Good morning:

I apologize for the length of this posting, and the fact that it is slightly off-topic, but I have some things I need help with(Not outlining, at least not right now.)and this group seems to have people who could help me address and solve the problems.

To put it briefly, I need help with planning, scheduling, and follow-through in my work. I used to view this as a character flaw, but I have realized in recent years that it is more of an issue of learning and habit. So, now I need some help with learning and establishing better habits.

First, a bit of history.

I spent twenty years in industry. Specifically the pharmaceutical industry. My job was as a lab head. I had several people working for me, and I also worked at the bench. The way things were managed was in a matrix. I had departmental responsibilities, and project responsibilities. As a lab head I had to keep my lab moving forward. As a team leader I had to keep projects moving forward. Teams consisted of people from several different disciplines, and the sizes varied but were always 20 or so people.

In this environment, planning occurred in teams either at the departmental or project level. We set goals, and then were kept on track by periodic review of those goals. Over time I learned how to work with this, and managed my time by focusing on goals and working on a day-to-day basis with task lists. I took early retirement a couple of years ago, and now I am a Research Assistant Professor at a major research university. I work in the lab of the department head, who is a colleague and friend of mine from our post-doc days.

I have no problem planning and executing experiments, nor do I have a problem outlining research directions. In fact, I am pretty good at that.

I am, however, having to adapt to a much less structured atmosphere. It is here I am having problems. I am having problems planning my time, and, I must admit, disciplining myself to follow-through on things. I schedule my days using tasklists, and that works well. I get my day’s work done. It is moving things forward in a disciplined way that I am having trouble with.

Part of this is having too many things to do. My boss has got me doing too many things that are not focused, and stuff is falling through the cracks. I am going to talk to her about that and get things re-organized. That won’t be for a couple of weeks since I have a grant due on the 5th of June. Even with shifting some responsibilities around I will still need help with focusing and follow-through, and that is what I want some help with and some input from the group.

Some questions: How do you plan your time long term? How do you integrate project planning into your time planning? How to you keep yourself accountable, and make sure you follow-through? I don't necessarily need a computer based approach. Paper is fine.

I have tried using goals and goal setting in my current job. It hasn’t worked. The approach in an academic lab is much more independent and un-structured than industry, and it is hard to keep my boss focused on my goals. I am used to it, but she is not. And I am not sure I can get her to adapt. She has been doing things her way for a long time, as have I.

Any suggestions?

As I said, I will be talking to my boss soon, and I would like to be able to have something to put in place.

I will appreciate any suggestions that people can make.

Jim

jamesofford wrote:

I am, however, having to adapt to a much less structured atmosphere. It
is here I am having problems. I am having problems planning my time,
and, I must admit, disciplining myself to follow-through on things. I
schedule my days using tasklists, and that works well. I get my
day’s work done. It is moving things forward in a disciplined way
that I am having trouble with.

A few suggestions for the following-through problem.

For following through and not missing things I use Google Calendar. It's always open on my PC in a Chrome browser, in its own monitor on my left. The only things that go into it are things that definitely need to be done at a given date or time or recurring tasks. I start every day reviewing the previous day, and things that I didn't get done I reallocate to today or for the future (or delete it, if it's no longer relevant). The main benefit is that tasks have popup reminders and get synced automatically with smartphones etc., so the reminders can be received even when away from the PC.

The key is not to overload the Calendar with things that don't actually need to get done because then it becomes useless. Also, duration of tasks needs to be estimated sensibly. This is an important decision. Anything that does not have a deadline associated with it goes into the inbox or its own category in my Workflowy to-do list.

Part of this is having too many things to do.

I use Workflowy to manage that problem. Again, it is multi-platform and syncs painlessly with handheld devices. I have it open in its standalone Chrome app on the PC. The benefit of Workflowy is that it can be an infinite to-do list organised in any number of ways. So it's great for long-term memory, but also for forgetting things that are not that important. I manage this "forgetting" function by always keeping the most important stuff on the top of the list (the top of the list is the surface, the NOW). So anything less important or urgent will be naturally pushed down the list or into the belly of the hierarchy.

