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Notes and Folders
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codynholland

Posted: Jul 20, 2015
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Is there a way to activate the Folders feature (or any similar feature) on my Notes without activating it in my Tasks?

I do not use folders for my tasks. However, I would like an extra level of organization for my notes. How would I do that?

Thank you!
Sabina A.

Posted: Jul 20, 2015
Score: 0 Reference
Hello,

This is not currently possible, but it's on our todo list for a future update. However, we can't comment on a time frame for implementation.
mike_de_bruyn

Posted: Jul 31, 2015
Score: 0 Reference
Turning that upside down, perhaps, would you consider allowing NOTES on FOLDERS ... possibly even GOALS and other things? My reason is that while it is useful to have a note on a task (Task: Go to music store, Note: Pick up Hammond) I need it more to add notations to my folders. Even better on GOALS (Goal: Learn to play piano. Note: It is a pain to make time for something new but it will be very satisfying to be able .... , etc.)

I use folders to group my tasks ... this makes FOLDERS actually PROJECTS in my mind ... and you suggest as much. (BTW, it would be useful to allow us to apply our own name to some of these things.) Since FOLDERS are PROJECTS, perhaps you can see why I'd like to be able to write a bit about the project with a note. For example, I'm using a system that is a riff on the Tony Robbins OPA/RPM system. The key to it is that projects should be notated with the reasons one has for doing them. I've always felt that approach makes loads of sense. So my current (and rather clumsy) work around is to just make a separate note for each folder using the name of the folder as the title of the note. The difficulty is that I have to take a separate step to get to the NOTE rather than have it right there with it's own little icon, as you have implemented in TASKS. You clearly suggest noting consequences in a NOTE on the TASK, but it really should be a NOTE on a PROJECT. I'd be spending all day in TD and never get around to actually DOING anything if I had to put a NOTE on every TASK! That is too fine a granularity to consider consequences. One idea: simply provide a link to an Evernote Note. As it is, I have to do my planning there because of TD's weak implementation of NOTES.

One thing puzzles me: You allow the NOTE to attach the FOLDER name, but I don't see that it is active in any way. IOW, it is not a clickable link. Why is it there? What am I missing?

One more thing, as long as I'm going on a bit ;-) It would be VERY helpful if more things were possible without a workaround. By this I mean ... your suggestions for doing things that are not implemented directly often involve changing the meaning of fields which then confuses the user even more. Worse, sometimes we end up with multiple meanings for various fields. The one that is bedeviling me right now came out of your mini-tutorial on "Eat the Frog". You suggested adding values like "This week" and "Next week" as GOALS; "A", "B", "C" as CONTEXTS; and putting NOTES on TASKS, rather than FOLDERS. Right, doing it THIS WEEK is really a goal, but it is a goal for managing the accomplishment of the TASK, not a goal for the accomplishment of one's life. And the last is the way you envisioned GOALS in the first place. You have three levels: "Lifetime", "Long Term", and "Short Term". It would make more sense (i.e. be logically consistent) for you to add: "This Week", "Next Week", "Next Month", "This Year", etc. as grouping choices for goals rather than goals themselves. (I'm going to experiment with just using the due date for "This Week", but that is much more cumbersome and does not QUITE mean the same thing as having a due date of this Friday. It is subtle but how one thinks about these thinks is often what makes them succeed or fail.)

A similar problem occurs with your suggestion to use the A,B,C,D,E method by making them CONTEXTS. Not a bad workaround, but it suffers from the same problem of creating confusion ... CONTEXT now means both IMPORTANCE and something like LOCATION, which you also have wonderfully implemented as it's own thing. In an answer to someone's confusion on this forum you advise that using the 3,2,1,0,-1 priority field and point out that it does not matter if the label is "A" or "3" as those are simply symbols. Right, but this neglects the obvious confusion brought about by HOTLIST which depends, in part, on how the priorities are set. One gets the feeling that PRIORITY is actually "urgency" whereas in the A,B,C type system, those are IMPORTANCE indicators ... a very different way of looking at things. Example: One of my life goals is to learn piano. That is an "A" for me ... which means very important, but it is not urgent. In the Steven Covey method it is clearly a Q2, which needs special focus when all of those urgent things are barking at you or it will never get done.

I can only imagine the snarl of code that is affected by changes to things like this, but if you are doing a reWRITE of some parts of the code, it might pay to consider a reDESIGN as well. If you keep absolute clarity on what fields MEAN, at least there is the possibility of getting them to work out right when you code them. Over 30 years in software has taught me the crucial importance of having a single meaning for things. Know what I mean? It really matters if one considers the focus of one's system to be one's GOAL or PROJECT or TASK, for example. That focus controls how one looks at one's day. If I'm looking at my GOALS in order to sort my day out, I don't want to see "This week" as a goal. It introduces scheduling at the point where I'm looking at PLANNING. "Learn Piano" is a GOAL to be focused on; "Get Piano Tuned" is a task to be scheduled. The two relate but are not at the same level and require different thinking.

Sorry to ramble a bit. I love the product and I think your updating of it is going well. I will probably offer to do beta testing.

Oh, last thing ;-) TD is usually portrayed as a Time Management system. It is so much more than that. And in keeping with the goal of calling things what they are, you really ought to start calling something like a Life Management system. After all, you now allow some degree of tracking of Goals and Habits ... one reason some people don't get why you include Habits is that they are thinking TD is only Task Management.


This message was edited Jul 31, 2015.
Jake

Toodledo Founder
Posted: Jul 31, 2015
Score: 0 Reference
Thanks for the suggestions. We are working on a redesign of the Tasks section and will consider these requests.

BTW, we now refer to Toodledo as a "Productivity System" and will emphasize this more in the future.
mike_de_bruyn

Posted: Aug 03, 2015
Score: 0 Reference
Thanks for the reply. I did find a better work around for some of the problems. I realized that using TAGS is a decent work around. I can tag a task as "next week", "A-Crucial", "Summer", "Fridays", etc. A search on "tag contains ..." will give me my list of tasks cut a lot of different ways. And I don't have to pervert the meaning of "Due Date", "Priority", and so forth. I have no idea why this work around did not dawn on me long ago. DUH!

Good job on the description change. That is a much better way to describe it.

Thanks again and I am looking forward to the new design.
n4simpson

Posted: Aug 08, 2015
Score: 0 Reference
Posted by mike_de_bruyn:
[quote]I'd like to be able to write a bit about the project with a note.

I'd very much like to see this too, along with a way to group folders, say into Work, Home and Personal.

Looking forward to seeing the tasks and notes redesign!
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