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lite1 |
Posted Jun 30, 2009 in: Toodledo gets Kudo's on Lifehacker
Score: 0
I guess we should expect an influx of new users. I hope that they do some work on their own with the TD help pages which really do a good job of covering virtually all of the basics and a number of more advanced aspects of features.
While the Search feature on TD has recently been improved, quite frankly IMO, it is still primitive. This makes it harder for newbies and old timers to sort thru the excellent wealth of info on the forums and find their own answers to things that have been discussed clearly once, and oftentimes more than once. Hope that Anders, TD, and the rest of us can make it a smooth introduction to the new users that we should be expecting. Edward |
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Posted Jun 28, 2009 in: The length of the "Folder Name" field
Score: 0
Campion ... I don't use things in mobile env. so cannot comment other than that others on forum have used PI and given it up in favor of TDs native app for iPhone, so hopefully they might comment. However sticking with the two apps you already use and looking for workarounds might be best strategy giving your needs and goals.
Edward |
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Posted Jun 27, 2009 in: The length of the "Folder Name" field
Score: 0
Posted by lkpcampion:
Posted by Toodledo: ... The constraint really limits the GTD practice in this regard. Campion I strongly recommend that you consider a Pro subscription. Most of us who adhere to at least 80% of GTD principles find that the ability to have Parent & Subtasks opens vast opportunities (not only for GTD) but any approach. Many but not all those with Pro (regardless of whether they follow GTD or not)choose to use Folders for areas of focus/responsibility; Parent tasks as projects and subtasks for the actions needed to accomplish the project. Try the free Pro trial; at only $15/year if you are serious about using TD and GTD you will probably never look back. The limitation of Folder name length will drop by the wayside if you follow the above. DO some reading on the forum on handling projects both within the GTD subforum and elsewhere for ideas. Edward |
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Posted by Big KC:
... I assign one of these contexts to everything that I consider a "Next Action". I don't use the status field. If it has one of these contexts, it's a Next Action. If it doesn't it's not. I also have the following two contexts that are not really contexts in the GTD sense: zSomeday zWaiting This way, I can maintain maintain my someday/maybe list and my waiting list without using the Status field. It saves some trouble for data entry. I use context pretty consistently. In fact, since I don't use the status field, the only way I can access my Next Actions is to look at my contexts. Thx for good clear post Big KC on how you use Context. Perhaps we share a similar motivation to simplify data entry and use the strategy of eliminating the number of fields that we use (and in my case even display on screen). While I do make feature requests of TD, a number of them are along the lines of making entry quicker, OR making it quicker easier to hide data that for the moment is clutter - so in latter respect I am really using DA principle of "context" filtering even though I do not use Context field at all. I only quoted the part which is relevant to another thread that I had started under Tips/Tricks: Use fields to do it your way - not TDs definition of field http://www.toodledo.com/forums/3/2253/0/use-fields-to-do-it-your-way-not-tds-definition-4-field.html I wish there were an easier way to cross reference things in the Forum; often times something posted in Questions quickly becomes an excellent Tip/Trick; or GTD sub-forum info is really not unique in anyway to GTD as "context". Appreciate the open structure of TD and the creativity/personal style in how users sculpt as a tool to fit their personal environment. Edward This message was edited Jun 26, 2009. |
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Posted Jun 25, 2009 in: Make Folder View work like Manage Folders for Archived Folders
Score: 0
Understand what you want. Here is link of how TD says it works http://www.toodledo.com/info/help.php?search=archive
Seems like it is still showing/displaying bec you have tasks/subtasks that are "not completed" - they are really pending or in suspense. Until TD might consider this a priority (and for me personally it'd be quite low as I do not use Folders for Projects and only have 9 Folders and none that I'd want to archive/hide) here is a suggestion: The ones that you do not want to see or get out of the way, rearrange you list of folders and put these at the bottom so they will display at the far right of your screen and be easier to ignore. However I can imagine that if you have 40 folders that they wrap in some way and that you still end up with a lot of screen clutter. The only other thing I might suggest is to search on all the tasks that are incomplete and tag them "remove this tag when you unarchive me" and then mark all of these as "complete". This will satisfy the TD requirement for them to NOT display; and then reverse the process and remove that tag when you want them. Of course I'd export everything before undertaking this just in case "restoring" things to an uncompleted status does not work as smoothly as I'd hope. Good luck, Edward |
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One of the many things I value from David Allen is that the verb/action must be visible. If I am in doubt whether I have it right I ask myself "Would an someone else looking at me know that that I am doing something?"