One important feature in Workflowy are the tags. For items that I'm waiting for others to get back to me on (which is one thing people tend to forget to track), I have a #WAITING tag, and these items can be filtered. If I need to follow up anything by a given date, I will need to enter it into Google Calendar.

As for long-term planning, in the academic type chaotic environment you describe I didn't find formal project planning all that helpful. I've tried many kinds of Gantt charts etc. but if I wasn't actually getting daily tasks done, then the overall project wouldn't move either. For this reason I'm more concerned with tracking and squeezing productivity out of myself during the day, by timing my Pomodoros, my breaks, and tracking them in a Google spreadsheet open in another Chrome tab open next to the Calendar. I record the length of each pomodoro and the length of the breaks and add them up continuously (including word count, if I'm writing), and total them at the end of the day. This way I know whether I'm having a productive enough day or not and also can track it and manage it over the week. This allows one to learn about one's own natural ebbs and flows.

For the overall project, I do put milestone dates in Google Calendar, but to be reminded of them on a daily basis, they are continuously displayed at the bottom of my main screen in a narrow strip of progress bars using Progress Bars of Life (which can also do popup reminders):
http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=34631.0

Perhaps the issue isn't that you are now working in a less structured environment -- but just that the environment is different and you haven't learned all the cues yet? When I transitioned from 25 years of intense work in industry to a consulting practice in government I often wondered "what the heck are these people doing?" Ten years later, I get it and I understand the culture and its cues.

I've tried all the "productivity" software and eventually quit using most of them. There is way too much opinion on the internet about "productivity" -- which is a cold and mechanistic concept.

Nothing substitutes for a good handwritten notebook -- my freeform notes, drawings, arrows, and highlights work better for keeping track of meetings, problems and tasks than anything. I have dozens of notebooks created over the years with a Livescribe pen -- I sync the notes, make a pdf from each page (each notebook is in its own folder), and I scan handouts and other work papers and interleave those scanned PDFs with the handwritten notes captured with Livescribe. I also prefer handwritten task ("to do") lists -- there is something about making a note by hand that makes the task more memorable than typing it into some software. I frequently consolidate my lists, and rewrite them -- the physical act of working with pen and paper to do this routine during a quiet time every day seems to bring about a better understanding of priority and criticality among tasks. (Get yourself a very nice pen you enjoy holding and working with!)

Very few things anyone does are actual projects (in the formal PMP sense) and it's not helpful to think of them as if they were project. Instead, consider that every job has its unique "realistic horizon" -- the future period of days, weeks, or months for which it makes sense to plan because the probability of actually doing the thing you planned to do is high. For some jobs, the horizon is a few days -- for others it is a few months. Once you get a good feeling of the realistic horizon for your own job, then you will know how far out to plan your work without experiencing frustration when plans fall apart.

A few simple techniques are helpful: as Dr. Andrus mentioned, Pomodoro is elegant and good discipline. I like the 1-3-5 model: make a daily note card (for your pocket) listing the one big thing that needs to be done today, the 3 important things that would be good to complete but could slip a day, and five small tasks that you can fit into breaks or as a diversion. Planning tomorrow's work the night before is often helpful because your brain will ponder how to accomplish those things while you sleep -- it can make the work day less stressful.

Paul Korm wrote:

Planning tomorrow's work the night before is often
helpful because your brain will ponder how to accomplish those things
while you sleep -- it can make the work day less stressful.

This is an interesting issue. It's probably down to personal preferences and routines. I have a strict cut-off time for work (6pm), at which point I rush to the gym. After that I don't really want to think about any work or planning, in case it would interfere with my sleep. So I always do the planning in the morning, starting with reviewing what has or hasn't been done the day before.

My 2 cents:

It's not a matter of tools (don't stone me for saying that).
The gazillion of tools I have tried are great at organizing urgent and important things. What they are not really good at is organizing tasks and projects that are important on the long run.

