Calendar View for MLO

[damoski]

Hi,

I was going to propose a calendar view, until I searched here and checked Uservoice, and realised it's already the most frequently-requested feature :-)

However - I wanted to extend this a little further, by proposing that the calendar view doesn't just show the deadline dates of the various tasks, but actually allows you to tentatively schedule some tasks for a certain day and even timeslot - and, going one step further - would allow you to view your prioritised ToDo list, and quickly and easily drag-and-drop the tasks into the free slots on your calendar (alongside your calendared appointments).

I keep reasoning that if I execute GTD correctly and use MLO correctly, then I should just be able to keep ticking off the 'next in the list', and everything will magically get done. However, the reality is that I often end up scheduling what I know I need to do, in that particular timeslot that I know I can do it in. At present, I often end up 'double-entering' (ie. re-writing the existing MLO task as a calendar appointment), to co-ordinate this. Using MLO flags up what I need to do on a day-by-day basis, but I'll still manually compile my 'Today' list from that, and then work on that.

Currently, I use a 'Today' context, and Starred view, for that, so I can quickly look at the Starred view on my phone, but every time I look at it, I still have to make that mental review of "OK, * task 6... was I going to do that before OR after the 3pm conference call?". Much better, if I can drop them directly into a calendar view for today, then glance at that.

Anyway, I've posted this as an idea on Uservoice:

http://mlo.uservoice.com/forums/9235-general/suggestions/3509561-close-the-gap-between-the-todo-list-and-the-schedu

Cheers!

Damian

[Greg.O]

He, he... good luck with that... Being a bit sarcastic here but calendar functionality has been requested over at least the last 4 years. There doesn't seem to be any willingness by the dev team to take this onboard unfortunately :(

Cheers, 

Greg

[Mark Levison]

Greg - Andrey has his moments he did however commit to this feature a while ago. Several problems strike me:

- There isn't common agreement on what this feature is - if you dig through the discussions on this list we don't see to have a clear understanding of what we want

- 4.0 Development and polishing seems to have taken a lot more of Andrey's time than we might have liked.

Upshot it hasn't been done yet.

Cheers

Mark

Agile Pain Relief Consulting | Writing
Proud Sponsor of Agile Tour Gatineau Ottawa Nov 28, Toronto 26 and Montreal 24

[Andrei]

I also like the to use calendars. Anyway, i think the following view can replace partially the calendar.
Some details:
The tasks with startdate=today have a red bar on the left. This red bar indicate the TODAY position.
The tasks are sorted by startdate.



среда, 2 января 2013 г., 16:57:32 UTC+2 пользователь damoski написал:

[Steven Brodson]

For me, this would be a huge functionality improvement.  I use MLO to track my tasks and responsibilities and then I use the calendar for scheduling and tactical planning (eg. deciding where certain tasks fit over the upcoming week).

I currently work between two tools - MLO and "The Calendar Planner" (see http://www.thecalendarplanner.com/).  The calendar is extremely useful for mapping out weeks or months into the future.  I build my calendar and then manually re-jigger the tasks in MLO so that they comply (it does have an xml import/export feature, but I've never spent the time to see if I can get data between the two).  If this functionality were bolted on to MLO....   Wow!

Steve

[Richard C]

Wooo - really like Calendar Planner.  I do something similar to you but just using the Outlook calendar.

 

However Calendar Planner  is close to what I would like to see in MLO in the longer term  (although it is missing, as far as I can see, anything that helps you calculate the amount of time that you have allocated to a particular day - I would also like to see elements of the Pomodoro technique included in the planning process).

 

What is interesting about Calendar Planner  that it shows how a task hierarchy view and a calendar view can work together.

 

However this would be a very major piece of work and I have some ideas as to how MLO could progressively move towards providing something like this - starting with some simple changes to the Group by Day view.  One of these days, when I have a moment, I will try and post some thoughts on this.

 

Richard

[damoski]

I just checked back to see what's changed in the last 18 months or so :-)

I've had a great, relaxing weekend, camping, hanging out on the beach, and getting all these great ideas that I've put into my MLO inbox and promised myself that THIS time, I'll get them done!  Now I just need to make that a fact... and I logged in to check whether there's any progress on making MLO a bit more helpful for me in that!

As always, the feature that I really miss from MLO is a calendar view. I DO see that the iPad v2 version proposes that there is one in development, with a tasks-per-day view.  That looks great.... but... I still need more.

You see, there's two ways of thinking about the calendar view. I presume most people are talking about being able to see the tasks in MLO that have a date and time, in their calendar, so that they can plan around them. Now, that's very handy - but it only really works for tasks you create that have fixed dates and times.

For me, the problem is completing the tasks that DON'T have an assigned date/time. What I need a calendar view for, is to be able to drag-and-drop *un*-dated/timed tasks that are highest priority in my list, INTO my calendar - to take the tasks that otherwise lurk in the background with no assigned timeslot, and fix them with a solid date/time in my calendar so that I commit myself to work on them!