Make decision on trip to Texas does not work. Write out pros/cons re: trip to Texas is better Plan next meeting presentation does not work Call Jerry re: determine roles each will take during next presentation is better I guess the other thing that I have been trying to do along these lines is to make a note to myself of what the deliverable is even if I am delivering just to myself; OR how will I know that the task/subtask is completed. Picturing the desired outcome paves the way for it happening easily and clearly. So deliverables might be: paragraphs written in word that list pros/cons for a particular decision. Hand written notes of phone call (or face-to-face) with Jerry as to who is doing what, in what order, and for what length of time at the next meeting/presentation. |
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lite1 |
Posted Jun 25, 2009 in: We have improved our forum searching
Score: 0
This is a slight improvement, thank you. Given the sophistication and relative ease of use of the Advanced Search for TD tasks, the still primitive state for searching forum (or a selected group of sub-forums)is a bit puzzling. YET I trust the priorities that TD sets, which generally work well across all the users that you are trying to please/respond to.
Could we at least get a basic OR search for the forums within the next 12 months? I know it is probably on your TD list so no need to take time responding. Edward |
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Since hotlist is one of the things that you can rcv as email, using one of TDs overall strengths - customization - having more options for hotlist criteria would be quite useful and hopefully quick/easy for TD to implement. I'd really appreciate a more flexible "hotlist query" so that AND, OR etc. would be operators.
Perhaps ideal (in terms of flexibility) would be that user could do any advanced search they wanted. When this is saved and named Hotlist, this would automatically be the settings used in your account settings area. Edward |
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Proximo, glad that the post was helpful. Great forum community which is truly the best add-on for TD. Edward
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Note this post does not offer any specific or even general solutions to the calendar issues.
Given the TD strong user commitment to and support of TD as shown with the increased financial commitment to TD bec of the way in which TD responded to the recent power outage and downtime, I'd love to see the TD user community "choose" one of the strategies out there and get behind it. Unfortunately this whole area of task management, email, calendar, and stand alone is so much more complex than the old "wars" of whether VHS or Beta would win out. There was a thread here (I think on Off topic chit chat) asking what other software than TD do people use daily. While there is a lot of overlap there is significant divergence as one might expect. Personally I love both the philosophy of Mozilla and its products/add ons, and am dedicated to Firefox and Thunderbird and make annual contributions. I understand that Sunbird (and I would expect by implication Lightning)has suffered slow development due to poor donation support. I think that is unfortunate. In addition there are several significant contributors to the quasi GTD and productivity approaches that strongly recommend that turning off your email client and checking it at most 2-4 times/day is preferable. If I knew how much TD devel time it would take to improve the TD internal calendar and what would come of that investment of time versus that same amount of time and whether it would get us for example manual re-ordering of subtasks (or task dependencies), or one more level of hierarchy, or get us an offline app - then I could more intelligently "vote" on where I'd prefer to see TD put its time. While I'd like the internal TD calendar to be improved, I'd make lots of other task management features a much higher priority than that one. Edward |
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Posted by Toodledo:
But for now, you could use Google to search our forums if you want advanced search. Just add "site:http://www.toodledo.com/forums" to the end of any search in Google to restrict the results to our site. I do that all the time for TD forums, however as I am sure you know it is a poor work-around for a good search within the forum area designed by TD. E.G. would be helpful to search in just two of the sub-forums etc. Personally I'd rate a good forum search as a moderately high priority for TD. It would cut down on some of the repetitive ?s on the forum as users (and perhaps especially new ones) could fish for themselves and find the answers rather it taking Anders time or TD time. I think that the payback in saved TD time might be significant and would be a major improvement to the forums. As the forums grow in usage managing the information that is here will become an increasing challenge and opportunity. Edward |
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Posted Jun 24, 2009 in: Forum Moderator and some improvements
Score: 2
Posted by Toodledo:
To support our first moderator, Anders' name is now highlighted with a star to bring attention to his helpful posts. In addition, there is now some additional information on people's profile pages. The "Karma" line represents how helpful someone is in these forums. It is based on the thumbs up/down voting records for that person's posts. Good move, Anders has been very helpful to me when I 1st started TD 8 weeks ago. I expect this great forum of users will take seriously the thumbs up and down as meaning that the post adds a meaningful contribution to the discussion of that thread. If I understand the TD intention, it is not a vote of agreement or disagreement with the post. I think that it is important for the community to have clarity on this, just as in "doing work" it is helpful to be clear on "urgency" and "importance". Edward Added in edit: P.S. Personally I have never liked up/down on forums as I rarely see it being used in a consistent and meaningful way and it can turn into a vote of liking/disliking the person rather than evaluating the contribution that a post makes to the discussion. B4 I purchase/commit to bringing software into my life or business I always spend hours reading the forum, and the TD forum has always impressed me with the general level of respect, helpfulness, and intelligent discussion - I'm sure that we can keep it that way. I'd also suggest that the OP should be evaluated on the basis of its clarity,completeness of information, and that the Thread title chosen is a good summary - all of these things help other users by allowing them to decide whether to open the thread; find things through search; and in responding to a Question or Tip because the boundaries of the topic have been delineated. Sorry, this is probably overkill, however I really care about this forum. This message was edited Jun 24, 2009. |
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I do that for subtasks as you write. For my parent tasks
+PARENT TASK EXAMPLE I start them with a + sign so if I see them without their subtasks I know immediately that there is "more"; visually I do not find the TD icon for Parent and for Subtask to be a great visual clue as the two icons have about the same gray scale value. I put the parent in CAPS so that it stands out in display. Edward |
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I don't use Context at all, don't even display it as a field on my screen, and also simplifies my Task entry.