What I ended up with (still not perfect):
A spreadsheet containing all my todos (off course, you can do that on paper). It has with several colums for my various jobs (I work as a freelancer for several customers and for my own businesses) plus a column for private things plus a column for long-term projects. Every day I try to get a number of urgent/short-term tasks done for my paid jobs plus 2 or so private tasks plus at least one step for one of my long-term projects. Sometimes the urgent jobs take up the entire day, sometimes even for a week. I try to find a balance between urgent, short-term and important long-term tasks/projects. But that's something I have to do "manually". I haven't found a piece of software or a collection of tools to really do the job. And I don't think there is some software for that.

I entirely agree with Paul and Franz - the more I've played with planning/project management software, the more irritating I've found it for managing all the things that do, indeed, "slip through the cracks".

There's a very nice, thought-provoking system described here: http://www.bulletjournal.com/

It's entirely paper-based, and yet extensible to any number of different software solutions if required.

Personally, I've almost entirely abandoned the many to-do apps I've played with over the years, and ended up on Trello. I like being able to see multiple to-do lists side by side! And Trello is free, cross-platform and collaborative.

For urgent reminders, I've gone back to apps like Apple's Reminders or in Windows, Stickies.

I'm starting to like to use checklists that are reviewed at different frequencies. For instance, I have morning, afternoon, evening, daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly checklists. Other lists are triggered by something other than time; e.g., a project start or project end checklist.

What I like about this is that it provides a simple but robust framework for getting myself to do certain things on a regular basis and simply reminding me to do valuable things. For example, I might decide to review the status of all my projects every Monday or every afternoon; another example is to spend some time working on my most valuable project every morning. The content of the examples is nothing unique, but the point is that the recurring checklist framework helps me stick to good productivity ideas I've read or discovered for myself. I can also change what happens and when by simply modifying a plain list, so it's very flexible. It's iterative, in that I can redesign my day or week by modifying my checklists at those levels, so I never feel stuck doing something just because it once seemed a good idea.

I use Workflowy for this because of its paper-like nature, ubiquitous access, and ease of making reusable lists, but it seems like pretty much any software that can list items - or even paper - could be used.

It sounds to me as if the issue is less about software, and more about psychology. Managing upwards is difficult; it's especially difficult if the person you're managing upwards is failing to manage downwards very well.

If she's asking you to do too many things, and asking you to do them in too diffuse a way, she's not managing you properly. One way or another, she needs to be made aware of this - of course with all your charm and pleasantry turned on. And then, crucially, she needs to be asked to choose. What tasks should you give priority to? What are the consequences of this choice? And how should those consequences be handled? To say the least, those aren't decisions that all managers relish. Nonetheless, they're implicit in the job description. It's one reason managers are paid more.

The purpose of software in such circumstances - I've found - is to display the commitments, especially time commitments, and the constraints. The software's role is to bring the manager's choices starkly to the forefront. Especially for tasks that last several days, I've found project planning software, for example MS Project, the best. It's logical, it's quite simple, it's relatively easy for the manager to understand, and it illustrates the potential problems and conflicts of resource usage, such as yours, very well.

Just don't get bogged down in drawing up beautiful project plans; that's not what this is about. You want something that says: "These are my working days; you can readily see that it's impossible to do all that I'm being asked to do in the time available. How should I proceed? Take on less? Do what I do do less thoroughly? Hire additional people?" If she can't or won't answer such questions, I'd honestly start to look for a job elsewhere.

The above sounds more clear-cut and deterministic than I intended. Abbreviation tends to have that effect.

And of course, all managers prefer solutions rather than problems, answers rather than questions. So rather than saying: "We clearly can't carry out all these tasks," it would be better to say "We can't do them all, but why don't we try this mix?" Project planning software will enable you very simply to 'flex' various combinations of tasks for her, examine different scenarios, and explore the resulting consequences.

