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Salgud

Posted Jul 26, 2016 in: Resize list columns
Score: 1
  • Salgud
  • Posted: Jul 26, 2016
  • Score: 1
To resize a list column, just click on the header.
Salgud

Posted Jul 21, 2016 in: Hotlist
Score: 0
  • Salgud
  • Posted: Jul 21, 2016
  • Score: 0
Quoting from the FAQ:

"You can control what makes it into your hotlist by editing your account settings. You can pick a priority, status, star and a due-date leadtime. Any task with a priority greater than the priority that you have chosen will appear on your hotlist. Any task with a due-date within the leadtime that you selected will appear in your hotlist. If you have selected the star or status options, then those tasks will appear as well.

There is an exception to the above rule. Tasks with a future start-date will be hidden from the hotlist regardless of their priority, due-date, status or star."

These are the limitations of the offered Hotlist. However, you can create you own using a Saved Search. I have one which shows tasks whose Start or Due Date is today or earlier, or are Starred, or meet other criteria specific to how I've implemented TD. Yours could certainly include Tags.
Salgud

Score: 0
  • Salgud
  • Posted: Jun 30, 2016
  • Score: 0
That sounds great, Jake, can't wait to see it.
Salgud

Posted Jun 09, 2016 in: Checklist in Tasks notes section
Score: 0
  • Salgud
  • Posted: Jun 09, 2016
  • Score: 0
Posted by e20.09g:


Only if you use Toodledo mobile.


Actually, TD for iOS doesn't have indented subtasks. AFAIK, only the online version does. (Never used TD for Android, but I'm assuming it doesn't because iOS version doesn't)

However one of my main requirement is to have my tasks showing on my calendar, so that I could manage all of my timed events for that day, whether meetings or tasks. This is also the main reason for the use of Start date. If I had to use a separate program for my tasks, Wunderlist would start looking mighty attractive.

And when syncing to calendars, these indented Toodledo tasks are being treated like regular tasks. I.e. they show up in the task list (indented if using PI), they show up in the searches, custom filters etc.

The idea of a checklist inside the task is to hide these tasks from all the searches and lists, and only see them when opening the main task. Which at this point TD can't do.


I'd say TD isn't the best software to use if you want to tie tasks to a calendar. The calendar feature is very limited. I just went to check my TD calendar, since I haven't even looked at it in months. Right now, it's telling me that all my tasks are done, which is definitely NOT what my task list is showing, and there are quite a few tasks with Start and Due dates. It probably atrophied from lack of use. ;)

TD is actually intended as a GTD app, and GTD doesn't even recognize tasks with dates as tasks, but considers them appointments (like that report you're writing that has a due date. That's really an appointment :) So tying tasks to the calendar is not TD's intent, although they have deviated enough from GTD to have start and due dates to accommodate the rest of us. I think it a bit unfair to criticize TD for not functioning with a calendar very well, because it's not really intended to function with one at all. I pushed for years to get them to integrate it with a calendar, but I guess Jeff doesn't want to stray that far from GTD, or maybe he just doesn't want to add another thousand tasks to his TD fix list. Who knows?

In any case, this is why I started using PI as my personal task manager a year or so ago. It would have been my work task manager as well, but didn't have a desktop version. It does all the things we're talking about here, and even more. As you probably know, it ties your task list, calendar, contacts and notes all in one very user friendly app. One icon replaced four on my iPhone home screen. And it can create a checklist inside a task!

But enough of the praises for PI. TD has served me well and long, and these forums are great sources of support. I hope you find what you're looking for, but I doubt you'll get the kind of calendar connection you're seeking for the foreseeable future with TD.
Salgud

Posted Jun 09, 2016 in: Checklist in Tasks notes section
Score: 0
  • Salgud
  • Posted: Jun 09, 2016
  • Score: 0
Posted by e20.09g:
Using Subtasks is not the same, especially if you sync TD to any devices, these subtasks show up as regular tasks which is exactly what using checklists inside the body of the task helps avoid.


They only show up as regular tasks if you don't keep them (subtasks) indented (online).
Salgud

Posted Jun 08, 2016 in: Checklist in Tasks notes section
Score: 0
  • Salgud
  • Posted: Jun 08, 2016
  • Score: 0
This is easily done if you have any paid version of TD. Simply make "Send into to John" a parent task, and the items you need to send as subtasks.

