I am trying to apply GTD to my MLO data...

[Ship69]

Hello

I am trying to work out how to re-structure my MLO (My Life Organised) data in order to apply GTD principles better.

I have pulled together all my stuff to be done (i.e. Tasks & Projects) and put it into MLO folders with the following names:

A. "SOMEDAY MAYBE" list ==> my list of things I may or may not do
B. "NOT YET" list ==> a smaller list of things I will definitely do but not just yet
C. "DO ASAP" list ==> (the list of live things I need to do As Soon As Possible)
D. "DELEGATED / TICKLER" list ==> This is stuff I have put into the future (using the Start Date)

However it is really a 2 Dimensional problem because I also have various "Areas of Life":

1. WORK ==> My professional work

2. PERSONAL ==> Domestic/personal administration (includes sport / health / hobbies etc)

3. FAMILY BUSINESS

... and it would be quite nice to separate these Areas of Life visually.

Obviously my "stuff" (i.e. Tasks & Projects) will tend to stay within whatever "Area of Life" I have allocated them. However my problem is that as my individual tasks & projects are likely to change what you might call "execution status" frequently and therefore they need to move very easily between lists A. B. C. and D.

So I am trying to work out what is the best folder structure....

Should I have a folder structure that looks like this: (?)

WORK
WORK A. "SOMEDAY MAYBE" list
WORK B. "NOT YET" list
WORK C. "DO ASAP" list
WORK D. "DELEGATED / TICKLER" list

PERSONAL
PERSONAL A. "SOMEDAY MAYBE" list
PERSONAL B. "NOT YET" list
PERSONAL C. "DO ASAP" list
PERSONAL D. "DELEGATED / TICKLER" list

FAMILY BUSINESS
FAMILY BUSINESS A. "SOMEDAY MAYBE" list
FAMILY BUSINESS B. "NOT YET" list
FAMILY BUSINESS C. "DO ASAP" list
FAMILY BUSINESS D. "DELEGATED / TICKLER" list

It's just that it seems quite cumbersome.
The obvious alternative would be to list the status as the folder in the root

A. "SOMEDAY MAYBE"
A. "SOMEDAY MAYBE" WORK
A. "SOMEDAY MAYBE" PERSONAL
A. "SOMEDAY MAYBE" FAMILY BUSINESS

B. "NOT YET"
B. "NOT YET" WORK
B. "NOT YET" PERSONAL
B. "NOT YET" FAMILY BUSINESS

C. "DO ASAP"
C. "DO ASAP" WORK
C. "DO ASAP" PERSONAL
C. "DO ASAP" FAMILY BUSINESS

D. "DELEGATED / TICKLER"
D. "DELEGATED / TICKLER" WORK
D. "DELEGATED / TICKLER" PERSONAL
D. "DELEGATED / TICKLER" FAMILY BUSINESS

OR rather than moving stuff between folders in order to move them from list to list, would it be better to use MLO Flags to move Projects from list to list,
OR use MLO Flags to allocate an area of life?
...and then to create a special "View" for each flag?

But if I change the Flag for a MLO project, will all Tasks and sub-projects inherit the same Flag in the same way as they would inherit the same parent folder.

- Any suggestions?

With thanks

J

P.S.

For completeness, I also use MLO to store things that I will want to review but which are not "actionable". So I also have

- REFLECTIVE THOUGHTS list ==> a list of thoughts/principles/ideas that I need to review. Mostly ideas from other people.

- REFLECTIVE THOUGHTS list ==> a list of my own new/creative ideas/innovations/inventions ]

- REFERENCE list: ==> a list of stuff with no associated plan to action (although this sometimes goes into Evernote instead)

P.P.S.
Also the topic "Family Business" really breaks down into 3 actual businesses. But to create a folder for each of them, seems like over-kill:
FAMILY BUSINESS 01
FAMILY BUSINESS 02
FAMILY BUSINESS 03

So I guess I could possibly use a MLO "Context" if I really want to do this, I'm not sure...

 

[Ship69]

Thanks Myriam

BUT here I am discussing the management of actual to-do lists, rather than where to store data.
i.e. The management of prompts for me to execute tasks & projects. And this has completely different dynamics from storage of data in the form of paper documents, electronic documents or emails etc!

PRINCIPLES
- It's useful to have a tree structure visible on screen to make the eye recognize where to go with less reading.

- I want to see as much as possible of stuff that is immediately relevant ... all on the same screen (or very easily accessible).

