About to move to MLO (MyLifeOrganised) - any advice?

[Ship69]

Hello

I am about to move my life to MyLifeOrganised (MLO). Apart from the fact that the interface is horribly over-cluttered... and apart from the fact that there are lots of over-complicated features that I will never use... what it actually wrong with it?
(i.e. Why isn't it more popular?)

I've been just using the on Windows app (on Win7 x64) and so far the most irritating things so far are:

A) That I don't seem to be able to paste text in very reliably (but this may be my Ditto paste buffer playing up, I'm not sure)

B) That despite being around "875,318+" apps being downloaded there doesnt seem to be a SINGLE video in English [WFT?!]

C) I asked a couple of questions on their (Google Groups) forum but it appears to be being moderated and it never appeared. And given that the software appears to be being developed in Russia, this latter point is rather sinister...!

Background
I am a newbie and have been using GTDNext but brilliant tho it is in many ways, not least its responsive development team, nonetheless unfortunately it's just not really ready (for me at least). The slow/fiddly nature of manual sorting is the main deal breaker.

So have any of you good people used MLO 'in anger' ?

Thanx

 

[Folke]

I tried maybe a year ago to make MLO work for me. I spent two full days before giving up. I simply was not able to find a way to even begin to set it up in any way that resembled my wishes. With most other apps, I can usually either at least find some half-assed way to use it straight away, and then fine-tune my uses over time, or I can tell straight away that this app will not be suitable for me. With MLO, I had the illusion that I might find a good way, and that illusion is what kept me trying for so long.

 

[Ship69]

Worrying. But there again, I do know you to be highly discerning, Folke... ;^)

Well, I must have tried out at least 12 GTD tools and hated them all within minutes. But after about half a day of use, it is the 'least bad' of all the systems that I've tried.... so far. It's almost enough to make one want to write one's own system. (Which is clearly what happened with James @ GTDNext... ! )

Can you remember specifically what the problem was?

 

[Folke]

Can you remember specifically what the problem was?

No, sorry, it was sort of "everything" - the combination of its various features; nothing specific. But I did appreciate the fact that it seemed to have a lot of options and power. That's why it took me so long to give up. Maybe (but I am not sure; I cannot remember) I had trouble setting up a true next actions list.

But do give it a shot! I think you get a few weeks' free trial. I know it has its fervent lovers, and it just might suit you.

Another app I tried and had a hard time giving up on was Appigo. It was clean and neat and simple, but I could not find a way to set up a true next actions list, because it would include not-yet-mature ticklers, and there was no way around that, if I recall correctly.

(Also, I prefer apps that treat Next, Waiting, Someday, Tickler and Calendar as separate fundamental categories, not just as different contexts.)

 

[matsuru]

Hi guys~!

I am MLO user and also beta tester.

MLO is powerful because it has tons of settings for you to customize. User dont have to use all the features and can choose to only a handful.

I wanted to try to help. Please let me know how you intend to use MLO & maybe I can try to help you set it up.

 

[samtech]

Ship69, I understand your pain with MLO. I am using it for more than 2 years. The most important reason I am using it because I paid for the pro desktop and phone version. I like the product initially and I saw the potential in it to perform various features I was looking for. I saw the MLO is around since 2004. I was new to GTD and thought my lack of GTD knowledge inhibit me from using the program fully. I was also relying on MLO to help me implement my GTD system. Once I will have grip over GTD principles, this can do wonders for me!

Now, the experience for beta testers may be completely different for a lot of reasons. First it’s not easy be a beta tester, I think you need to spend 4 or more hours weekly to qualify and then it is at the discretion of the developers. IMO, the beta testers are in better situation because developers are dependent on them for their feedback and they get their queries resolved much quicker. For other people, go through the google forum. If you don’t find the answer, post your question and wait!

I can say that I am getting better and better day by day. The key is to use the windows desktop version. They have a free lite version 2.0 or something like that. I prefer, actually paid for the pro version 4. I find it much easier to enter and manage tasks. Then sync it using wifi to your phone.