You have my sympathies, Jim. I have struggled with this issue for more years than I care to imagine. My work involves project management for a number of projects, and it seems that as the years have gone by, I spend less time actually working on what I would like to work on, and more time responding to e-mail and voicemail messages. One of the problems with this change in work habits is that I have slowly learned to become a "sprinter", but at the expense of my "long distance" skills, and my work still has many long terms aspects. I also work in a cube farm, so privacy is very limited, and distractions are frequent. In short, I sometimes feel that I have the attention span of a gnat, and if I am not careful, I can get quite stressed out about the situation and find myself further unable to concentrate. Or worse yet, wishing that there was a software/hardware solution that would help me be more productive.

While I know that software is not the answer, and that really I need to rebuild my concentration habits, I do believe that for some people, the right software can help in the rebuilding process if only because it can instill some structure and framework. I have been struggling with an acute dose of this recently, and have felt a bit like a dog with a bone, because there are just too many things (short and long term, low and high priority) for me to effectively track on paper. Yes, the CRIMPing was a bit of a time investment, and I am not certain if it will fully pay off, but I had to do something, and trying to devote that time I spent CRIMPing into work time was just too stressful for my mind.

To make a long story short, I evaluated four programs, and have settled on two and a half (for now). I understand that the software is not going to solve many of my time management and concentration problems, but it just might help me to build some structure, and to effectively have a comprehensive look at what needs to get done, if only so I can decide what I can or cannot get done. It is frustrating to say this,but we can only do so much in a day, and unless you can readily and easily identify and eliminate big time vampires, you need to work with your manager to determine what is the top priority, and what can be pushed back (as was mentioned above).

And, FWIW, I find that a few minutes of meditation once or twice a day helps to clear my mind and reduce my stress level so I can better concentrate. If I am anxious about being behind schedule, I am even less effective. And when all else fails, I pull out a single piece of paper and write down the top tasks that are on my mind. Usually they are the most urgent, and a few 20-minute Pomodoro sessions allows me to concentrate on one or two of the more important ones.

Good luck,

--Ken

P.S. The two and a half programs that I chose were Toodledo, Asana and Trello in case anybody is interested.

Jim, I'll try to ellaborate further and provide additional proposals when I have more time, but for the moment my main suggestion is to use a time logging system to record the time you spend on activities. As others noted, showing the relevant data can be a very strong argument for changing the work approach. I personally use Klok which provides a real-time visual overview of my workday.

Ken, may I ask which programme specifically you refer to as 'half'? Trello? And do you mean that you consider it half a programme, or that you have only half-chosen it?

Alexander, as you say, using time-logging software is another way of demonstrating to a manager what is possible and what is not. (At one employer I worked for, managers who expected more than was humanly possible were known as 'The Impossiblists'.) As a side-issue, there are several such applications, offline and online. Klok seems to have advanced by several degrees since I looked at it for personal use two or three years ago.

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

Ken, may I ask which programme specifically you refer to as 'half'?
Trello? And do you mean that you consider it half a programme, or that
you have only half-chosen it?

Hi Alexander,

I knew this group would not let me get away with "half" an answer, but I did not want to distract too much into a software discussion from the OP's issue. But, I will elaborate a bit on my software selection, which is still a work in progress.

First, you are correct, Trello is the "half" program, and that is mostly because I cannot fully incorporate it into what I am trying to do. But, I have found it to be an amazing program, and with a bit of maturation, it could be an amazing program. I really like that it is dead simple to use, very mobile friendly and very responsive. I wish that I could say the same for Producteev, the fourth program that was in the mix, but pulled when I had too many issues around responsiveness (either having entered data appear, or having mail message never show up). The main things that Trello did not really offer that I wanted were more control over setting reminders, better control over subtasks, including the ability to assign them, better tagging features, and greater data incorporated into email messages. Still, I could not completely give up on Trello, so it may be used for specific tasks and projects in the future.

In addition to the items that I discussed above, my other big issue is remembering things. I used to be able to remember items without having to immediately write them down or log them into a program, but I suspect that age, stress, and perhaps some of the chemotherapy drugs from the past few years have made that just a bit harder. Its not like I cannot remember anything, but my memory used to be tack sharp, and now it is just sharp. That, combined with an ever-increasing number of items in need of attention at home and at work, and it is more than I can manage without some assistance and reminders.