And yes, this would be a nice additional feature which would give us the often requested additional level within TD's task management features.
Salgud

Posted Jun 06, 2016 in: Weekly Review
Score: 1
  • Salgud
  • Posted: Jun 06, 2016
  • Score: 1
As an experienced Project Manager/Scheduler, I can tell you this is a daunting task for most of us. There are so many unpredictable factors in planning human activities. It's much easier when it's physical work, like welding or painting, than it is for brain work, like programming or managing. I have come up with some general heuristic rules that I have found helpful, if not entirely accurate. It helps that in this case, you are scheduling only yourself. My experience is that the majority of people way overestimate what they can get done in any given amount of time, and the longer the amount of time, the more they overestimate. For example, most of us will overestimate what we can do in an hour by double what is realistic, but by triple what we can do in a week. More than that in a month.

One of the major factors in estimating you work output is to what extent your time is your own. When I had my own Project Management consulting business, it was much easier because I alone determined what my priorities were, and what activities I allowed to interrupt my work. I could stay focused on a single tasks for hours on end, even days. Other than that 10 years, I've worked for others, and that is far more challenging. Someone else "owns" my time, so I have little or no control over my priorities. My boss or her boss or a number of others can, and do, interrupt me at will, and my job requires me to respond. Ergo, meaningful time estimates are difficult, if not downright impossible, to get. I've used two different approaches to deal with this kind of uncertainty.

The first approach is the quantifiable method, which requires that I estimate the time it will take to do each task, as others have suggested, using the Length field in TD. For more serious projects with multiple resources, scheduling software, like MS Project, is a necessity. Even then, it only works well when you have dedicated resources (resources assigned full time to the project, not being constantly "borrowed" for other non-project tasks).

A good rule-of-thumb for estimating durations is if you have done it many times before, estimate how long you think it will take a double that time for your estimate. Even things you know how to do are subject to unforseen issues and problems. If it's something you don't know how to do, make your best estimate and multiply it by five. That's right, five! DO NOT go by the very common "Dilbert's Boss" method of estimating, which is that "anything I don't know how to do must be easy". Silly, yes, but exactly how many managers, with no experience whatever in doing what their subordinates do, estimate durations and set target dates. (By the way, I ran across another experienced scheduler's article on this subject some years ago, and he had come to the same heuristics as I had completely independently, verifying my own factors.)

Any quantifiable method will take a fair amount of your time, and the scheduling itself should be factored into you plan.

In the kind of work that I do now, there is no point in estimating. I have no control over my time, and I'm at the mercy (very limited :) of my boss and numerous others. The only deadlines I set now are the ones set by my boss, or occasionally others, or the few I set when I promise something I know is urgent, and am willing to put other work aside for a short while. Of course, I'm older now, and I accept the fact that there is a continuous flow of work here, and that I can only do so much in the time allotted. I've become like the proverbial duck, and wake up in a new world each morning when I arrive at work. I try not to worry about how much I can get done each day, I just do what I can, which I call the qualitative approach. Or just an old man's way.

Best of luck in your pursuit of control over your time! :)


This message was edited Jun 06, 2016.
Salgud

Posted Jun 03, 2016 in: Add "Status" to the Hide / Show menu
Score: 0
  • Salgud
  • Posted: Jun 03, 2016
  • Score: 0
Posted by e20.09g:
Thanks, but I don't want "Planning" tasks ;) They are typically far enough that they just clutter my list in daily work.

For the immediate daily work planning, I need to see the tasks that are Next Action or Active only. Basically my list goes as this :

Starred - immediate (work on this today)
Next Action
Active
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------
the tasks below this line are hidden from daily "working" views and only appear in periodic "planning" views
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------
Planned
Someday
Postponed

This is easily done with saved searches, of course. But since there's a drop down menu I thought it would nicely fit there as well.


Actually, as Jake pointed out, it is there, just not in the exact format you need. TD is designed to give the majority of users what the developers believe they most often need. This seldom meets the needs of more sophisticated users, which it sounds like you are. For us, they have provided Saved Searches to customize TD to our very specific needs. As someone who's used TD for 5 years now, you already know that Saved Searches are the way to go.

If you're still spending time hopping between the standard views and your Saved Searches, might I suggest that you recreate the standard views that you use most often in your Saved Searches? I've done this, and I seldom venture off my Saved Searches list simply to avoid the extra clicks. Everything I need on a regular basis, including "Active" tasks, is right there in the admittedly long, list of Saved Searches. I have my highly customized "Hotlist", along with "Starred" (same as TD's) and many others. It just makes my life easier.