I will write more letter, when I will have time.

 

[Ship69]

Hi Guys

From what I can see, MLO is probably the most powerful GTD system that there is. The word on the street is that the route than many(/most?) uers take to get to MLO is that people try it, hate it, try everything else out there and eventually come back to it. It's 'power' comes from its customisability (if that's a word!)

The key question this is why, if it's so wonderful do people initially hate/reject it. I think a significant part of the answer is probably the lack of any explainer videos (AT ALL!), but the main answer is that it is so insanely complex and confusing. And really crucially important things get deeply buried by loads of stuff you probably won't use.

To give you an idea I finally discovered through some helpful detailed coaching from another user, that the way you can set up lists such as "Future/Delegated" and "Sometime/Maybe" is that you can set up an ordinary Folder and tick a box that stops the contents of that folder from appearing on you To-Do/Actions lists. So, yes you *can* set up the familiar GTD lists up but it's not remotely obvious. And finding the correct tick-box for a newbie user may or may not happen!

Also instead of using tags to setup up GTD Context, I discovered that some people use Flags. The good thing about flags is that an item can only have one flag at a time, which means that if you set a flag (as a Context) for something, you then automatically un-set the previous flag (i.e. previous Context), and this can be useful for Actions whose context changes over time. And MLO, being so customisable does allows you to do reports "by Flag" as well as by tag.

I mention these things only to give you an idea of the power but also steep learning curve. e.g. You are given tags and flags but it's not clear what either are really designed for!

Another problem is that the MLO developers are using Google Groups instead of modern forum software, and users are forced to wait 24 hours to see if their posts get past the moderators. This forces all dialog between users trying to help each other out down to the speed of a snail. I am also told that the developers (from Ukraine?) are terrible at keeping communicating with their customers informed of what is going on.

It seems that the developers of MLO have a long history (they started in 2004 I think) of listening intently to users and this is no doubt where all the power / customisability has come from. On the down-side, one problem is that they tend to do infrequent large releases rather than the Lean Startup recommended smaller releases which is a strategic mistake which could eventually kill them off. Also they have clearly been listening to advanced Early Adopter users (whol tolerate complexity/lack of intuitiveness well) more than to new/mainstream users (who tolerate learning curves badly).

My conclusion so far is that MLO is probably very much better than it seems.

Now, back to actually my getting own things done...

More later.

J

 

[Ship69]

Hi guys~!
Please let me know how you intend to use MLO & maybe I can try to help you set it up.

Hi Matsuru

My largest problem at present with MLO is that it takes 24 hours for my questions to be posted on the official MLO forum (on Google Groups) and another 24 hours for anyone one else's reply to appear! Nightmare. :^(

On MLO, it appears that the sort order of "Next Actions by Project" does use the Urgency & Importance of the Project itself, even though it isn't even showing those fields(!). In fact would argue that the fact that there it fails to show the importance & urgency fields of the Project - (but bizarrely it does show both for the Task itself) - is effectively a bug. i.e. Why is it sorting by something that it isn't showing to the user?!

This is deeply irritating because you cant actually see which Projects are supposed to be Urgent and/or Important in this ("Next Actions by Project") view.

Even more irritating is that if you click on a Project in the "Next Actions by Project" view, you can't either change or even see the Urgency or Importance of that project in the Properties dialogue box on the right hand side of the screen. And you are forced to go back to the Outline view to see what is actually going on at the Project level. In fact even if you manually format or "highlight" a project in the "Outline - All Tasks" view, still that highlighting also fails to appear visually on the Next Actions by Project view.

This all means that "Next Actions by Project" is an absolutely terrible place for seeing what is Imporant and/or Urgent, even though that is how the projects are in fact sorted!

My only workaround seems to be to use the tickbox called "Complete subtasks in order" for the Project and use the view called "Active Actions", which is of course sorted by the Urgency & Importance of the (just) one subtask which is left visible, compared to the Urgency & Importance of the other subtask. This view does of course ignore the Urgency & Importance of the actual projects though!

Any suggestions?