- I want to be able to change the sort orders in order to see and easily change the relative importances of different items.

- The entire 'actionable status' (e.g. "Do ASAP", "Do Not yet", "Do Sometime/Maybe") of an entire project needs to be able to be changed very easily. Dragging or moving to a different folder which generally needs to be scrolled to is a pain.

- If individual tasks within project become urgent they be able to be made to stand out (i.e. found quickly, highlighted - e.g. using a Star in MLO)

WHAT I'VE JUST DONE
I have now moved everything around inside MLO so that I now have a structure of Area of Life, and within that what I am calling the 'actionable status' list.
i.e. I have a folder structure that looks like this:

** WORK
----> A. "SOMEDAY MAYBE" list
----> B. "NOT YET" list
----> C. "DO ASAP" list

** PERSONAL ADMIN
----> A. "SOMEDAY MAYBE" list
----> B. "NOT YET" list
----> C. "DO ASAP" list

** RECREATION
----> A. "SOMEDAY MAYBE" list
----> B. "NOT YET" list
----> C. "DO ASAP" list

** FAMILY BUSINESS
----> A. "SOMEDAY MAYBE" list
----> B. "NOT YET" list
----> C. "DO ASAP" list

For my "DELEGATED / TICKLER" list I simply move individual items into the future using the Start Date in MLO which means that it disappears from the Active Tasks list until that date.

Note that being semi-dyslexic I am a big fan of making things as "visual" as possible, so that the eye can skim without reading. For this reason I have started each Area of Life with "**" and put A B C into the start of the actionable status lists.

I have a sneaking feeling that changing A B C status would be better completed in MLO using Flags, but that would require quite clever Views to be built based on the Flag set for each Project, and powerful as it is I'm not sure if that can even be done in MLO...
Anyhow I'm outta time - I shall try the above and let you know how I get on.

J

P.S. Regarding storage of other stuff, here is what I do:

* Physical Files
Yes I use a pretty flat (A-Z) filing system for my physical reference files - as suggested by David Allen. The slight exception is that certain things ARE grouped together with folder labels such as:
"Family Business - Receipts",
"Family Business - Fire Safety",
"Family Business - Telephone system" etc,
as it doesn't make sense to mix them in with the rest of my life. i.e. So far it is just a 2-layer system

* PC Documents
For the computer system documents I have powerful desktop search bit of software (called X1 Search - which is now slightly aging but still extremely fast/poweful). Because of the power of this search, things are much easier to search and so I break things down into multiple layers, trying not to have more than say 6-10 files per folder.

* Emails
For emails, because to the rapid and and out flow of items (i.e. individual emails) I find it easier have as few folders a possible otherwise you spend your life moving emails around the folders tree. so I have a small number rules to take different categories of stuff away into a small number of categories - much like Gmail does. e.g. Promotions, Meetups, Client A, Client B, Client C. I am toying with leaving all Clients in the same folder - not sure.

 

[TesTeq]

- It's useful to have a tree structure visible on screen to make the eye recognize where to go with less reading.

I love tree structures. But if you have two tree structures interwined you end up in the bush. ;-)

You need a software that supports assigning attributes to to-do items. Not the software that allows you to put to-do items in containers (folders and subfolders). Imagine a table with following columns:
TO-DO ITEM | PROJECT | AREA OF FOCUS | ACTIONABLE STATUS

You just fill the appropriate cell in your table to link a to-do item to a Project, Area of Focus or give it an "actionable status". Then you sort the table to group all to-do items according to their Names or Projects or Areas of Focus or Actionable Statuses.

 

[mcogilvie]

The most important thing is to have a way to get lists of next actions, sorted by contexts. The next most important thing is to make sure that there is as little friction as possible. I'm not seeing either of these here. You're constructing a theoretical framework that you think should work rather than following the advice of an expert, David Allan. Please reconsider.

 

[Ship69]

The most important thing is to have a way to get lists of next actions, sorted by contexts. The next most important thing is to make sure that there is as little friction as possible. I'm not seeing either of these here. You're constructing a theoretical framework that you think should work rather than following the advice of an expert, David Allan. Please reconsider.

mcogilvie I'm not with you. What do you use?

Yes, MLO (My Life Organised) generates Next Actions - easy peasy (although just to be difficult, I sometime like to see the next TWO actions... but I digress).
Yes they can be sorted by Contexts - not difficult.

