Hello Brian,
Sorry for the late reply from me - This is the first time I've taken a look at this forum for a few months.
I agree, it takes too much time and effort to estimate the duration of every task and then select a set of tasks to suit the amount of available time in the day. MLO isn't set up for time-blocking, although you might be able to synchronise task dates with Google Calendar and then drag and drop them into blocks in your calendar.
There is quite a lot of guidance and YouTube videos out there which suggest that time blocking in a calendar is more effective than To-Do lists, by the way.
Here's one workaround:
Rather than try to estimate exact durations for tasks, you could use flags or categories to categorise your task durations into:
- All-day (8h)
- Half-day (4h)
- Quarter-day (2h)
- 1h
- <20 minutes.
Generally, To-Do apps suggest that you plan your day each morning (or the evening before). They often have a system for you to click to select today's tasks.
In MLO, the simplest way to do your plan for the day would be to use the Star property to select that day's tasks. If you set up a view with tasks grouped by flag, sorted into due date order within each group, it would be easy to make sure you star no more than 1 all-day task, or 2 half-day tasks, or 4 quarter-day tasks, or 8 1h tasks (or a combination of these... or actually fewer tasks, because there's no way most people can stick to a plan which fills an 8h working day, when 25 - 75% of the day will be filled with unplanned stuff like calls, emergencies, ad-hoc meetings, etc). Before choosing tasks, subtract the number of hours already allocated to scheduled activities (meetings, travel, site visits) and routine daily activities (lunch, 1/2 hour catching up on calls, daily team scrum meeting, gym, journaling 1/2 hour, whatever else).
Most of the rest of the day, you'll then be going through and checking off the list in your "starred" view.
I hope those thoughts are useful.
Stéphane