 

[matsuru]

My largest problem at present with MLO is that it takes 24 hours for my questions to be posted on the official MLO forum (on Google Groups) and another 24 hours for anyone one else's reply to appear! Nightmare. :^(
l understand your pain. Posting a question and waiting forever for answer is suffering. At the same time, I understand that everyone has their own lives to live with. So, sometimes being patience is important. 24 hours is OK in my opinion. At least, you get your answer the next day.

On MLO, it appears that the sort order of "Next Actions by Project" does use the Urgency & Importance of the Project itself, even though it isn't even showing those fields(!). In fact would argue that the fact that there it fails to show the importance & urgency fields of the Project - (but bizarrely it does show both for the Task itself) - is effectively a bug. i.e. Why is it sorting by something that it isn't showing to the user?!

This is deeply irritating because you cant actually see which Projects are supposed to be Urgent and/or Important in this ("Next Actions by Project") view.

Even more irritating is that if you click on a Project in the "Next Actions by Project" view, you can't either change or even see the Urgency or Importance of that project in the Properties dialogue box on the right hand side of the screen. And you are forced to go back to the Outline view to see what is actually going on at the Project level. In fact even if you manually format or "highlight" a project in the "Outline - All Tasks" view, still that highlighting also fails to appear visually on the Next Actions by Project view.

This all means that "Next Actions by Project" is an absolutely terrible place for seeing what is Imporant and/or Urgent, even though that is how the projects are in fact sorted!
I personally did not use the "importance" & "urgency" settings as I feel that this beats the purpose of GTD. GTD encourage rapid task selection based on what u need to do NOW & also some other factors such as time available, energy available & other influencies.

Anyway, I have played with the settings by creating some test projects with tasks underneath them. They sort correctly under the "Next Actions by Project" view. These views on the left hand side of MLO are actually filters to be used when you are doing the task. sometimes, we tend to forget which project the task is associated to when we have too many tasks to do and procrastinate on the weekly review. Thus, the "Next Actions by Project" view is very helpful.

To solve your issues with the "Unable to see and adjust the "importance" & "urgency" field. Create a new tab on the top bar of MLO by pressing the "+" button (similar to chrome). Then, check the checkbox of "sync selection with first tab". Name the newly created tab as "NAbyP" ( short for Next Action by Project). Change the view of the new tab to "Next Action by Project".

Now, you have 2 tabs on the top of MLO = "Outline" & "NAbyP"

Navigate your tasks on the "NAbP" tab. If you wish to do any changes on the project, just double click on the task. By doing so, you should be able to jump to the "Outline" tab. Navigate to the project and make your changes. Double click on the task again to go back to the "NAbP" tab.

To get things move faster, assign shortcut key to the tabs. Right click on the tabs and select "assign hotkey"

My only workaround seems to be to use the tickbox called "Complete subtasks in order" for the Project and use the view called "Active Actions", which is of course sorted by the Urgency & Importance of the (just) one subtask which is left visible, compared to the Urgency & Importance of the other subtask. This view does of course ignore the Urgency & Importance of the actual projects though!

Any suggestions?

I hope my suggestions is helpful.

I myself dont use all the functions & features of MLO. I try to use as less feature as possible and keep my to do list as simple as I can.

I've posted a request on the beta forum to get more users to join in here as well. Hopefully more user can chimp in their user experience to help each other out.

 

[TSC]

Hi Ship69

It is true that MLO is complex and therefore takes time to learn. Also, it is not specifically designed for GTD but is adaptable to suit a range of systems. My advice would be to start simple and add complexity as you learn your way around. So, for example, using the Windows version I recommend -

Step 1. Create a new file by selecting New from the File menu, then click the arrow next to 'New Blank File' and select 'Create blank data file'. This gives you a file with minimal complexity, ready for you to customise to meet your needs.