I utilize perhaps 80-90% of GTD and am fairly new to it. For me one of the main insights is that one should manage actions (not time); and hence having a reliable system that supports deciding on Next Actions to take is vital. While I have several areas of focus in my life for which I use Folders; and Projs are Parent Tasks most of the time I am at the office where I always have computer (and therefore email), phone, and in our small office the people for whom I might have an agenda are within 30 feet. At home I always have phone and computer, email and other tools close by. I guess I do have one context, a folder that I call Zapp which is combo of tasks that are either for when I am at low energy, or that are fairly quick (< 10 minutes); usually none have a great deal of Priority/Importance and yet knocking off a bunch of these Zapp items usually gives me a sense of accomplishment and leads to an energy boost. So far I also find that I can by with very limited use of Tags; yet I have several hundred tasks in TD and the weekly review which DA suggests should take an hour to 2 hours to do is also a key. My goal is to keep my use of GTD and implementing it thru TD as simple as possible but not too simple. So far I just find little value for Context and while I can envision a life where it would be a great asset, for me it would be foolish to emulate it simple because it works for DA and the people he coaches. Edward |
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You should be able to type "n" to start the process of creating a new task and this puts you in the Task Name field. Tab to whatever fields you wish to utilize. After the last field that you wish to use for data, simply press "enter" to save the task. You do not need to click the "add" button. I agree that moving back and forth between keyboard and mouse is inefficient. There are many requests for adding a lot more key board shortcuts and I hope/expect that more will be added in time. You might be interested in this recent thread on keyboard shortcuts and searching forum on same subject http://www.toodledo.com/forums/2/2248/0/shortcut-keys.html
Edward |
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Posted Jun 21, 2009 in: What's your favorite perhaps not so obvious TD feature/behavior
Score: 0
5) Keyboard shortcuts for choosing item in drop down Just type the first letter of the item e.g in Status type A to select Active type N for Next Action. If you are dealing with the Sort area then using Tab and the first letter can allow you to quickly change the sort. E.G. Cursor in first sort menu then type... f tab p tab sss tab enter will sort things on Folder Priority Status.
