ForumsSearch
Search results for "Posted by saskia.x"
| Author | Message |
|---|---|
|
saskia.x |
Hey tedpenner, I posted an overview of how I map GTD onto Toodledo today on another thread: http://www.toodledo.com/forums/2/1825/0/folders-tags-context.html if that's any help to you. It's pretty similar to Vin Thomas's way of organising things. I've found Toodledo to be very compatible with a GTD-based system, and its flexibility means you can customise it easily to your own way of working.
Personally, I've moved away from strict GTD now, but I still use the overall framework and most of the philosophy. The main difference is that I use prioritisation & due dates a lot more than David Allen recommends; I found the heavy reliance on contexts didn't work for me as because most of my tasks end up being @home, and I generally get to choose which context I want to be in at any particular time. Without priorities I had too many decisions to make every time I looked at my todo list! |
|
saskia.x |
There is no way to have multiple stars in Toodledo. If it were me, I'd use the tag field to record information like this. If you like the idea of a star to represent this, why not use a series of asterisks (***) as tags (unless, of course, you are already using an asterisk tag to represent something else)?
|
|
saskia.x |
I use virtually the same system as Vin Thomas. I think of them as roughly analogous to the way that tasks are divided up in GTD (although my system is only losely based on GTD).
So: Individual tasks = actions Parent tasks = projects Folders = areas of focus/responsibility Short term goals = goals & objectives for the next year or so Long term goals = long term visions (3-5 years ish) Lifetime goals = purpose & core values, ultimate aims And obviously contexts = contexts! If you're not familiar with the GTD concept of a context, it is basically just about what situation you need to be in to do that task, which doesn't just mean physical location, but can also include things like the resources available. Contexts are useful for filtering tasks based on your current context (e.g. @home, @work, @computer), or for grouping tasks efficiently, e.g. you can bring up a list of all of the errands you need to do and do several of them in one outing. Mine include things like "@kids" for those tasks I can only do when my kids are around, and "@people/calls" for things I need to talk to someone about (this used to be two contexts "@phone" & "@people" but I realised there most of these could be discussed in person OR on the phone, so it was an artificial distinction). The distinction between contexts and areas of focus is useful, because the place where you do a task and the *reason* you are doing the task are often two separate things, but might have the same name, e.g. tasks that you are doing *for* your home won't necessarily be done *at* home (like buying something in a shop), and tasks done *at* work might not be done *for* work (e.g. personal phone calls that need to be made during office hours). Tags are used for a variety of things, like refining the contexts (e.g. I have an @home context, but use tags to group tasks that are all in the kitchen, say, so that I can do all those tasks at the same time) or classifying the type of task so that I can choose something to suit my current mood, e.g. "creative", "easy", "reading", "organising", "housework" etc. I also have a few very specific tags like "[tray]" which tells me that I have reference materials for the task stored in the filing trays on my desk (which each correspond to one of my Toodledo folders). Ultimately, though, as the others have said, you need to find a way of using Toodle that suits your own way of thinking, but it does help to get inspiration from other people's setups. This message was edited Apr 16, 2009. |
|
saskia.x |
After much experimentation I've settled on a system that works well for me (especially in conjunction with the importance algorithm). In order to get it to work, though, I had to think about importance/urgency slightly differently. Rather than treating them as two separate entities, I ask myself "when would I like to have done this task by, and how essential is it that this task is done by that date?", and use a combination of the priority, due date & star to indicate this (the star acts as a "bump" to raise the importance level by 1 to enable a more fine-grained answer to the question).
