Best Practice MLO concerning new feature Google Calendar Sync

[Frank]

The functionality of MLO enables it to use it it in many ways. And i know that users use it entirely differently. I myself use it differently compared to the first weeks. 

I like to have my appointments (calendar) in a list and place tasks around them. With the new Google Calendar Sync - Options this now becomes even easier. But there is a problem. I would like to place tasks without a startdate in a list which is sorted chronological  (by startdate). 

Is it somehow possible to arrange tasks without a startdate freely in a list sorted by startdate. I guess that would make sense and would allow users to use one list for appointments and tasks. Thanks for considering!

[Stéph]

The overall answer is no, you can't sort by a date with manual override at the same time. However, there is a way of doing it in two steps. I'm going to complicate my answer now:

It's an interesting philosophical question: By arranging them into a list sorted by start-date, you would effectively be giving them a start date.

MLO can't do what you're asking in one step (sort by start date but then override by manually moving items within the sorted list). However, if you have your Alt-F1 Views and Filter panes open, you can do it in two steps. Firstly, sort the list by start date. You can then go into the sort options for the filter and select manual sorting - from then on you can move your items without a start date to anywhere you like in your list.

The disadvantage of the above is that any new tasks won't automatically get sorted by start date, so you'd either have to position them manually, or go back to sorting by start date and lose all your manual adjustments.

Overall, my view is that a better option would be to give all tasks a start date (meaning the first date that you can do them, not the first date that you plan to do them - that second interpretation leads to a lot of adjusting dates and re-sorting). For tasks that you could start doing at any time, make the start date the same as the date you created them.  Of course, this might not work with whatever purpose you use a view sorted by start dates.

[Christoph Zwerschke]

Am 18.05.2018 um 10:44 schrieb Stéph:
> Overall, my view is that a better option would be to give all tasks a

> start date (meaning the first date that you /*can* /do them, not the
> first date that you */plan to /*do them

By the way, this is a general problem with nearly all todo managers -
they don't distinguish between "scheduled date" (date you plan to do a
task) and "start date" (earliest date you can work on the task). Most
don't even distinguish between due date (last date you can work on the
task) and start date, offering only one date field.

Of course, entering three dates makes everything more complicated. The
challenge lies in creating an interface that makes entering them easy.
Often you don't need to enter three different dates, so there should be
ways to enter only one date, and then differentiate in case of need. And
there should be ways to visualize tasks an move them on a time axis,
i.e. use of drag&drop, user-friendly calendar widgets, sliders etc. It's
time somebody comes up with a simple solution for that problem.

The worst thing is when fields are used inconsistently. Like in our
example, a start date on one task means earliest date and on another
task means scheduled date. Or an empty start date on one task means "can
start any time" (the task would be considered active), or on another
task means "has not yet started" (the task would be still inactive).
Once fields are used ambiguously, you can't create meaningful dynamic
views any more. Even inside MLO itself there is some inconsistency e.g.
in the formula for the computed score (used for ordering tasks), where
MLO interprets an empty due date as "today", which is usually not what
the user intended. Software should help people more in this regard by
making it crystal clear what every field means, and disambiguating edge
cases like empty dates.

Solving this problem would be in my view more helpful than any other
improvement or addition of features.

-- Christoph

[MOK | MATSURU]

Maybe we can use these workaround?

01. put date at the beginning of task name & sort by task name -> 2018.05.19 Wash Car

02. Put date in TextTag & group by TextTag.

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[Frank]

I don´t see my wish as a kind of illogical inconsistence like Steph see´s it. Actually i found it more logical that tasks without a startdate would not be sorted. Maybe this feature can be supported in the future. That would be great. 

Sorry but any advice to put in a startdate/time is way to slow for me. Appointments are fixed. But the tasks around i arrange via ALT + SHIFT + Cursor Up/Down. 

Please keep in mind that all appointments synced with google calendar appearing in the inbox already appear in the right order (the later, the lower) even without Sorting enabled. The problem is that every new appointment appear at the end. Those new ones have to be sorted manually. 

Also a very important future would be to have different sortoptions in different folders. 

[Mun Thung Lew]

For me I am a complicated user (that's why MLO suit me good), I would like to see 4 essential date fields in MLO5 as below, so as to fulfill my own productivity approach/style 

1. Plan start date (this one is already there in the software: Start date)
   
2. Plan due date (this is also the same, already there: Due date)
   
3. Actual start date (this one is missing I believe someone would agree me too ^^" )
   
4. Actual due date (once I mark the task complete, so there will be actual completed date)
   

My productivity theory is always plan the start and due date, and these may change according to the needs, especially I work with others.

In many years back before I use MLO, I used paper/notebook to track all my tasks, and I log my actual start and due date too. I transferred the details into excel to help analyse my productivity pattern by comparing Plan and Actual dates, weekly and monthly. With these data, I generate chart similar to "Today View" across the timeline to compare what I plan and what actually did. With these reflection, I could have a better understanding of my situation and make improvements.

If MLO5 could have another start date field (e.g. time logging function), I think I could easily export these details to excel for my own review.

Regards,

LEW

[Nick Clark]

Your Plan dates are incompatible with the existing dates so would need to be additional too. In particular the current Due Date in GTD terms is the last date after which the task is no longer valid.