The two programs that I am curretly trying to use to solve this program are Asana and Toodledo. Asana is a great program for task management, and shares many similar data features as Trello, like the ability to easily add dated comments to a task. But what I really like about Asana is that it offers similar levels of control, like assigning a task or setting a due date, to subtasks. Also, you can create header categories within task lists, a useful Trello-like feature, and a task can be assigned to more than one project. The issues that I have with Asana are control over its reminders, and not so great mobile apps. If they beefed up these two areas, it might be a stand-alone solution for me.

And this brings me to Toodledo, a program that I have used off an on for a number of years. It's browser interface is still a bit dated, but it offers several powerful features, like a good reminder system, and excellent native apps for mobile devices, all of which, IIRC, can work offline, an issue with the other programs. So, what I am trying to implement is a system where Asana is my back end for storing and arranging all of my tasks in detail, for work and for home (replacing Trello in both cases), and then I "assign" items in need of immediate attention to Toodledo (which automatically send a task to my Toodledo account). In theory, this should allow me to focus on the items I need to focus on regardless of where I am at, without distraction, but with the ability of reminders/alarms (and also the ability of my calendar to send appointment reminders into the mix). When I am at a desktop and want to have a full overview, I call up Asana. I am still seeing if this is workable, and I am still getting the hang of all of Asana's features, limitations and quriks, so it is definitely a work in progress. But, even if I do need to make adjustments, I will probably still use one of these three programs, or some other combination thereof.

My apologies to the Jim, the OP, if this is too far off topic, but it may provide some food for thought as we both try to work through similar work issues. Jim, I would be interested in hearing your current thoughts after reading through this thread. I find the advice given here to always be helpful and thought-provoking. These are not topics that I can discuss in detail with work colleagues as they generally have little or no interest in them, so I am thankful that I can come here to discuss ideas as I muddle my way through them.

--Ken

Ha! How amusing, your development largely parallels mine. I still use Trello as my main organisational app, but for reminders and multi-day events, you do need something more immediate. I was using a very nice iOS app called ToDoList, which also allows you to put lists side by side and includes useful alarms, but unfortunately it's entirely limited to iOS.

On the Mac, I'm looking forward to exploring Tree Outliner in particular. Now that's an app that could do with multiplatform versions! It's kind of like Workflowy and Gingko in one (although Gingko is, in certain respects, superior, and I can't wait till there's an offline version available!).

The issue of subtasks is one that has taxed me for years. I used to be very much in favour, but as I have grown older and more appreciative of minimalist/ultra-streamlined systems, I actually find subtasks - as depicted in many outliner-style task managers - slightly annoying. I do like subtasks embedded within main tasks, however (as per Wunderlist, Trello etc.).

Having said all that, I still use the majestic Priorities as an alternative to both Trello and Reminders when setting up certain kinds of task/subtask. Oh dear. Alice in CRIMPerland... there's a book there, you know...

MadaboutDana wrote:

The issue of subtasks is one that has taxed me for years. I used to be
very much in favour, but as I have grown older and more appreciative of
minimalist/ultra-streamlined systems, I actually find subtasks - as
depicted in many outliner-style task managers - slightly annoying. I do
like subtasks embedded within main tasks, however (as per Wunderlist,
Trello etc.).

Having said all that, I still use the majestic Priorities as an
alternative to both Trello and Reminders when setting up certain kinds
of task/subtask. Oh dear. Alice in CRIMPerland... there's a book there,
you know...

This whole thing is quite a work in progress, both my software coonsiderations and improving my work habits. But, I have a soft spot for Trello, since it does what it can do very well.

I understand the issue around subtasks, and I could make the task a project and each subtask a task, but that would probably clutter up my projects list, and that does not seem to be helpful to me as I try and sort through things. I looked for the iOS app ToDoList, but was not able to find it. I will search again, as the idea of side by side lists sounds interesting.