For example: P3* = "it is absolutely essential that I do this task by the due date" e.g. very important task with an absolute deadline P3 = "I really should get this task done by the due date" e.g. important task with a fixed deadline (but where it wouldn't be a disaster if I missed it), or slightly less important task with an absolute deadline. P2* = "I want to have done this task by the due date" e.g. important task that I'd like to get done by a particular date, or less important task with a fixed deadline. P2 = "I would like to get this task done by the due date" P1 = "It would be nice to have done this task by the due date". e.g. fairly important task, but where the date is just a vague guideline, or non-essential task which should be done by a particular date if it is to get done at all. P0 = "It would be nice to have done this task by the due date, but it doesn't matter if I never get it done at all" - mostly tasks that aren't essential at all, and where the date is only a guideline (these tasks tend not to get done, but I prefer to have them on the list to have the option of doing them if time allows, or if I'm in the right context and don't have something more essential to do). Tasks that don't really have a time element to them (i.e. very low urgency) don't get due dates; I evaluate how essential the task is relative to my life in general. So a starred Priority 3 undated task would be one that I consider essential to do at some point, but where it wouldn't really matter whether I do it now or in two year's time (importance sorting means that this would show up at the same level as a priority 2 unstarred task which is due in a few days, which I would say is a fairly accurate representation of how these tasks should be prioritised. A task I consider absolutely essential to my life but not at all urgent shouldn't be pushed down the list by much less important but urgent tasks). I realise my description probably makes it sound complicated, but actually, it's a very intuitive system, and only involves asking yourself one question: "how essential is it that this task is done by a particular date?". It works really well with importance sorting, giving me a very accurate view of the "real" priority of my tasks. The only disadvantage is that it does require some maintenance for tasks that don't get done by their due date; I have to periodically go through and adjust the dates, but this isn't really a problem as it forces me to keep my priorities under regular review, and highlights how I might need to refine my prioritisation. |
|
saskia.x |
Posted Apr 09, 2009 in: Feature Request: More flexible Hotlist
Score: 0
If you're mostly using Toodledo on a computer, it's worth looking into using a saved search instead of the built in hotlist. You can then customise your personal hotlist to display whatever tasks you like. This is what I do now; I only use the standard hotlist when accessing Toodledo from another interface that doesn't support saved searches (e.g. the Firefox extension). My personal hotlist is much more powerful than the built in one, and can easily be modified if I change the way I use Toodledo.
|
|
saskia.x |
This is one of the things that is stopping me from making use of the statistics function in Toodledo - since we can't mark a task as "skipped" or change the completion date on a task, the stats don't accurately reflect what we've *actually* done and when. This makes them almost useless for me beyond being a very vague general overview.
|
|
saskia.x |
One thing that strikes me reading these and other posts is that different people seem to have different ways of conceptualising a "project", and hence different ways of organising them.
I use parent tasks to represent projects because I think of projects in much the same way as David Allen does in GTD, i.e. something that can't be done in a single step (which could even be something rather small, and might be something many people would think of as a single "task"). I'm guessing some of you are using the word "project" to represent larger scale projects, and are therefore likely to have far fewer of them on the go at once, making them more suited to folders. I use folders to represent the different areas of my life, some of which are things I call "uberprojects". At the moment we're buying a house, which is a huge project (with many subprojects) that eats up quite a large chunk of my life, so I have a folder to represent that rather than a parent task. As the focus of my life moves, I'll archive that folder and maybe create some new ones. I think parent tasks make good projects if you are using GTD-style projects, but maybe folders are better if your projects are fewer and larger. |
|
saskia.x |
Posted by Claudio:
Posted by saskia.x: I quite like the fact that Toodledo doesn't dictate to us how we should be managing projects, it gives us the freedom to adapt the system to the way we want it to work; one of Toodledo's biggest strengths is its flexibility. If Toodledo had something called Projects, it still wouldn't be dictating to us how we should manage projects. By not having the option of Projects, Toodledo is less flexible.I think that if Toodledo had something called projects, people would feel that was where they were "supposed" to keep their projects, regardless of whether that suited their own method of working (I'm really glad they didn't call the folders "projects", as it would be a real mess very quickly for me!). It would be distracting to keep seeing something called a "project" in the interface if you chose to use something else to represent this concept. Personally I use a context called "PROJECTS"... Do you then review your list of projects by looking at a list of tasks with a context of "PROJECTS"? Have you created a Search or do you just click on Projects in Contexts? How do you handle the Context of newly-added subtasks? (The Context will not be "PROJECTS", right?)I then use subtasks to group tasks under each project. I click on the "PROJECTS" context to review my projects, and also have a search set up to find projects with no subtasks which I check as part of my review. When I create new subtasks they only get the same folder as the parent task, not the context (which seems to default to "no context" regardless of what I have as my new task defaults in the settings. Do your tasks inherit the context? That's very odd if I'm getting a different behaviour!). I give subtasks whatever context is appropriate, so a project could have several subtasks with a variety of contexts. |
|
saskia.x |
If you work out what caused this, would you mind posting it here? I was literally just thinking a few minutes ago that I'd like tabs on the left in the tags view (I have lots of tags, and generally they are pretty short), so this could actually be useful to me!!
