ForumsQuestionsSorting goals intelligently


Sorting goals intelligently
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dandockery

Posted: Dec 04, 2011
Score: 2 Reference
I'm beginning to try to get serious about using the goals system built into the toodledo framework but I've run into a roadblock. When setting up my goals, I can structure them into a meaningful hierarchy: lifetime goals, long-term goals that support them, and short-term goals that support the long-term goals. I then want to be able to assign tasks that relate to the short term goals. The problem is that when I go to assign a goal to a task, all that beautiful organizational structure that toodledo permits in the goals tab just evaporates. All of my lifetime, long-term, and short-term goals appear in the drop-down menu as a single list, in alphabeticaal order. Perversely, this discourages use of the lifetime/long-term/short-term organizational structure, because doing so results in numerous goals (each goal should be linked to at least two others), which all then clutter up the goals drop-down menu and render it unworkable.

There are a few options I can imaging that would solve this. In the Goals tab, there are right now check boxes for "Archive" and "Private." Another check-box could be added for "Hide when Assigning Goals." Any goal with this box checked would not appear in the drop-down menu when assigning goals. Another possibility would be to have the drop-down menu sort the goals not in alphabetical order, but instead by hierarchy: All short-term goals first (alphabetical); All long-term goals next (alphabetical); and all lifetime goals last (alphabetical). Short-term goals should appear first on the list becuase anyone who is bothering to use all three levels of the goals system is going to want to primarily assign tasks to short-term goals.

Anyway, I hope this is a feature you can implement one day. That, and true "sharing" of tasks (so that they appear on both Pro User's lists, for either one to complete) would pretty much make Toodledo perfect. As it is, Toodledo is miles ahead of the competition, but hopefully you'll keep working to make it even better :)

Thanks,
Dan
clive.hannah

Posted: Dec 04, 2011
Score: 2 Reference
I share this same sentiment for using goals within its hierarchy and also the zest for using ToodleDo to get organized and stay organized.

A quick fix for the UI may be to at least display the short-term goals at the top of the drop-down's ordering, ahead of the other longer-term goals.

I am only adding tasks to short-term goals as well, and using the goals edit screen to manage the hierarchy.
dandockery

Posted: Dec 05, 2011
Score: 1 Reference
Agree, if the drop-down menu for selecting goals when creating a task would simply display all short term goals first (then long-term, then lifetime), that would be a huge help. While it would be ideal to be able to "hide" certain goals from appeaaring in that list at all, I understand that would be difficult because it would require coding new data to be associated with each goal. Adjusting the drop-down menu to display short-term goals first, however, should just be a UI tweak because it relies entirely on existing data.
Purveyor

Posted: Dec 05, 2011
Score: 2 Reference
I've come up with something that works, sort of.
I've added numbers at the beginning of the name of the Goal: 1 for short-term goals, 2 for long-term, and 3 for lifetime. The Goals are now sorted based on the number. e.g "3 - Stay healthy and fit".

I don't like using a kludge because it often ends up being a lot of work to maintain, but in this case it's pretty easy because there are relatively few Goals (compared to the number of tasks) and they don't change much. But, it's clear to me that the Goals section of Toodledo can be improved to make it more effective and easier to use.


This message was edited Dec 05, 2011.
Jake

Toodledo Founder
Posted: Dec 05, 2011
Score: 0 Reference
Thanks for the suggestions. We can't comment on a timeframe for implementation, but these are on our to-do list.
dandockery

Posted: Dec 06, 2011
Score: 0 Reference
Posted by Toodledo:
Thanks for the suggestions. We can't comment on a timeframe for implementation, but these are on our to-do list.


No need for a time-frame, but can you say whether they are they on your short-term goals, your long-term goals, or your lifetime goals? :)

Seriously, though, thanks for listenting and responding. I'll look forward to these new features whenever they are implemented.
dandockery

Posted: Dec 06, 2011
Score: 2 Reference
Posted by Purveyor:
I've come up with something that works, sort of.
I've added numbers at the beginning of the name of the Goal: 1 for short-term goals, 2 for long-term, and 3 for lifetime. The Goals are now sorted based on the number. e.g "3 - Stay healthy and fit".


Simple and brilliant. Thanks for sharing. I'm off to rename my goals now...
clason

Posted: Feb 28, 2012
Score: 0 Reference
Instead of having a checkbox that says rather a goal is displayed in the dropdown list, I would rather see a global setting that lets users decide not to show long-term or lifetime goals in task dropdown lists. Here's why:

For about a year now, I've been using short-term goals to track my projects rather than tasks and sub-tasks. I recommend this approach. parent/child tasks are needlessly complicated and hard to track. Goals can be assigned to each task, and when you review all tasks you can review them easily by goal.

The short-term/long-term/lifetime hierarchy thing is a problem, though. Currently I don't use long-term or lifetime goals because they crowd my dropdown list of goals when assigning a goal to a task.

As Purveryor describes above, I use a numeric kludge to sort my goals. I also use letter prefixes, as a way link multiple goals together (hence goals beginning with P1 are high priority personal goals, W2 2nd tier work goals, etc.) This system is kludgy, and what I really want is for short term goals to really be the projects that I assign everyday tasks to, and long-term and lifetime goals to be used to organize those projects, and not appear as goals to which tasks can be assigned.

The hierarchy and thinking is already there in toodledo. It seems like a relatively simple change to add a global setting to hide long-term and lifetime goals from the dropdown list, and it could really help workflow. From this thread, it looks like there's a lot of interest in this.
Jake

Toodledo Founder
Posted: Feb 28, 2012
Score: 0 Reference
Thanks for the suggestion. We can't comment on a timeframe for implementation, but this is on our to-do list.
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