--Ken

The thoughtful responses in this thread are Exhibit A for why I value this forum and its members so much.

Having said that, my response here probably isn't going to add to that evidence much if at all. I have been a terrible time manager all my life. I have finally stopped even worrying about it. I just do what I have to do and that seems to work for the type of jobs I've had over the years.

One insight I've gained that may be of some value for some people who think like I do (I pity them), is that I've also stopped bothering to create task lists. That is because they are almost impossible for me to deal with as I get caught up with how reductionist to get. Every task or project can be sub-divided to absurd levels. Where the line is between meaningful and absurd can be kind of blurry to me. Instead of doing that, I now try to make a list of desired outcomes. As a simple example: If I want to bake a cake for my wife's birthday, instead of making a list of ingredients, and other steps, I will just make note, "Cake for Amy's birthday." As long as I remember that, my brain can manage the rest. As a work-related example, I will just write, "Catalog mailed by end of March." All the many steps that go into that project, I can manage in my head. Sometimes I make lists of steps if I need to think through the process. But I usually don't bother creating a check list from that.

I guess the gist of what I'm saying is that I used to spend a lot of time and energy trying to manage my time. This turned out to be counter-productive, absorbing time and creating stress.

Steve Z.

I like Stephen Zeoli's examples because they fit into a type of planning that I've been experimenting with - "if-then" planning -- which "studies show" is more successful than standard project or task planning. (Of course, I have no idea what or where those studies are.) The form is simple: "If X happens, then I will do Y".

Rephrasing his examples: "If it is my wife's birthday, then I will bake a cake". "If it is the end of March, then I will ship the catalog".

I am finding that it is easier to connect an obligation or commitment to a trigger than it is just to remember the commitment.

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

Instead of doing
that, I now try to make a list of desired outcomes. As a simple example:
If I want to bake a cake for my wife's birthday, instead of making a
list of ingredients, and other steps, I will just make note, "Cake for
Amy's birthday." As long as I remember that, my brain can manage the
rest. As a work-related example, I will just write, "Catalog mailed by
end of March." All the many steps that go into that project, I can
manage in my head. Sometimes I make lists of steps if I need to think
through the process. But I usually don't bother creating a check list
from that.

I guess the gist of what I'm saying is that I used to spend a lot of
time and energy trying to manage my time. This turned out to be
counter-productive, absorbing time and creating stress.

Steve Z.

Steve,

I could have written an almost identical post for a number of years, and I think that much of what you said applies to many of us. Unfortunately, a bad combination of things has changed the landscape on me, and I am finding that this approach needs a bit of modification. The following is not necessarily a rebuttal, but rather an explanation of the changes and the need to change my MO (which was very similar to yours). First, my memory is feeling a bit taxed these days. Not in a cognitive or developmental sense, but just in the sheer amount of information that passes through my brain, and the ever increasing portion that requires some kind of future attention or action.

Using my work as a more detailed example, the project and program outcomes I manage are requiring more steps to accomplish, and the number of outcomes has also increased. I know that I can only do so much in a day, but if I do not write down all the newly spawning tasks that seem to multiply daily, it is quite easy for me to forget an important one that is critical and/or time sensitive. And, as my time is often crunched because of the constant time vampires which are very hard to control or minimize, I want to focus my remaining available time on the most appropriate tasks, which are unfortunately also multiplying at too rapid a rate. In short, the methods that you have described above, and which I have more or less implemented over the years, and still do to a certain degree, cannot handle this increase in. If I could remember everything in need of attention or needed to accomplish an outcome, things would be fine. But, that does not seem to be the case.

And the part that is truly frustrating to me, and I am sure many here can relate to, is that while I understand how many of these task managers work in theory, I find many of them hard to actually use on a daily basis. Few have really exceptional UI's, so despite all of their search, sort and tagging capabilities, most have some serious limitation in how they present their data. As stated earlier, I am trying to see if I can get comfortable with Asana, but it has its challenges in how it presents metadata for things like subtasks.

