Is Toodledo dead?

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Posted by Ken
Apr 3, 2021 at 04:04 PM

Christoph wrote:
Talking about todo managers, here are three more recommendations.
> >*MyLifeOrganized* (MLO) is a very flexible and powerful application that
>is essentially based on an outline (arbitrarily deep tree) of tasks.
>Tasks can be marked as pure containers (folders) or projects.
>User-definable filtering views allow to create flat lists from this
>outline. It has as a desktop app for Windows, and mobile apps for iOS
>and Android. MLO has many interesting and advanced features, like time-
>and location-based contexts, start and end date, reminder date, and
>review date (all separate from each other), and can be used to implement
>different task management methodologies.

I really enjoyed MLO as a desktop app at work for project management, but felt that setting or tweaking things was always a challenge. Had it been easier to configure, I would still be using it. Clickup offers many of the same features that I liked about MLO, but is easier to configure and re-configure for me.

—Ken

Posted by Ken
Apr 3, 2021 at 04:20 PM

Dr Andus wrote:
I’ve tried many todo apps over the years, and I ended up having the same
>problem with all of them, namely, that after a while it was hard to see
>the forest for the trees.
> >But even that metaphor breaks down here, as I could see the forest of
>todos, so that wasn’t the problem.
> >Maybe the problem was that it was getting increasingly harder to see
>which ones were the important trees, as they were getting lost in the
>ever-expanding forest, and far too much time was spent on forest
>management to find the important trees.
> >Then I came across a study somewhere which said that the busiest and
>most productive managers (CEOs and presidents etc.) only use a calendar
>to manage their todos because only what can get done at a specific point
>in time is worth focusing on (i.e. is important enough).
> >So the essential skill here is not task management (and forest
>management), but task selection, i.e. prioritisation, and choosing tasks
>and scheduling them in a calendar and getting them done is what matters.
> >Now it’s possible that this is only valid for those in senior
>management, and if one is an underling, then we are tasked to manage the
>forest, so that we can suggest important trees to senior management.
> >But I feel there is a learning point there that the higher level skill
>is to learn how to select (prioritise) important and urgent tasks and
>then focusing on getting them done (by scheduling them in a calendar),
>and forest management leads to stagnation or at least it’s a lower level
>skill, almost an admin skills vs. the management or leadership skills of
>prioritisation.
> >For the last several years I was using a combination of WorkFlowy (for
>capturing tasks, managing the forest) and Google Calendar to manage my
>affairs. But my WorkFlowy has grown into a giant forest of captured
>tasks most of which are ultimately probably pointless and useless as
>they never got scheduled because they turned out not to be important or
>urgent.
> >Enter RoamResearch, which has emerged as the magic solution to the
>forest management problem, and for me therefore is the absolute best
>todo management software I have ever used.
> >The key feature is the automatically appearing daily page, which forces
>you to review the previous day’s undone tasks, to evaluate whether they
>should be transferred over; so it’s a forced moment of reflection,
>evaluation, and prioritisation every day. (I imagine this is very
>similar to the bullet journal method.)
> >Although I still end up with some tasks that I’ve been rolling over for
>weeks or months, it also forces me to recognise that some of these are
>no longer important or will never be done and can be forgotten about.
> >But it also helps me never miss anything important, because it forces me
>to encounter again tasks that I scheduled for the future, when the given
>daily note appears on its assigned date. I still use Google Cal to
>schedule tasks in a calendar format, which just adds another moment of
>reflection and prioritisation, when tasks get mapped against the
>available time on a given day or week.
> >So when it comes to a todo system or software, the key features to
>evaluate would be how it deals with the growing forest problem, how it
>helps prioritization, how it helps scheduling, getting things done, and
>reminding of future tasks.
> >Creating an audit trail is also important (and for this Roam is also
>excellent, as there is a record of each day that’s passed, and the
>internal linking can ensure the monitoring of connections between past,
>present, and future tasks and events).

