Designating want vs. must do

[Adam Lasnik]

Hey there,

I have used MLO forever, but sadly only scratched a tiny bit of the
surface. Yet I'm still planning on trying / upgrading to 3.0.

Perhaps you can help me with a longtime conundrum of mine re: tasks
and MLO. I tend to have an overly optimistic idea of what I can or
might accomplish in a given day. And then there are those things that
MUST be done on or by a certain day.

Examples:

[want] - Ooo, found new site example.com, check it out sometime
(hmm, maybe I'll have time this Saturday? I'll put it on my to-do
list for Saturday)

[must] - ZOMG! Parents dropping by this Sunday. Clean place!!!
(okay, this *has* to get done by Saturday)

I'm guessing there are many ways to enter or organize tasks in MLO to
distinguish between the want to do / check out sometime vs. the gotta
positively absolutely have this done by [x] date... without cluttering
one's daily view too much.

I'm curious to hear what *you* do and how you manage this :)

- Adam

[Nick.Ross.UK]

I'd use due dates to distinguish.

If I the world will blow up if I don't clean the place on saturday (or
in my case, mow the lawn!) then I put in a due date
If I could get away with not cleaning the place on saturday, then I
don't put in a due date (just a context @Home)

That way - if I have some free time on the saturday (as my wife is
watching ER), I'll have a look at things I could do and then decide
accordingly.

HTH

Nick

[Christo]

Adam,

I use a combination of Getting Things Done, Do It Tomorrow and
Autofocus (Mark Forster). You can get a good idea what they all do by
looking them up on Google. from GTD I use the management of incoming
tasks and emails by gathering, processing and reviewing actions
regularly. From DIT I use the idea of closed lists, doing a little bit
of work often (on large tasks) and putting anything that comes in
today into a placeholder spot for later. From Autofocus I use the
subconscious work of the mind by using MLO to remind me of options for
tasks for the day. MLO helps my mind remember the context: is this
routine work, something with a hard deadline, something that I should
be doing while I am running errands, a phonecall I can make when I
have a moment, an Agenda item to discuss with my boss etc. which
allows me to have short bursts of opportunistic production as well as
focusing on the things that MUST get done today.

Have a look at the Autofocus system by Mark Forster. I incorporate a
lot of his thinking into the basic Getting Things Done - Zoom for
Focused Action template, by creating "&Page xx" contexts which I use
as an electronic notebook. It takes the idea of closed lists and your
brains ability to prioritise better than any ranking system out there,
and combines it in a useful fashion.

I use the "&" symbol in the "& Page x" context as it sorts it directly
under !!SameDay and !Dashboard in the to do list context filter. Once
I have assigned a fixed number of tasks to a &Page, I create a new
&Page context (&Page 1, &Page 2, ...). I tend to put approx 30 tasks
in a page context, as that is what shows on my screen without
scrolling and I can check the whole list in a glance and pick the
tasks that inspire me :) The feeling when you close out the last task
on a "Page" is quite rewarding!

For things that need to be completed today I use a !!SameDay context
if I get given them today (i.e. urgent), or a !QuickList context if I
feel the need to focus on hammering through a list of easy to do
simple actions. For things with a specific due date I might also add
the @Hardlandscape context. It all sounds very complex, and can
probably be simplified. The key lies in the discipline of doing a few
simple things every morning.
1. Spend a fixed amount of time on the "Current initiative". Before I
open email, MLO, company intranet homepage or anything else more
interesting on my computer, I pick a task related to something that is
important right now, and work on it until I had enough of it e.g. if
current initiative is "Clean house by Saturday" I will set a timer for
15 minutes and do some cleaning. Then I will stop and move to the next
task = do little and often. Then I park the task for tomorrow (Do a
little at a time). You might even reward yourself for doing this by
allowing yourself to spend 10 minutes looking at that new website -
again using the timer and sticking to it :)
2. Scan email inbox for urgent tasks that have to be added to the !!
SameDay context in MLO - seldom more than one per day / most can be
left until tomorrow. Move all the rest of the emails to "Closed list"
email folder for processing during the course of the day. Close inbox.
Any other emails coming in today will be scanned at lunch and late
afternoon for urgent emails, but processed tomorrow (Do It Tomorrow
approach). For me this is a big procrasination trap, having email open
and just quickly checking if something more interesting than doing the
month-end budget report has come in.
3. Then open MLO, check all active tasks in the contexts
@Hardlandscape, !!SameDay, !ClosedList, !Dashboard. This 5 minutes
scan gives me a first feel of what I should focus on today. I might
even scan through the first &Page x for more inspiration. Chances are
by now my mind has worked out what the next important thing is to work
on, and I just go with the flow (Autofocus system at work). Obviously
tasks on the @Hardlandscape and !!SameDay lists tend to drift to the
top of the mental pile (Project: clean house) . The same principle
applies as the current initiative. Work on a specific task until I get
bored, and then park it for tomorrow. The benefit of this system is
that I tend to start working on tasks before they get urgent, and
decrease the number of times last minute rush - but I am not perfect
yet :) One of my tasks in Daily routines (which shows up under the
Dashboard context) is to clear the list of emails in the "Closed list"
email folder, so I attack emails in a structured fashion.
4. Go back to MLO as often as I need to to pick the next interesting
task on the list.
Any new tasks that come in during the day (meetings, thinking, emails
etc.) gets parked in the MLO inbox (GTD gathering spot). One of my
morning routine tasks is to clear out the MLO inbox and assign tasks
to projects or contexts. I prefer to let them lie in the inbox
overnight as I often have a better idea what to do with it the next
morning - this might include deleting stuff that sounded like a good
idea at the time.
5. One of the afternoon routines is to check that I have cleared the !!
SameDay list. Because I know that I WILL look here every day, I tend
to also assign this context to the most important tasks that I HAVE to
complete today - this ensures that I do not forget (or at least most
of the time).