Having said all that, there is a part of me that wonders how much further along I might be if I just worked and did not spend any time trying to organize/reorganize/prioritize.

--Ken

Ken wrote:

And the part that is truly frustrating to me, and I am sure many here
can relate to, is that while I understand how many of these task
managers work in theory, I find many of them hard to actually use on a
daily basis.

Having said all that, there is a part of me that wonders how much
further along I might be if I just worked and did not spend any time
trying to organize/reorganize/prioritize.

I think part of the difficulty is that planning affects multiple overlapping temporal planes (and not many tools can handle that, if any). There is the long-term time scale of a project that can take several years (e.g. writing/planning a book). Then there are the smaller, intermediate phases (writing/planning the chapters), and then the actual writing, which continues to be a simultaneous planning, as one constantly needs to revise the plan, break it down into smaller parts, abandon or merge sections etc.

Here you can substitute planning with outlining. The two are synonymous to some extent. And outlining is also synonymous with project management to some extent, as outlining effectively consists of constructing a "work breakdown structure" (WBS), i.e. breaking down a larger task to smaller bits, until the tasks become actionable. Then if you add deadlines to the outline, it becomes a project plan (I realise there is more to PM, such as when you're constructing a bridge or an airplane, I'm just concentrating on the basics here).

What I'm getting at is that even if one tries to ignore the long-term and medium-term planning horizon, it's impossible to ignore it during the execution of the tasks because the tasks continuously need to be broken down and outlined and re-outlined, to be able to carry them out.

What really matters for the medium and long-term planning is whether the workload (and other material resource requirements) has been estimated realistically enough and whether there is some institutional mechanism that can make the deadlines sufficiently scary, so that they force you to abandon perfectionism and focus on delivering the essentials.

BTW, I like WorkFlowy partly due to an almost complete lack of structure. It's just a blank canvas, and you can design your very own project management system by just labelling any item whatever you like. And if you don't like it later, you can easily restructure it. Of course this also makes it more challenging to use, as you really need to design your own system (although an existing system of course can also be implemented). It's a similar problem that people tend to have with ConnectedText. It's so much of a blank canvas that it's difficult to figure out initially what to use it for exactly. But such software can be a solution to the other extreme, when a software imposes its own single system on you (such as a Gantt chart or a Calendar view or indeed a hierarchical tree), and there is no other way to organise or visualise things.

Sorry, Ken, my fault entirely. The precise name of the app is "To-do Lists", and it is rather good. No sub-tasks, however (but when running multiple lists, I find they're less important, somehow). I'm playing with Tree on MacOS at the moment - what a perfectly wonderful outliner it is! Vertical AND horizontal - heaven!

Hm. Following our interesting conversations about outliners vs. task managers vs. calendars vs. project managers, I've stumbled across a rather nice little Mac app called DayMap which combines, yes, a task manager with a calendar (tasks on top, calendar on bottom). Unusually, however, it allows you to run multiple task lists side by side (something I'm increasingly keen on) and - this will excite some of you! - to run them as outlines (i.e. with tasks and folding subtasks). Any task that's given a due date will appear in the calendar view below.

It's an unusually elegant little solution - I've seen other attempts to do this, but nothing anywhere near as neat.

Fans of Trello (especially those of you who like Trello's calendar view) will love it. And it only costs £7 (ca. $11).

There's an iPhone app as well, and apparently they're working on an iPad version. Sadly, it's not available for Windows.

Interesting! Several Mac task managers seem to be going or have recently gone in the direction of graphically representing on a calendar when you're planning to carry out your tasks, including the Granddaddy, Omnifocus. Not exactly GTD as I remember it originally recommended by David Allen, but still a useful development.

MadaboutDana wrote:

Hm. Following our interesting conversations about outliners vs. task
managers vs. calendars vs. project managers, I've stumbled across a
rather nice little Mac app called DayMap which combines, yes, a task
manager with a calendar (tasks on top, calendar on bottom). Unusually,
however, it allows you to run multiple task lists side by side
(something I'm increasingly keen on) and - this will excite some of you!
- to run them as outlines (i.e. with tasks and folding subtasks). Any
task that's given a due date will appear in the calendar view below.