Step 2. Create the contexts that you use in GTD. To do this, press F8 or select 'Manage Contexts' from the Tools menu. This will open a blank window. Press the Insert or Ins key on the keyboard to add a new context. Type in the name and then add all the other contexts that you use. Ignore the right hand side of the window for the moment, but add all your contexts, regardless of whether or not they contain other contexts (e.g. my @Office context contains the context @Computer).

Step 3.Set up your context hierarchy, if you use one, by selecting a higher level context. You will then see a list on the right, under the tab 'Included contexts' and can check the box next to any included contexts. For example, if your list of contexts contains @Home and you work from home, then you might check the contexts @Work and @Personal as being included in the @Home context. When you've finished, close the Context box to return to the main screen.

Step 4. Set up your project list. Click on the arrow next to the word Outline in the left hand column of the screen. This will open up a list of views. Click on 'All tasks'. Then click in the main (blank) area in the centre of the screen and press the Insert or Ins key on the keyboard to create a new project. Keep adding projects until you have a useful list.

Step 5. Add tasks. Select an individual project and use Ctrl+Ins to add a subtask. This can be a sub-project or a task - MLO allows a hierarchy with many levels. Add as many sub-projects and tasks as you wish.

Step 6. Add task details. MLO allows lots of different task details to be added, but I recommend using only contexts and dates until you are more used to the system. Select a task and the details pane will be shown on the right hand side of the window. You can type in contexts in the first box under the General heading, and you can add start and due dates under the 'Timing & Reminder' heading. Add these details for all of your tasks.

Step 7. View your action list. Once you have added details for all of your tasks, go to the Active Actions view, which can be found under the 'To-Do' heading in the column on the left side of the window. The Active Actions view will show only tasks that can be done now because (a) they have no uncompleted sub-tasks, and (b) they either have no date start date or the start date has been reached.

Step 8. Filter your action list based on context. At the bottom left of the MLO window you will see the word Filter. Click on this and you will find a great variety of possible filters giving you some very powerful filter combinations. But for the time being focus on the heading Contexts, where you will see the list of contexts that you added. Clicking any one of these contexts will immediately filter your Action List to show only those tasks that are assigned to that context. You can select several contexts by using the Ctrl key, and you can toggle between AND and OR by clicking on the word to alter the way the filters are applied.

These steps probably miss out a lot of the things you want to do, but I think they're a good starting point, and once they feel familiar you can begin to build in additional complexity. I used Achieve Planner for many years, which was a great and very powerful program. But I changed to MLO several years ago and haven't been able to find anything better since I first started using it.

I hope this helps!

with best wishes, Claire.

 

[Ship69]

@matsuru

Thanks. Yes linking the two WorkAreas (i.e. tabs) is helpful.

[ In the short term hotkeys are slightly problematic simply because there are already so many of them and I'm note at all sure which to use (not helped by the fact that some of them are undocumented in the MLO literature). But I've set something temporary up which works fine. ]

OK I have looked long and hard at this Next Actions by Project problem

To get clear: What I am trying to achieve is to create a list of Next Actions - one per Project, but also sorted not each Action's own Importance, but sorted by the Importance of the *Project* to which each action belongs.

AND

To be able to see the Importance of the Project to which each Action belongs.

From what I can see this does not appear to be possible.

I have also tried going into the "Next Actions by Project" View, and changing the Sort to be Important. However although this does only show 1 Next Action project, and although the Projects are put into order of Project-level importance, like I said previously it is frustrating because you can not SEE (nor edit) the level of Importance.

Maybe I am asking too much of MLO?

@TSC/Claire
Yes I have already done almost exactly what you describe. Thanks for the input.

J

 

[Ship69]

I have experimented at some length with "Next Actions by Project". And I have tried to use the filter setting:
Filter ==> General ==> Show Actions: Next Actions
However although this does create views that only show one Next Action project, and although the Projects are can be put into order of Project-level importance, you can not SEE (nor edit) the level of Importance on that screen. So that is useless to me(!)

I have eventually concluded (after more time than is healthy!) that, very counter-intuitively, that "Next Actions by Project" is NOT the way to go.