Edward P.S. You probably have also seen that the Sort dropdown choices themselves do not sort by Alpha which makes it harder to find what you want, but perhaps gives some insight into how the TD developers think and structure TD. To me often, they make good choices. This message was edited Jun 21, 2009. |
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Posted Jun 21, 2009 in: Use fields to do it your way - not TD's definition 4 field
Score: 5
I will describe how I use Due Time as part of Due Date to help me keep Urgency separate from Importance, but the more general Tip is as follows:
There are probably fields that you do not use, or never use part of them (for example in Status you might rarely if ever use Reference or Someday or Canceled). The Tip is to assign a personal meaning to when you do use these that is not the TD intention for them. By starting to use fields that were not previously used by you, you might be able to organize, sort, or have information displayed that adds power to your TD use. My use of Due Time I am not a night owl and so a Due Time of 1:11am is a flag to me that it is NOT part of my hard landscape for my calendar. While I follow much of GTD, I adapt it to my needs and therefore often use Due Date with Due Time. The Due Time acts as a modifier for the Due Date 1:11am ... the Due Date should not be missed as there are dire consequences if missed e.g. birthdays; tax deadline 2:22am ... Take Due Date very seriously; should be able to accomplish these at least 95% of the time; consider very carefully why I am wanting to renegotiate with myself or with others the Due Date 3:33am ... Take Due Date seriously; shoot to hit these at least 80% of the time; flexibility to postpone is OK but not preferred 4:44am and 5:55am you get the idea of a progression After choosing a Due Date then tab and simply type "111" and TD will fill in 1:11am. I have my fields displayed Task Name | Tag | Status | Due Date/Due Time and on my screen since I dedicate so much room to Task Name the Due Time entry is at the extreme right of my screen before I'd need to scroll and so if I want to know Urgency of things it is easy to see. As a way of keeping track of whether I am meeting my 111 and 222 and 333 goals for accomplishing in that time frame, only if I postpone the due date then I add to the task name at the end how much I slipped things. Then if I review a large number of completed 222 Due Time tasks I have informal stats on my success rate. ===== While some people use Priority as a combination of Urgency and Importance, I prefer to keep Urgency as a more clear category in Due Time which allows Priority for me to a pure category of Importance. While I occasionally look at TD's calculation of Importance ( a mixture of importance/urgency), I find it better in most cases to see them separately. Some people also use Star as part of their marking items and boosting their Importance; but I tend to use Star as a way of manually selecting several tasks (often from different folders)as a way to create a listing of likely Next Actions for the next 2 hours. Edward This message was edited Jun 21, 2009. |
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As a tool, TD is increasingly used by me in my life, and I appreciate that I can customize it (what fields I use/display; their sequence; and etc), and that in general it is fairly quick, easy, and relatively intuitive to use. I have suggested additional shortcut keys as this is the fastest way for me to work. To me what underlies Vin's post is this: What are the repetitive things that I and perhaps most TD users do repeatedly? For this list of things, is there a modification to how TD currently allows that to happen - or is there an alternate way to do that that can be added to TD? The second grouping are things that TD does not yet allow for and which I am "working around" and would love to see added. For me moving back and forth between keyboard and mouse is time consuming and has potential for muscle-joint injury. I do not use TD on mobile device hence do not understand that entry/display environment. Hope Vin considers my suggested organization to his OP a friendly idea.
1A) Can currently do in TD, but want alternative 01 Vin - Navigate Task list with arrow keys 02 Vin - Expand/collapse parent tasks 03 Edward - add Subtask: provide SCK (we have N for new Parent, but nothing for add subtask) 04 Edward - Notes: display/hide note content for just one task at a time with short cut key (current Note toggle requires mouse and since I use alot of notes, the screen gets pretty hard to navigate/understand with all notes toggled open). 05 Edward - Completion: provide SCK to mark as completed (isn't this what it is all about, getting to finished!) 06 Edward - Delete task: provide SCK to allow deletion. 1B) Can currently do in TD, but modify the method 01 Edward - Deletion: currently it is two mouse clicks since there is no SCK. At least allow in account settings that one can turn off that you must confirm each deletion. 02 Edward - Due/Start Date and Due/Start Time There are already simple keyboard abbreviations for quick entry: Would like to enter & have TD make this 25 ...25th of current month 12n ...12th of next month 210p ...2:10pm 1410 ...2:10pm or 14:10 15r ...15th of current month & repeat monthly 17rq ...17th of month & repeat quarterly 03 Edward - Tags: Others have suggested some auto fill-in approach so tag entry is much faster; probably same applies for Contexts 2) Can not currently do in TD - must use work around 01 Vin - Rearrange tasks with ctrl+arrow keys Edward ====== Vin as regards 1A)01 Under some circumstances there is some possibility of keyboard navigation of tasks. If you have a Parent Tasks with numerous subtasks, THEN if you are on a subtask you can use shift+tab to move up the subtasks above it. This allows for editing the subject information for all subtasks above the one you are on without leaving the keyboard. Of course Tab moves you horizontally within a given subtask. I find shift+tab helpful at times. ======== To TD I believe that you recently added ctrl+r as SCK for screen refresh, however this is NOT in the Help documentation. This message was edited Jun 21, 2009. |
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As with prior event, thanks for your direct, honest, and transparent keeping the users informed way of doing business. Greatly appreciated. Since the prior event got me to schedule in TD doing back ups of my own data, I can take all of this in stride.
Edward |
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Posted Jun 20, 2009 in: Why discrepancy bet. hotlist email & online hotlist?
Score: 0
Thanks ... what TD did seems to have fixed things.
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