It's an unusually elegant little solution - I've seen other attempts to
do this, but nothing anywhere near as neat.

Thanks for the reference, Bill. This looks like a great beginning, but like many of the apps, it seems to be shy of a few things that might prove useful to many. I think that adding just tags alone would take this to another level, although I am starting to grow fond of apps that can send and receive email. I have been mulling a MBA, but as it is not a necessity, it is still sitting on my wish list. But, if I do eventually take the plunge, I would give this some consideration.

Thanks,

--Ken

Fans of Trello (especially those of you who like Trello's calendar view)
will love it. And it only costs £7 (ca. $11).

There's an iPhone app as well, and apparently they're working on an iPad
version. Sadly, it's not available for Windows.

Hugh wrote:

Interesting! Several Mac task managers seem to be going or have recently
gone in the direction of graphically representing on a calendar when
you're planning to carry out your tasks, including the Granddaddy,
Omnifocus. Not exactly GTD as I remember it originally recommended by
David Allen, but still a useful development.

Others interested in this kind of feature may want to take a look at Pagico (mentioned here years ago I believe): http://www.pagico.com/

Planning beforehand _when_ non time-determined tasks are to be implemented is indeed not classic GTD and possibly reduces flexibility. On the other hand, I find that scheduling blocks of hours to work on major tasks requiring concecutively focused work --i.e. tasks that cannot be meaningfully advanced within 1-2 pomodoros-- is critical for such undertakings. When I did my MBA concurrently with my job, the weekly regularity of work was conducive to my blocking half days for my assignments. I don't think I've ever worked in such a structured way for such a long time before--or since.

It has been mentioned before that the GTD methodology is fine for people required to do many minor tasks during their workday. It is far from ideal for, say, writers, who need to 'get into the flow' and whose work cannot be broken into small independently implemented tasks.

BTW, I have found this topic extremely interesting and appreciate the valuable personal contributions and insights beyond software and tools. I hope to add more of my own--when I find the time.

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

Hugh wrote:
>Interesting! Several Mac task managers seem to be going or have
recently
>gone in the direction of graphically representing on a calendar when
>you're planning to carry out your tasks, including the Granddaddy,
>Omnifocus. Not exactly GTD as I remember it originally recommended by
>David Allen, but still a useful development.

Others interested in this kind of feature may want to take a look at
Pagico (mentioned here years ago I believe): http://www.pagico.com/

Precisely yes, Pagico was one of the applications I had in mind when I wrote the paragraph above.

Planning beforehand _when_ non time-determined tasks are to be
implemented is indeed not classic GTD and possibly reduces flexibility.
On the other hand, I find that scheduling blocks of hours to work on
major tasks requiring concecutively focused work --i.e. tasks that
cannot be meaningfully advanced within 1-2 pomodoros-- is critical for
such undertakings.

My thinking too.

It has been mentioned before that the GTD methodology is fine for people
required to do many minor tasks during their workday. It is far from
ideal for, say, writers, who need to 'get into the flow' and whose work
cannot be broken into small independently implemented tasks.

I'm beginning to think that I need two separate ways of managing my tasks - one like Pagico a halfway-house between a task manager and a full-blown project manager, for longer-term projects that demand that you 'get into the flow', and one like, say, Omnifocus for everything else. (Incidentally, Pagico seems to have improved its act since this forum considered it a couple of years ago. It's still quirky, but appears more reliable in use and slightly less obscure in its UI, and it also now has an iOS application. The Omni Group has just released Omnifocus 2, with numerous improvements; for me its new UI lacks contrast and therefore, to a certain extent, impact, but as a GTD application, close to the David Allen vision but not obsessively so, unlike some others, I expect it will remain the market leader on the Mac.)

BTW, I have found this topic extremely interesting and appreciate the
valuable personal contributions and insights beyond software and tools.
I hope to add more of my own--when I find the time.