Hello
About 18 months ago, after trialing - albeit briefly - at least 12 task management systems, I finally settled on MLO.
At that time, MLO (My Life Organised) was said to be the "tool of choice" that people tended to end up using after getting frustrated with everything else. It was felt that even though the Windows version of MLO is ugly, cluttered, has a steep learning curve and is poorly marketed... that in the end MLO was the best tool.
However I am now getting itchy feet again, because although yes, MLO is breath-takingly configurable, and although there are many, MANY wondeful things about it (including that it has extremely powerful hotkeys and although it now has some increasingly impressive mobile phone apps), it just isn't as good as it should be.
I want to be able to do a lot with very few clicks. But it turns out that no matter how you set it up MLO has some deep structural problem that are never going to go away because the data is at core incorrectly structured.
Here are MY REQUIREMENTS of a task management tool:
1. Needs a dedicated "GTD List" field (e.g. Inbox, Active, Scheduled, Waiting, Someday-Maybe) in order to permit easy moving tasks between lists. (see discussion below)
2. Needs to have a dedicated field for "Area of Life" (e.g. Work, Personal, Recreation...)
3. Absolutely must have as many levels of project hierachy as you like
4. Absolutely must have excellent keyboad entry for everything (mouse is too slow)
5. Absolutely must have a trivial means of converting individual tasks into projects and back into individual tasks.
6. Absolutely must have Context - where you are physically / energy level tags /type of activity (e.g. Errand, Reflective_Mood, Phone_call, Fun, [person_name] )
7. Absolutely must have ability put something into the future trivially (e.g. by using a StartDate in the future makes it disappear) or some other easy way to create a GTD "Tickler" list.
8. Absolutely must have the ability to show just the one Next Action for each project on a special view.
9. Absolutely must have ability to (make exeptions to "8." and "Force" certain additional tasks through)
10. Absolutely must have ability to visually highlight certain tasks (e.g. using some form of priority)
11. Absolutely must have ability to flag up and focus on a small number of tasks to do "today" and have a dedicated view of just those tasks.
12. Absolutely must have ability to change sort order of "11."
This should be possible by keyboard not just by mouse, becuase keyboard is both faster and more precise.
13. Needs ability to select multiple lines at once and do whatever you do next to them all. [Yes, MLO does let you do this and it's rather amazing!]
14. Needs ability to work offline (critical when I am travelling).
15. Needs mobile phone app.
MLO (my life organised) has all of the above except 1. and 2. (see above)
GTDNext.com has all the above except 13. 14. and 15.
DISCUSSION of MLO
One of my main gripes with MLO is just how hard it is to move Tasks & Projects between GTD Lists. In the end MLO needs a database field for "GTD list" and any workaround with Flag or physically moving tasks from folder to folder don't work as intended and never will.
Likewise, life would be much easier to organise if there was a dedicated Area of Life field so that one can change what you are looking at with a single click, irrespective of other filters.
GTDNext
One tool that does have an excellent database structure is GTDNext.com. I have been watching GTDNext for the last few months. Moving tasks between list and even between Areas of Life, is trivially easy. You can a LOT with very few clicks because it's use of screenspace is way, way, WAY tighter than MLO. It now has a reasonable collection of hotkeys (which is critical because using a mouse is too slow).
However unlike MLO, GTDNext a web app. This means that you need to be online in order to use it. Worse, it doesn't have a mobile phone app. And viewed through a mobile phone, it's inteface isnt brilliant.
Can anyone recommend anything better than GTDNext or MLO, which meets all my criteria?
J
EDIT: Operating systems: Windows 8.1 (planning to move to v10 soon) and Android (v5)
About 18 months ago, after trialing - albeit briefly - at least 12 task management systems, I finally settled on MLO.
At that time, MLO (My Life Organised) was said to be the "tool of choice" that people tended to end up using after getting frustrated with everything else. It was felt that even though the Windows version of MLO is ugly, cluttered, has a steep learning curve and is poorly marketed... that in the end MLO was the best tool.
However I am now getting itchy feet again, because although yes, MLO is breath-takingly configurable, and although there are many, MANY wondeful things about it (including that it has extremely powerful hotkeys and although it now has some increasingly impressive mobile phone apps), it just isn't as good as it should be.
I want to be able to do a lot with very few clicks. But it turns out that no matter how you set it up MLO has some deep structural problem that are never going to go away because the data is at core incorrectly structured.
Here are MY REQUIREMENTS of a task management tool:
1. Needs a dedicated "GTD List" field (e.g. Inbox, Active, Scheduled, Waiting, Someday-Maybe) in order to permit easy moving tasks between lists. (see discussion below)
2. Needs to have a dedicated field for "Area of Life" (e.g. Work, Personal, Recreation...)
3. Absolutely must have as many levels of project hierachy as you like
4. Absolutely must have excellent keyboad entry for everything (mouse is too slow)
5. Absolutely must have a trivial means of converting individual tasks into projects and back into individual tasks.
6. Absolutely must have Context - where you are physically / energy level tags /type of activity (e.g. Errand, Reflective_Mood, Phone_call, Fun, [person_name] )
7. Absolutely must have ability put something into the future trivially (e.g. by using a StartDate in the future makes it disappear) or some other easy way to create a GTD "Tickler" list.
8. Absolutely must have the ability to show just the one Next Action for each project on a special view.
9. Absolutely must have ability to (make exeptions to "8." and "Force" certain additional tasks through)
10. Absolutely must have ability to visually highlight certain tasks (e.g. using some form of priority)
11. Absolutely must have ability to flag up and focus on a small number of tasks to do "today" and have a dedicated view of just those tasks.
12. Absolutely must have ability to change sort order of "11."
This should be possible by keyboard not just by mouse, becuase keyboard is both faster and more precise.
13. Needs ability to select multiple lines at once and do whatever you do next to them all. [Yes, MLO does let you do this and it's rather amazing!]
14. Needs ability to work offline (critical when I am travelling).
15. Needs mobile phone app.
MLO (my life organised) has all of the above except 1. and 2. (see above)
GTDNext.com has all the above except 13. 14. and 15.
DISCUSSION of MLO
One of my main gripes with MLO is just how hard it is to move Tasks & Projects between GTD Lists. In the end MLO needs a database field for "GTD list" and any workaround with Flag or physically moving tasks from folder to folder don't work as intended and never will.
Likewise, life would be much easier to organise if there was a dedicated Area of Life field so that one can change what you are looking at with a single click, irrespective of other filters.
GTDNext
One tool that does have an excellent database structure is GTDNext.com. I have been watching GTDNext for the last few months. Moving tasks between list and even between Areas of Life, is trivially easy. You can a LOT with very few clicks because it's use of screenspace is way, way, WAY tighter than MLO. It now has a reasonable collection of hotkeys (which is critical because using a mouse is too slow).
However unlike MLO, GTDNext a web app. This means that you need to be online in order to use it. Worse, it doesn't have a mobile phone app. And viewed through a mobile phone, it's inteface isnt brilliant.
Can anyone recommend anything better than GTDNext or MLO, which meets all my criteria?
J
EDIT: Operating systems: Windows 8.1 (planning to move to v10 soon) and Android (v5)