The only thing that seems to work is to tick "Complete Subtasks in Order" on every single project [slightly irritating] and then create a View with:
Filter ==> General ==> Show Actions: Active
Filter ==> General ==> Show Hierarchy: Yes
Filter ==> Add Avanced ==> [un-ticked]
Filter ==> Group & Sort ==> Group by ==> (none)
Filter ==> Group & Sort ==> Sort... ==> Sort tasks by ==> Importance, Descending

This has the added benefit that I can quickly see what other Actions are queuing up for a Project by unticking (Complete subtasks in order) field (using the hotkey Alt/P). And if I wish to change the Next Action for another one, I can of course then very easily scroll down and move the one of the other actions up into the Next Action position (e.g. by using arrow keys and Shift/Alt/UpArrow etc). And do all this without my hands leaving the keyboard.

One problem:
For larger projects, using "Complete Subtasks in Order" becomes a problem because the whole of the rest of the tree below a project is reduced to a single next task! And I still suspect that Next Action would be better, it's just that I can not for the life of me work out how to use it in a way that works as I need!

* * *

UPDATE01: I have discovered a serious problem with the View that I built as described above. Which is that it is only showing Actions that are part of Projects. This means that Actions that have not (yet) been allocated a Project do not appear. And likewise when you tick the last Action off a project, the project disappears from view. Drat!! Back to square one... >:^(

* * *

UPDATE02: In the meantime I have discovered an other useful view - "Next Action by Context (by Computed-Score)"
The idea here is that you get to see:
a) All your Contexts on a single page (i.e. the page is Grouped by Context)
b) Then within Context, you have your Next Actions (that are using that Context)
c) And your Next Actions are sorted by something useful (e.g. by Computer-Score)

For the record I set it up as follows:

Filter ==> General ==> Show Actions: Next Actions
Filter ==> General ==> Show Hierarchy: No
Filter ==> Add Avanced ==> [un-ticked]
Filter ==> Group & Sort ==> Group by ==> Context (group expanded)
Filter ==> Group & Sort ==> Sort... ==> Sort tasks by ==> Computed-Score, Descending

This is very useful as it means I dont need to set up one view for each of my Contexts.
I also get my Next Actions sorted intelligently within each Context (by Importance + Urgency i.e. Computed-Score)
Also I get to see which Actions are how important by making the Importance and Urgency columns visible.
And I can move them up an down the list if necessary simply but adjusting the Importance and/or Urgency in the right hand Properties pane.

Pretty useful.

Nonetheless I would still prefer all my Actions to bear the Importance and Urgency of the underlying Project rather than value at the Action level. The reason is because as soon as they are ticked off the next Next Action will (probably)not have the correct Importance/ Urgency.

I mean normally (for me at least) it's the completion of the whole project that is important and which needs to hit a deadline, rather than individual actions themselves being Important/Urgent in their own right, (separately from that of the rest of the Project). Anyone with me on this?

J

 

[Ship69]

@matsuru
Did I annoy you?

J

 

[matsuru]

@matsuru
Did I annoy you?

J

Nope. Not a bit.
just that I dont have an answer to your questions yet.
As I mentioned, I am a simple user of MLO. I dont use much of the features that much.
and, I believe I've provided you with positive feedbacks by asking other MLO users to chimp in. Am I right?

 

[matsuru]

@matsuru
Did I annoy you?

J

Nope. Not a bit.
just that I dont have an answer to your questions yet.
As I mentioned, I am a simple user of MLO. I dont use much of the features that much.
and, I believe I've provided you with positive feedbacks by asking other MLO users to chimp in. Am I right?

 

[Ship69]

Hello

Fwiw, I am now trialling a move back to GTDNext.com, which now has greatly improved manual sorting.

I have a sneaking suspicion that may exist that suits my requirements better, but I have yet to find it...

http://forum.gettingthingsdone.com/...th-mlo-and-gtdnext-that-meets-my-requirements

In my opinion GTDNext which is relatively simple has a superb core architecture. The main down-side is that being a web app you need connectivity in order to use it and the lack of a mobile phone app, but I think I can live with that.

J