time? If so, isn't that double entry? What do I do with the task in MLO? If the hard-dated task is part of a project that I did have to schedule, I would have to enter the task in my calendar. After it was done, do I check it off in MLO? 

I guess I don't like the double-entry aspect of anything that I would need to date on my calendar which is why I wish MLO would 2-way sync with Google Calendar or Outlook. Is this the proper way though that GTD would be worked out between a calendar and a task manager?

Joel

[Christoph Zwerschke]

Hi Joel,

the GTDish way would be to move the "buy milk" into a folder "errands"
and/or context "@groceries". Then whenever you go to the supermarket,
you look up that context as your shopping list. If you tend to forget to
go to the supermarket, you can add a recurrent task with a reminder to
MLO or to your calender.

Generally, the idea of GTD is to not schedule too much. You put
everything that absolutely needs to be done at a certain time (like
meetings) in your calendar. The rest remains flexible.

You pick the things that you want to do based on importance, urgency,
and current context. You also use other criteria such as available time,
you current mood, energy. (MLO has properties for "min time" and "max
time", and you can create contexts like "@tired" "@focused" for things
that can be done with low energy or that need high focus).

MLO helps you with views like "Next Actions by Context" to pick the
right action. If you like, you can pick the things you want to do today
with a star, and then work your day in the Starred View.

-- Chris

[Holmes245]

Thanks for responding Chris. Okay, I see what you're saying. That does correspond to what I've been reading so I will be making more use of the other features that MLO has had for this. I was using the starred view for actions I was currently focused on but I do like that idea of working my day out of the starred view. Thanks again Chris.

Joel