Now we get to the heart of the matter - prioritization. This is the key for me as I am frequently at bandwidth overload. I used to use tags to prioritize and “pull” out tasks that needed to be done and would only use programs that offered reasonable tagging features. I then found that good search and filtering started appearing in programs which made tagging even better, especially when a search/filter could be saved. Now we have programs that are highly customizable where you can create your own fields, and I combine that with the ability to create my own views (something I originally implemented in MLO and now use in Clickup). The ability to quickly switch views is very helpful, and I have a project view, a priority view and a calendar view (for my personal and home lists).

I am still sorting out Clickup at work so I have been using it in conjunction with Kanbanflow. Clickup holds all of the data and tasks/subtasks and Kanbanflow allows me to quickly prioritize and jot down items as they arise. The board has four columns - Now, Next, Later, and Scratchpad. This keeps me from being overwhelmed and with the use of just a few colors to code things, I can decide what I want to tackle and see where it is as. This can easily be replaced by almost any kanban board, but Kanbanflow is so dead simple that it is almost frictionless in use for me. My goal is to eventually try to move this into Clickup, but I am not sure if I can set it up as I wish. But, trying to is teaching me a lot, so as long as it does not get out of hand, I am okay.

Finally, at work they are rolling out MS Planner/Todo/Tasks since we are an all Microsoft shop. I find them a bit too simple for my needs, but I did find it interesting that Microsoft has incorporated the concept of prioritizing in the system. I cannot remember which of the three requires you to rebuild your daily task list each day so you can start with a clean slate. I understand what they are trying to accomplish, but having to rebuild each day would drive me crazy. My 3+1 board at Kanbanflow is much easier.

—Ken

Posted by Cyganet
Apr 4, 2021 at 07:28 AM

Stephen Zeoli wrote:
> >But back to ClickUp. You can use it for everything from a simple todo
>list, to a KanBan board and timelines, now. A feature they don’t seem to
>talk about much is that you can associate Notion-like documents to
>projects. Notion-like because you can put almost any information into
>them. So, for instance, I am managing our exhibit at a virtual
>conference and I’ve got the instructional PDFs in one of the documents
>for this project, along with clipped email information. You build these
>documents very similarly to Notion pages by selecting elements to add to
>the document with the slash key.
> >Each task you create in ClickUp can be loaded with information,
>including fully formatted notes, attachments, sub-tasks, all kinds of
>meta data, commentary (because ClickUp is first and foremost built for
>collaboration—which I don’t need).
> >ClickUp also has a ton of video tutorials to help you figure out how to
>use it. It is impressive.
> >Steve

I was encouraged by Steve’s enthusiastic review to give ClickUp a try. It is impressive, and I really like the way the same task list can be viewed in many ways and the custom fields. I also like the audit trail of edits and changes, which Amazing Marvin does not have. But I already hit my first snag: no customisation of date formats as far as I can tell. Not being in the US, month-day doesn’t work for me, neither does a.m./p.m.time format. Maybe it’s in there somewhere. Nitpicks aside I can see myself using this for work so thank you for the recommendation!

The biggest difference between ClickUp and Amazing Marvin is the usage philosophy: every task in ClickUp gets a place on a list inside a fixed hierarchy, and a due date. Amazing Marvin is for throwing in all my ideas, then selecting the ones I want to work on now/soon, scheduling the ones that will come up on a certain date, and ignoring the rest. That’s how I avoid getting lost in the long list of trees that Dr Andus mentioned.

In AM I have a master list of lots of ideas and projects that I may or may not do, but by putting them on the master list I know they haven’t disappeared in the back of my mind. I have 522 tasks on my master list right now divided into 13 categories like “personal”, “home”, “business” and “social”. Everything from the next scheduled maintenance for my car (end of August) to doing my weekly review (every Monday morning). There’s a default “inbox” for new tasks so they don’t have to be assgined straight away.