It boils down to knowing my own procrastination habits and putting a
few easy traps in my day - I mean, how hard can it be to just quickly
look at the !!SameDay list, without actually committing to doing
anything on it ;) The other major tool I have is to run MLO on my
Windows Mobile PDA / very useful to scan through the various task
lists while having a cup of coffee to remind my brain what is on
offer :) Autofocus again.

I also tried the Getting Things Done - Zones of Focus template.
Although it did not work for me in the end, the way he builds up the
various contexts (Must do, Should Do, Could do) by adding in more and
more contexts is a very useful way to understand how to use contexts
to help you focus on the important stuff - the only catch is that you
must sometimes look at the complete list to pick up tasks that are not
caught by any of the contexts, or fall off the bottom of the list.
This is where the closed list idea of Do It Tomorrow works for me. I
can see ALL the tasks on one Page context on my screen, and have a
report that ensures that I do not have any active tasks that are not
assigned a page context (topic for a seperate post?)

A long answer for a short question? I hope it is useful. I know it
also makes me sound terribly structured and retentive - actually I am
a very chaotic thinker, and having a relatively simple set of routines
which are easy to do, with a complex outline & set of filters which is
intellectually pleasing to set up and maintain, but not so much fun
that I spend all my time playing with it, is working for me at the
moment.

regards, Christo

[Martin.G]

Thanks for a really helpful post - just curious, what do you use the !
Dashboard context for?

[jamesx4]

I put Due Dates on things that NEED to happen on certain days or for
commitments I've made to other people (or to myself sometimes). In GTD
terms, these represent my "hard landscape". But I use MLO's Weekly
Goals to mark things I'd like to get done this week that are undated.
I've created a custom view that basically includes Incomplete tasks
with Due Dates OR that are marked as Weekly Goals. I Group that view
by Due Date, Ascending. I sort the View by Due Date (ascending),
Urgency (descending) and Importance (descending). This gives me a
nice view with my Weekly Goals at the top and each day of the Week
with it's corresponding tasks sorted by Urgency and then Importance.

In my setup, I'd set that "Check out new website" task to Weekly Goal,
no due date. And I'd set "Clean house before folks come" to Saturday,
Urgency high, Importance low (cause after all if the house ain't clean
nobody's gonna' die!). In custom view, I'd be able to see both, but
they'd clearly be separated by the Grouping. The first one would show
up under a group called "(none)", the second would show up in a group
called "Saturday(May 30)".

[Christo]

Martin,
My dashboard context picks up the contexts related to Daily, Weekly
Monthly, Seasonal, annual routine tasks, Hot Spots, @Calls,
@Hardlandscape (deadlines). It contains things such as
- Process MLO inbox (morning routines)
- Work down closed email list to zero (afternoon routine that helps
keep email under control)
- check calendar for tomorrow (evening routines)
- file office papers (weekly on Wed) :)
- buy Mother's day presents (in Sweden it is the last sunday of May)
- wash car (also included in the @Errands context, to optimize my
route for going to get all done)
- spend 15 minutes on Swedish language homework - just started
learning swedish, so need to be reminded every day to do a bit of
homework (to avoid the crunch on Sunday evening before the lesson)
... etc.