Thanks! |
|
saskia.x |
I had the same trouble as you when first setting up my contexts, but I now use a combination of tags & context and it works pretty well.
My contexts are large, overarching sets of circumstances and the tags are more specific, or are more about the type of task rather than the actual context. So for me, "reading" would be a tag, because it can largely be done anywhere. I'm not sure I would call things like "spiritual development" or "personal" contexts at all, unless the tasks under these headings can only be done under very specific sets of circumstances. I'd class these as "areas of focus" and have them as folders (although if you don't have a pro subscription you may be using folders for projects, so tags might be the best option). I think one area of confusion is the fact that several "contexts" are also areas of focus (like "home" & "work") so it is helpful to distinguish between where a task should be done and why it should be done. For example, buying cleaning products would be done for the home, but would be in the "errands" context, and working in your home office might be done for work, but done at home (or @computer). So, for instance I have contexts of: - Anywhere (for tasks that are not tied to a specific location) - Home - Errands - Computer (although this could be in several locations, it is tied to a piece of equipment that is not always available, and I find it more efficient to do several computer-based tasks in one sitting) - Kids (tasks that I can only do when the kids are around, including things the kids themselves need to do) - People/calls (I combine these two together since many of these could be accomplished either when I talk to someone in person or on the phone) - Uni (I'm studying at the moment so I suppose this is my equivalent to "work"!) - Projects (not strictly a context, I know, but since, strictly speaking, projects don't have contexts, only individual tasks do, I find it helpful to use the context field to label my projects so that I can view them in one screen. If you don't have a pro subscription this may be of less use to you) - Inbox (again, not strictly a context, but I have this set as my default context so all newly created tasks go to "inbox" unless I have time to assign a context) I then use the tag field to narrow these down more, so I might have an "@desk", "@phone", "@kitchen" or "@internet" context tag to narrow down the location or tools required, and "reading", "organising", "thinking", "housework", "creative" etc to represent the type of task, or the mindset I need to be in to do the task. I use the tags less religiously since I often don't need that level of granularity, but it helps when I'm in a particular mood, or I'm tied to a particular location (e.g. if I'm cooking something that needs regular stirring but not constant attention I'll bring up the "@kitchen" tasks so I'm not far from the stove). Obviously, you might prefer to do it a completely different way, but it always helps to see how other people have set things up, doesn't it? This message was edited Mar 24, 2009. |
|
saskia.x |
Posted Mar 24, 2009 in: Feature Request - Floating Dates and Snooze
Score: 1
I used to think I wanted this feature, but now I actually prefer it the way it is. I have a tendency to procrastinate too, and although it seems more satisfying to avoid being confronted by hundreds of "overdue" tasks, it just perpetuates the procrastinating behaviour if it's too easy to put things off until tomorrow!!
Setting due dates more thoughtfully helps a great deal in reducing the number of "overdue" tasks; it's easy to be overoptimistic about when you are likely to have things done by. Personally, I use a combination of due dates and priority to represent when I hope to have the task done by and how essential it is to have the task done by that date (so priority 3 dated tasks are important tasks with absolute deadlines, whilst priority 1 represents just a guideline date for a moderately important task or a very unimportant task with a fixed deadline), and then sort by importance (which combines these fields, plus stars). I don't focus too much on the due date after that; the overdue status just represents the fact that I would have liked to have done the task by now. Importance sorting does a pretty good job of prioritising things for me once I've set these fields. Having said that, there is a workaround to your initial problem. If you make the task a daily repeating task & put a ? in front of the date it will automatically reschedule to the next day if it doesn't get done. It's not perfect, and doesn't really work if the task is already repeating at a larger interval, but it achieves the desired effect of making the task show up as due today rather than overdue. |
|
saskia.x |
Just having some kind of autocomplete in tags would be very handy!