When I open AM I don’t look at the master list, I look at “Today”: a selection of tasks that I have planned for today. Or if I prefer to plan for a week, I can put tasks on a “planned this week” list and look at that. Sometimes I want a small list of things to not forget so I made a “priority” list or an “ideas” list that I look at. There’s a calendar so if I review what rolled over from yesterday but don’t want to do it today I can move it to a future date or unschedule it.

Tasks have different levels of “fixedness” in terms of when they must/will/might be done:
- due date: must be done by then
- scheduled date: in my calendar to be done then
- planned week/month: I want to do it then, but not sure which day
- start date: don’t show me this task before then
- review date: remind me to look at this task on that date
- master list: not planned to be done yet
- backburner: an idea I had for someday/maybe, but I don’t intend to do anything about it now. Putting it on the backburner makes the master list shorter so I don’t see it each time I’m picking tasks to work on
- trash: sometimes I really won’t do this task any more, so I can delete it (and empty trash to get rid of it completely)

It works for me because I’m trying to solve the problem “which of these things shall I focus on now (after I have done what must be done today)”, and I like the flexibility of planning it enables. The biggest benefit is not having to go through the whole list every time. And I hardly ever use due dates, except for paying taxes. Perhaps the same is possible in ClickUp, so I’ll have to play with it some more.

Posted by Ken
Apr 4, 2021 at 03:40 PM

Cyganet wrote:

>Perhaps the same is
>possible in ClickUp, so I’ll have to play with it some more.

It is possible in Clickup and also in program like MLO and Asana to name a few others. At its most basic, you need a field or two and a view or two. In Clickup, like many programs, they offer several levels of priority. If that doesn’t help, then you can create your own field or use tags. Then just create views that show you what you want. It sounds simple, and for the most part it is, but may programs do not make it easy or even possible. This way you can have your big list which you may hardly ever look at, assuming that you properly label your tasks as you enter them so they appear where you want them. I have a priority view that shows my task in order of priority. And I have a calendar view when I want to see things by date, if applicable. I am also a big fan of a time/dated comment field so I can add notes if necessary. Again, many program offer these features, but some just do it better than others. Clickup has an initially steep learning curve, but the program is somewhat intuitive after a bit of play. If you really want a blank canvas to play with, there is always Airtable.

Good luck,

—Ken

Posted by Dr Andus
Apr 6, 2021 at 11:50 AM

Ken wrote:
>Now we get to the heart of the matter - prioritization. This is the key
>for me as I am frequently at bandwidth overload. I used to use tags to
>prioritize and “pull” out tasks that needed to be done and would only
>use programs that offered reasonable tagging features. I then found
>that good search and filtering started appearing in programs which made
>tagging even better, especially when a search/filter could be saved.
>Now we have programs that are highly customizable where you can create
>your own fields, and I combine that with the ability to create my own
>views (something I originally implemented in MLO and now use in
>Clickup). The ability to quickly switch views is very helpful, and I
>have a project view, a priority view and a calendar view (for my
>personal and home lists).

Thanks for sharing your method, Ken.

This thread made me think that another criterion for choosing a suitable todo software (which inevitably has to come with or enable one to construct one’ own ‘todo system’) is the ability to enforce discipline on the user.

There are lots of interesting systems and tools out there, but if for some reason it doesn’t impose or inspire the right kind of discipline to use that system, then it won’t work.

That’s the difference between Roam and WorkFlowy for me, for instance.

Much of what I do in Roam I could have accomplished in WorkFlowy, but while in Roam each new day appears automatically (and forces me to plan for the current day), in WorkFlowy I would have had to create each new day manually, and despite the fact that it would only take seconds to do that, I just never managed to maintain the discipline. I’m sure there are people out there who are capable of doing it in WorkFlowy, because they have the self-discipline, while I need the software to discipline me.

Maybe this is what is meant by the affordance of a piece of software.

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