Re: To-do or not to-do

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Note: This message is from the outliners.com archive kindly provided by Dave Winer.

Outliners.com Message ID: 3198

Posted by srdiamond15
2005-05-06 12:30:29

Two features are particularly important for todo management: an outline editor to decompose projects into manageable tasks and a list manager for those manageable lists of tasks. It is convenient if the two are integrated. A bare bones program that with these two features is ISTD Organizer (http://www.altstone.com)

One problem with programs containing an outline editor is that the embedded outliner is far inferior to your dedicated outliner of choice. I am currently using a to do management system that integrates with my preferred outlining tool, Visual Mind.The do to manager is itself very capable and is oriented around projects instead of calendars—The MasterList (http://www.themasterlist.com). It has a Legal version where projects are cases. In addition, to help with problems with indecision I sometimes use a comparison tool, TaskSorter which can be downloaded from http://tinyurl.com/a3l77.

One decision about to do lists is the one Steve Zeoli mentions: do you organize your entire life, GTD style. I’ve found I don’t like programs that require a lot of pre-organization. I suppose that’s why I have never tried Zoot, although I download it every few months with the intent. But if one’s problem is deciding what’s important to do, then the prioritizing system of LifeBalance could be the ticket, in that it allows you to evaluate priorities relative to specific objectives, and then evaluate those specific objectives relative to more general ones, with any degree of granularity. Working in an outline yields a flat ordered list containing only ultimate tasks, in order of their importance to you, with significantly greater accuracy of determination than if you evaluated the tasks globally, without the intervening analysis. “My Life Organized” is also slated to get this feature soon.

Stephen R. Diamond

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