I also wonder whether there might be some better way to display by tag other than using the current tabbed interface. When you've got a reasonable number of tags it gets a bit unwieldy (this is also a problem for me in the goals view). I realise that to do so would require an overhaul of the existing interface, so might not be practical, but it would be nice if there was some way to do this. |
|
saskia.x |
Posted Mar 17, 2009 in: "Official Ways" to use Goals in Toodledo
Score: 5
Alisa did a great job of outlining a good way of using goals.
Like Claudio, I think of the goals as being roughly analogous to David Allen's higher "altitudes" in GTD. These "Horizons of Focus" map very nicely onto Toodledo: 50K ft: life: Lifetime 40K ft: 3-5 year visions: Long term 30K ft: 1-2 year goals: Short term 20K ft: areas of responsibility: Folders 10K ft: current projects: Projects (parent tasks) Runway: current actions: Tasks (subtasks) I tend to think of the goals as being something like: Short term: where do I want to be in a year or so? Long term: where do I want to be in a few years' time? Lifetime: what do I want to have done with my life by the time I die? Posted by DJ: Alisa, I too enjoyed reading your post. Can you elaborate on Folder = Roles, please? I assume Alisa was refering to Stephen Covey's concept of roles, which is actually very similar to David Allen's "areas of responsibility". So your roles might be things like "parent", "employee", "friend", "daughter", "student", "citizen" etc, and you would use these to group your tasks. Whether you conceptualise these groupings as "roles" or "areas of responsibility" the effect is the same; it helps to give you an overview of the different parts of your life and you can use it to ensure that each area gets enough attention. Combined with Toodledo's statistics (a Pro feature) you can track the effort you are putting into each area of your life. It's also just a nice logical grouping that fits well with how many people already think about their tasks. |
|
saskia.x |
My number one wish for subtasks would be for new subtasks to automatically inherit the attributes of the parent - generally my subtasks have similar properties to their parent (especially folder, goal & due date). I also think that maybe having subtasks of repeating tasks default to "repeat with parent" would be good, although I'm not sure whether everyone would find that as helpful as I do.
My second wish would be for some kind of task dependency. Multiple levels of nesting combined with some kind of "hide parent task until subtasks are complete" function might be one solution to this (I used to use MyLifeOrganised & I seem to remember it had this feature), although obviously there are a few different ways somethig like dependencies could be achieved. I've developed a system of using staggered due dates to make sure that tasks that have to be completed before the others in the sequence are at least displayed higher up the list, but it would be nice if the dependent tasks could be hidden until the first task is complete. Having a load of unactionable tasks cluttering up the task list is far too distracting. I like the GTD-inspired idea of making sure all items on your to do list are true "next actions", i.e. they can be done straight away as long as you're in the right context & have time to do them, but I also like to plan out projects & have it all in Toodledo ready for action! The idea of manually re-ordering subtasks arbitrarily doesn't appeal to me so if this were introduced I would hope that it wouldn't intefere with the ordinary functionality of Toodledo. This message was edited Mar 15, 2009. |
|
saskia.x |
Posted Mar 12, 2009 in: Subtask creation and attributes
Score: 0
Posted by Toodledo:
Yeah, we are working on an improvement for adding subtasks directly. Thank you!! |
|
saskia.x |
I actually really like the Importance feature, although it did take me a while to work out how to deal with repeating but non-critical tasks, as in the lawn-mowing example. Initially I tried the GTD-style "don't use due dates unless it's a real due date" rule, but when repeating tasks are used it's impossible to avoid having artificial due dates.
The solution I settled on, and have been using successfully for quite some time now, is to think about the "priority" and "due date" fields together; so for tasks with a due date I use the priority field to mean "how essential is it that this task is done by the due date". For those without a due date, priority simply means "how essential is it that this task is done at all?". Generally the only tasks that don't have a due date in my system now are those which could be done at any time (they might be very important, but it doesn't really matter if I don't get round to doing them for ages. Obviously because of the way that importance sorts, undated priority 3 items will still display above low priority dated tasks, so they won't get lost in the swamps of the bottom of the todo list & forgetten about altogether!). Every task that should be done sooner rather than later gets a due date, and the priority tells me how seriously to take that due date. So most of my "real deadline" tasks end up as priority 3, whilst many of my important repeating tasks are priority 2, since the due date is an ideal rather than an absolute. Less important repeating tasks are priority 1, and the ones that really don't matter that much are priority 0. At first it seems a bit counterintuitive when very important tasks are coming up as priority 2, but I soon got used to it as they were appearing where I thought they should in the list. This system works perfectly with Importance to reflect my real priorities very nicely, especially if you use "priority" & "due date" as the secondary sorts. I used to think that the more overdue a task is, the higher the importance should be, but then I realised that 1. I should probably re-evaluate my commitments if I'm getting that many seriously overdue tasks, 2. Overdue non-essential tasks would end up taking over the top of my list, and 3. as long as due date is a secondary sort the most overdue tasks will get pushed up the list. And, of course, it's important not to worry too much about the exact sort order; ultimately it's just a guide. You can micromanage too much! As amswitzer said: in the end, users have to scan up and down a list and make the odd decision from time to time.