Best of luck.
Salgud

Score: 0
  • Salgud
  • Posted: Jun 03, 2016
  • Score: 0
I did a forum search, but couldn't find an answer.
Salgud

Posted May 24, 2016 in: Toodledo Roadmap Update
Score: 0
  • Salgud
  • Posted: May 24, 2016
  • Score: 0
Posted by Jake:
We first built the Tasks section over 12 years ago, and while we’ve upgrade the technology behind it several times, there are still parts of it that are running on 12 year old software. In order to achieve all of our goals for the Tasks section we need to rewrite a big chunk of it using modern software tools. This is a big project, but it allows us get rid of the digital cobwebs and it will allow us to innovate faster in the future.

-Jake

Good programming practice. This is what Covey would call Step 7, in the "7 Habits of Highly Effective People", "Honing the Axe". This is the one that most people and organizations have a very tough time doing because it is time consuming and yields no immediate results in terms of bringing in new customers, but pays huge dividends down the road.

Kudos for making the effort. You and all of us will benefit from this kind of planning.


This message was edited May 24, 2016.
Salgud

Posted May 18, 2016 in: Toodledo Roadmap Update
Score: -6
  • Salgud
  • Posted: May 18, 2016
  • Score: -6
This post has been hidden because of negative votes. Click to reveal
Salgud

Score: 1
  • Salgud
  • Posted: May 17, 2016
  • Score: 1
Posted by alexandremrj_2:
Hello Salgud,

Its exactly what Jake proposed but with a twist - task dependency is activated in the settings and you get to choose when marking a task complete, which status is automatically filled on the tasks with no status.

You order the subtasks manualy when the task dependency is activated, and when (in my case) a subtask marked with Active is completed, the next subtask without a status gets marked as Active.


I don't think that's what Jake said. Here it is:

"It would have to be an account setting where all of your subtasks behaved this way or none."

That sounds to me like this is an app level setting, on or off, where any and all subtasks of any and all parents are done in the manually selected order. I hope I'm wrong, because that doesn't work for me, or many others, or at least I don't think so based on this conservation.

The idea of choosing which status you want to indicate dependency doesn't sound practical to me either, and far, far more complicated from a programmer's standpoint. Creating a new status called "Dependent" seems more obvious, and easier to program. Having to select what status creates a dependency each time you want one seems and would create as many problems as it solves. Dependent/not dependent could also be just a radio button rather than a new status, which might be even easier to program.

Just my point of view.
Salgud

Score: 1
  • Salgud
  • Posted: May 17, 2016
  • Score: 1
Alex: This would solve task dependency for me if I get to choose the status that is read.

Read by whom or what? Do you mean that the user gets to choose which status indicates a dependency? That only tasks with that particular status follow a preceding task with that status? I don't think that is anything like what Jake is suggesting, though I would like something like that better than all subtasks are either dependent tasks or not. But your idea is also much, much more complicated to program than Jake's. If we went with your idea, it would make more sense to just create a new status called "Dependent", and then have TD automatically bring the next subtask of the same parent with that status become a Next Action when the predecessor is marked complete. That would work well for me, better than a total either or.
Salgud

Score: 0
  • Salgud
  • Posted: May 13, 2016
  • Score: 0
Faulty programming.
Salgud

Score: 0
  • Salgud
  • Posted: May 13, 2016
  • Score: 0
I'll bow out then, the Android app must be very different than the iOS app and the online app, as my both versions All Tasks view has filters available (all my views do, in both the online and iOS apps), and the number at the top (which online and in iOS is not the total number of tasks, but the number of tasks hidden by the currently filter settings) varies widely with changing filter settings. So the Android app must operate very differently than the iOS and online apps.

Best of luck!


This message was edited May 13, 2016.
Salgud

Score: 0
  • Salgud
  • Posted: May 12, 2016
  • Score: 0
The first thing I'd check is your filter settings. I don't know the Android version, but I'm guessing it's similar the the IOS, with the filter settings under "Show" on the upper left. Compare the two. If they're different, align them and see what happens. If that's not it, post again and we'll help you out.
Salgud

Posted May 11, 2016 in: Two questions about tasks
Score: 1
  • Salgud
  • Posted: May 11, 2016
  • Score: 1
It's on "the List".
Salgud

Score: 1
  • Salgud
  • Posted: May 04, 2016
  • Score: 1
In Settings, Tasks, Row Style - crossed out.
Salgud

Posted May 02, 2016 in: Disappearing tasks
Score: 0
  • Salgud
  • Posted: May 02, 2016
  • Score: 0
The first thing to check would be your Filters, under the eyeball icon, upper right corner, to the left of "Sort". See if that is the problem. If not, let us know.
Salgud

Score: 0
  • Salgud
  • Posted: Apr 28, 2016
  • Score: 0
I have also noticed this oddity, and agree it would be better if the Note icon found a permanent home!
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