So it is a sort of a reminder list of both routine tasks (especially
the ones that are not every day or regular occurrences), phone calls
and deadlines, and form the backbone of a normal day. At any given
time there could be 30-50 tasks on there, which I can filter by
zooming into the Work folder or the Home folder in outline view - an
excellent way to see everything I have to do or focus on work only if
I am at the office.

Things on here can be skipped if there are more important tasks in
some of the other lists, but the vast majority of them are very simple
5-10 minute actions. Part of it is a bit trivial, but it gives me the
pleasure of ticking off many small things as completed each day, which
is part of the reward for sticking to the routines - sad but true! It
is also an excellent way to pick up a new habit. At the moment I have
a task in morning routines called "Drink Vitamins" in my Home Morning
routines as this is something I keep forgetting to do. Many of my
other productivity habits (scan for urgent email and then close inbox)
started out as a task in a daily routine list somewhere, or are still
there as reminders.

As an aside, I try to follow the approach of Empty your Head in
Getting Things Done. This basically means getting absolutely
everything that you need to remember into a system so that your mind
is uncluttered with worries about the things you are forgetting and
can focus on the task at hand. I feel no guilt to mark a task as
complete without having done it if it is no longer relevant, or
skipping an occurrence of a routine task as circumstances demand, or
just deleting it after a few weeks if it turns out I am still not
doing it regularly. It took me years to break free from the idea that
all tasks in my to do list have to be completed - also something Mark
Forster promotes in the Autofocus system. :)

According to the Pocket PC version the to do list contains 710 items,
presumably including the whole structure of folders and subfolders &
projects to hold subtasks. 115 of these are recurrent items (i.e.
routine activities) with their subtasks.
Again example. The delightful task "Morning routines are done!"
contains 5 subtasks (current initiative, process email inbox and
close, process MLO inbox, process voicemail, check Tickler list) which
all have to be completed for it to show in the dashboard. This task is
part of the project [Daily Work] and is set to recur every weekday. So
the dashboard shows [PRJ: Daily work] Current initiative and 4 other
tasks. When they are all ticked, it shows [PRJ: Daily work]: Morning
routines are done! which is a delight to tick. When I tick this one as
complete, it recreates itself with all its subtasks for tomorrow (like
magic! GRIN). It is then relatively easy to add a task to morning
routine *or take it away or move it to afternoon rouitnes* without
having to fiddle with recurrence settings and all that jazz.

The question then would be why do I have all these sub contexts -
morning, mid day, afternoon, evening, Monday, Tue, Wed, Thu etc. By
setting the open hours of these contexts and the contexts of the tasks
themselves appropriately, my dashboard does not show me routine tasks
that are not relevant for now. I start the day with a relatively short
list which grows as the day goes by if I do not tick them off. My list
at the beginning of the week is also fairly short because routine
tasks for Tue, Wed etc. are not yet showing. Tasks from last week that
I have not completed or skipped an occurrence on also do not show up
until it is their turn again. This is one of the most powerful uses of
MLO for me, as the dashboard tends to show only routine tasks which
are relevant for now. Again the default templates have some excellent
starter lists in to build your routines from - mine is approximately
60% adopted and 40% homegrown.
Some examples
- publish weekly intranet update is a Monday routine task which also
includes the Tue context. So if for some reason I cannot publish it on
Monday it shows in Tue dashboard as one day overdue. By Wed it
disappears from the dashboard, as the opportunity will have passed and
has to wait for next week.
- take out all trash bags is a Tue home routine task which only shows
up on Tue, as the collection happens on Wed morning.
- check calendar for tomorrow is an Work Evening routine task that is
set to recur on Sun, Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu (I do not need to be reminded
on Fri and Sat to see what the next day's work holds for me).
... etc.

On May 26, 7:29 am, "Martin.G" <Martin.Gledh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks for a really helpful post - just curious, what do you use the !
> Dashboard context for?

--- deleted the old stuff below

[Adam Lasnik]

Nick, Christo, James, thanks SO much! This will take me a while to
digest, but I have no doubt that several of the nuggets will come in
handy.

And I'm already really loving the 3.0 version of this app. Even
simple things like the ability to autoformat bold my higher priority
items are useful! :)

Anyway, thanks again for the massive fodder of options to consider;
that is going on my todo list for this weekend :-)

Take care...

- Adam