|
|
saskia.x |
I generally mark tasks as "reference" if I don't need to take further action on them but want to keep the task available in Toodledo, which would cover the kinds of tasks you're talking about.
|
|
saskia.x |
Unfortunately, Toodledo does not have anything called a "Project", so you have to use a Task with Subtasks, or a Folder with Tasks. I quite like the fact that Toodledo doesn't dictate to us how we should be managing projects, it gives us the freedom to adapt the system to the way we want it to work; one of Toodledo's biggest strengths is its flexibility. Personally I use a context called "PROJECTS", since, in GTD terms, projects don't have contexts, only actions do, so the context field isn't needed for projects (it also mimics the division of "lists" in GTD, with one for each context and another for projects). I then use subtasks to group tasks under each project. On the original (not so silly) question, I would just mark the task with whatever status it WILL have when it appears on my list, since I shouldn't need to worry about it until then (if I do need to think about it before then, I probably should have scheduled the start date sooner, or created a separate task to remind me to do whatever preparation needs to be done). I use the "next action" status quite loosely, to indicate that this item is a single well-defined action which shouldn't need any further thought or preparation before I act on it (basically pretty much like a GTD NA but without neccessarily being the very next action I need to do, so each project will probably have several "next actions"). I use "active" to indicate both projects and less well defined actions (which might turn out to be projects when I've thought more carefully about them), and "planning" for things I need to review and think about further before I can act on them properly. |
|
saskia.x |
Posted by ryssalee:
Even though Toodledo doesn't have a specific gadget for Gmail yet, you can use the Google Labs feature to install the current iGoogle gadget into your Gmail. This would be a good workaround if it weren't for two things: 1. The slim Toodledo interface doesn't actually fit in the gmail navbar. Now, if there was a mini version of the slim interface (basically exactly the same but with a much smaller font), this would not only do as a gmail gadget, but would also satisfy the users who've asked for a smaller font in the iGoogle gadget. 2. Ideally, a "real" Toodledo gmail gadget would have more of a link with gmail, like gmail's own task list, rather than just being a standalone gadget that doesn't interact with google. RTM's gmail firefox extension seems like a good implementation of this (http://www.rememberthemilk.com/services/gmail/addon/); to be honest, things like this are *almost* enough to tempt me away from Toodledo, although I like Toodledo too much (and I've invested too much time in it) to defect now. Every so often I go and have a play around with RTM, but I keep coming back here, so Toodledo must be doing something right! :) |
|
saskia.x |
Posted Mar 01, 2009 in: How about create some folder for goals?
Score: 1
I'm not sure whether Toodledo's goals feature is the best way to manage all of the goals you have for your entire life! Although, in theory, it would be nice to be able to put all of your "someday/maybe" goals in there, it isn't really what the feature was designed for, and if used that way it's likely to get overwhelming.
I think it works best if you only use it for your *current* goals (i.e. the ones you are actually working towards now, which could still be lifetime or long term goals), and keep a "master list" of all of your other goals somewhere else. Alternatively, use the notes field of the goals to keep lists of sub-goals; so you might have a lifetime goal to have travelled the world, which could have a few current goals (i.e. the travel plans you have for the next year or two) contributing to it, and a list of your future travel "dreams" in the goal's note field (which, in a way, is a bit like your idea of keeping these future goals in a folder). I think, from a productivity point of view, it makes sense to keep the distinction between the goals you are currently working towards and the future dreams which you don't need to take any action towards now. It keeps your mind more focused to have an overview of your current goals without the distraction of things you have no intention to act on at the moment. |