It not only helps me to commit, it also helps me avoid planning to "do that tonight", forgetting that I'd already planned to do some other task tonight. Ideally, it would even force me to cancel meetings and appointments, to make way for more important tasks that I would otherwise only put in the gaps between those meetings.

I recently found yet another new app that comes close-ish. I saw a review for Timeful on Lifehacker: (http://lifehacker.com/timeful-intelligently-arranges-tasks-and-events-on-your-1616073913). While it looks nowhere sophisticated enough to replace MLO (nor is on Windows, etc), it does do one thing that I want to do - allow me to drag-and-drop tasks into specific timeslots (see 00:30 in the video). It even autolearns and autoplans - again, something I can do without - but in its place, having MLO consider the place/context that I will be at (and is open) when it auto-schedules, would be great!

Ideally, I could sit in the MLO interface and see all my calendars (synced from Outlook, say) in a day/week view, along with my next tasks by priority on the side. I could then drag-drop the tasks into the gaps in my calendar - maybe allow a few tasks to be dropped into the same timeslot (eg. "I'm going shopping from 10-12 tomorrow, and I need to do these things - in this order" // "I should call Marcel at 9am tomorrow, and I have these 5 different things from different projects to discuss with him"). 

At present, the best case is that in the evening I will look at the next MLO tasks, then switch to Outlook and create appointments for those tasks, to ensure they're scheduled in. It comes to the same end, but it requires me to manually transpose everything from MLO into Outlook, which a lot of additional manual effort. It also clutters my schedule, and requires switching between tools a lot.

I guess another way of saying it, is that I'm looking for a Gantt chart auto-integrated with my existing Outlook schedule, in a Calendar View! It would just be nice to be able to do all of this management in one tool - MLO - in a quick and productive way!

<cross posted to a few other relevant threads>

Damian

[Roberto Penzo]

Hi all.
I wish endorse this very interesting topic, as, starting from 15th of August, I am using the free Android app "EGO TIMER" (look at the free version) that exactly does this very fine (and it does this on the Google calendar synced!!), and I realized that THIS IS what I ever needed!
The most important point well highlighted by damoski is that I am very commited only when I can place some important tasks to be done, for instance, at the day Tuesday on 3pm for 30minutes, as after and before this I already placed other things (meetings or tasks). I experimented that this is the most committing way to GDT (=Get Things Done): this way I am able to build a very very realistic schedule for my time and I can remember the time details I wanted for the schedule, noto only a generic list of thinks.
It is meaningless to have a list of 57 tasks all at the top of the list if I have no feel of the "weight" of each task in terms of time need and if I do not remember the sequence I planned for them and the day and time: It would be similar to say "I wish to meet Ann" but I never took a real appointment with her!

The top of the MLO for me would be:

- a MLO 2.0 for Android with custom views on Android device (possibly importing some views from the desktop MLO rel).
- a feature to get a task and place on the MLO Calendar view (Google synced!) by navigating on the calendar searching for a free timeslot: on the calendar view I can check other appointments already placed and all the tasks already placed, so as to place tha task only on really free timeslots! Wonderful!

I think that the first app that perform this functions will win all the Award Winning of the world.

[Stéph]

Hello Damian,

I've been trying out Timeful on my iPhone.  I'm also a beta tester for MLO, so I've been playing with the timeline / calendar view in the iOS beta.

Timeful has some benefits - You can defer tasks with a single tap and it will reschedule them within the timeframe you've set for them. Incomplete tasks get carried forward and rescheduled. You can define "habits" (repeating tasks in MLO) and set how many times you're aiming to put them into practice each week. Items are sync'd with your calendar and you can even see a "tick" character in your iOS calendar when you check them off in Timeful. However, there's a lot it lacks, which makes it's suggested times for tasks generally wrong. For example, it has no way of taking account of your context (location) and allowing any time for travel - tasks are just placed immediately into any clear spaces in your calendar, running in immediately from any appointments you have.

I still find Timeful useful for scheduling timeslots in for important tasks, though I could easily do that by setting appointments straight into my calendar.

MLO's upcoming calendar view / timeline view / today view is going to be really useful.  I find myself working in that view a lot of the time. It gives me a count of appointments and tasks, though it doesn't take account of the duration of each event or task.  However, having them all in view and having a total count makes it much easier to see which days are likely to be overloaded.  For me, a total of 8 items (2 per 1/4-day) is an indicator of a busy day and 16 events + tasks scheduled for one day is a warning of overload.

I'll still schedule appointments in my calendar (or Timeful) for any big tasks or projects I want to progress, but otherwise the upcoming view makes a big difference to my management of my tasks.

Stéphane

[Pearl Huang]

looking forward to the calendar view too

在 2013年1月2日星期三UTC+8下午10时57分32秒，damoski写道：