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The misguided distinction between events and tasks
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Posted by Amontillado
May 30, 2018 at 02:25 AM
I have a slightly different view of events and tasks. Mostly, if someone else throws a dart at my schedule, pinning me to a time and place not of my choosing, it goes in my calendar. Or, if I have a specific thing at a specific time, that’s a calendar event.
I’m simplistic. I use Apple Calendar. Alarms go off to interrupt me, I respond. It works.
If something is under my control, particularly if it’s something I can complete early, it’s a task. I use OmniFocus.
Meet with Fred at 2:30 on Wednesday, that’s an appointment in my calendar. Find Fred and hand off a microfilmed communiqué, that’s a task and it can have a deadline.
Where the lines blur is where the Forecast tab in OmniFocus helps out. It’s a calendar with my scheduled tasks, and it shows events from Apple Calendar.
But I agree. Everything should have a schedule. If not a strict time, then at least the option to put in a proposed time. That helps with prioritization.
Of course, just my two cent.
Posted by satis
May 30, 2018 at 02:38 AM
Yes, for me calendar events are things I’ve decided to do at specific times, period.
My main disappointment is the anemic nature of reminders in calendars and to-do apps. I’ll often have odd-hour meetings, or set up something for a time I usually don’t check my phone or calendar, and my alerts don’t alert me. They’re one-time pop-ups on the phone or discreet beeps I don’t hear if my phone is in my pocket (especially if my headphones are plugged in but not in my ears). So for important or obscure items on my calendar I use Due app on my iPhone, which has a choice of alarms that include loud ones I won’t miss, and they’re repeatable every X minutes.
If Google Calendar (or one of the 3rd party iOS apps) had this functionality I’d be in hog heaven. Instead, I have one two apps for to-dos (one is Anylist, designed specifically for food shopping), Google Calendar, and duplicated alarms in Due.
Posted by MadaboutDana
May 30, 2018 at 09:43 AM
I’ve been using Pagico for the last few months, and frankly, the decision has caused my CRIMPing to diminish considerably (at least as far as task management apps are concerned),
I’ve invested in all the major players: Todoist, Things, 2Do, OmniFocus, Wunderlist and a host of others.
What puts Pagico into a different league is its overviews, and its flexibility.
You can use it as an outliner. You can use it as a very simple task manager. You can use it as a vastly complex project manager.
So some of my projects are large and complex. These include tasks, notes, attached files, and other goodies. They’re usually client-specific, so include tags with client codes, status (e.g. WAITING) and so on. Pagico handles tags very well.
Other projects are simply task lists (like “Personal” or “House”). Sometimes they don’t have deadlines, in which case I have a single task that moves from day to day and simply reminds me to check my “House” list from time to time.
This flexibility is underpinned by the Timeline view. This is similar to a GANTT chart, but without the dependencies. You can drag and drop stuff very easily from one day to another. It’s a great way to deal with the inevitable “look at all those tasks I haven’t done and are now late” scenario: you just drag and drop them onto new dates.
It’s much easier to use than a calendar (but Pagico has a calendar view as well, for those who prefer it).
It’s not a perfect app, but it’s stable, the synchronisation works well, the newly revised iOS app is very nice, and it does everything any other task management app does and more.
And while at first sight, it does appear to be complex, it’s actually very easy to use. It’s been steadily honed down by the developers from something that was a little too ambitious to something that’s - in my view - just right.
It’s worth spending a little time familiarising yourself with it at the start. But you get the hang of things very quickly, and I felt totally at home in it after messing about for a day or so. I may say that alternatives such as OmniFocus are at least as complex, and personally I never found OmniFocus to be particularly intuitive or well-designed (the iOS app in particular is a disaster).
I occasionally (being an inveterate CRIMPer) go back and play with other apps (such as the latest rather nice version of Things), but at no point have I felt tempted to leave Pagico. It’s also a rather good team solution, if you need such a thing, but I’m assuming most people in the forum don’t.
Posted by Ken
May 30, 2018 at 03:12 PM
MadaboutDana wrote:
I’ve been using Pagico for the last few months, and frankly, the
>decision has caused my CRIMPing to diminish considerably (at least as
>far as task management apps are concerned),
>
>I’ve invested in all the major players: Todoist, Things, 2Do, OmniFocus,
>Wunderlist and a host of others.
>
>What puts Pagico into a different league is its overviews, and its
>flexibility.
>
>You can use it as an outliner. You can use it as a very simple task
>manager. You can use it as a vastly complex project manager.
Quick question - does it offer subtasks?
—Ken
Posted by Dellu
May 30, 2018 at 04:08 PM
Ken wrote:
>Quick question - does it offer subtasks?
>
>—Ken
I don’t think sub-tasks are possible (https://notes17.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/245463727-Please-add-Subtasks)
But, it has Lists which keep related tasks together, like a folder.