I still think Areas of Life are important, because it's important to maintain momentum in the different areas. Unfortunately MLO is not very good at handling them (i.e. there is no dedicated AoL field). For this reason I am now looking at going back to GTDNext.com...

 

[bcmyers2112]

Ship69, you asked for advice setting up a system more in line with GTD. In GTD, David Allen recommends sorting your next actions only by context which he defines as the person, place or tool needed to get the job done. The reason behind this is that it does you no good to look at a list of actions you can't do where you are. It's a waste of time and mental energy.

While I understand the impulse to organize your tasks by "Areas of Life" or other similar groupings I've not found things like that to be helpful. Just because I'm in a frame of mind to handle "family" or "household" or "work" tasks doesn't mean I'm in the right place to accomplish actions related to them. I've found that it's a lot less stressful to only look at tasks I can do where I am, regardless of what area of my life or priority they support.

 

[mcogilvie]

mcogilvie I'm not with you. What do you use?

Yes, MLO (My Life Organised) generates Next Actions - easy peasy (although just to be difficult, I sometime like to see the next TWO actions... but I digress).
Yes they can be sorted by Contexts - not difficult.

I still think Areas of Life are important, because it's important to maintain momentum in the different areas. Unfortunately MLO is not very good at handling them (i.e. there is no dedicated AoL field). For this reason I am now looking at going back to GTDNext.com...

I've used a lot of different tools, but in the last few years mostly Things and Omnifocus. It's not the tool that matters. Your long second post seems to indicate that you are trying to impose a structure on the project/outline side of MLO and a priority scheme that you think will help you get things done. I don't know much about MLO, but I am familiar with Life Balance, from which much of MLO was copied. While Life Balance has many clever features (the nesting of contexts is still better than anything else), in my opinion it is too preoccupied with dynamic prioritizing to be a good GTD tool. I have found that I can successfully use a star or flag to give a next action more visibility. More than that is too much fiddling for me. The most important thing is to get real next actions into the system easily and then to act on them. I spent literally years fighting the simple advice that David Allen gives on setting up a GTD system. Let me boil it down to the simplest possible message: David is right, and spending time on elaborate structure is is usually a waste of time and energy.

I do think Areas of Focus are important too. I have a view for each area of focus that shows everything in that area sorted by context. My "real" contexts are at the top, then things like ticklers and waiting fors, with someday/maybe at the bottom. I prefer to do my weekly reviews using these views as it gives a holistic view of each area while promoting a next action orientation. However, I generally do not use any area of focus or project view for daily work- that's all done in context lists.

 

[Oogiem]

I still think Areas of Life are important, because it's important to maintain momentum in the different areas.

I would agree that they are critically important but have discovered that trying to keep projects sorted into neat groups by area isn't.

One of the big reasons it falls down in oractice is that projects often serve two or more purposes or areas.

What is more important IMO is to regularly think on and reflect on those areas and at that point you can correct your emphasis by either adding more projects, putting some in someday/maybe and perhaps even totally dropping projects. For me I find that I need to do that sort of reflection about 4 times a year so I've built into my Solstice and Equinox review checklist actions to really look at those areas of focus and making sure I am comfortable with my progress or lack of in those areas.

 

[Ship69]

Ship69, you asked for advice setting up a system more in line with GTD. In GTD, David Allen recommends sorting your next actions only by context which he defines as the person, place or tool needed to get the job done. The reason behind this is that it does you no good to look at a list of actions you can't do where you are. It's a waste of time and mental energy.

So far I never seem to have had much success using Contexts. I work from home and I can quickly access any tool there. Yes I have a Context for Errands that is really the only time "place" is relevant. Occasionally I have meetings but they get diarised...

So if not "person, or place or tool" then what should I use to distinguish Contexts?

The only thing that seems to make sense to me to use as a Context is more like... my "mood" or mental "mode" or energy level:

Currently I have the following Contexts:
- Reading/Sofa [==> background reading of books/magazine articles - anything away from a computer screen]
- Low_Brain_Energy [ ==> physical tasks ]
- Fun/Energy_Restorer [
- Reflective_Mood [ ==> where deep/strategic thinking is required]
- Errands [ ==> anything away from the house that isn't a biz meeting ]
- Tiddlers [==> anything will take less than c.5 minutes ]
- Phone Calls (My energy levels fluctuate quite a lot, and I find it helps to be in the right mood to do certain things - particularly to make phone calls... but I physically COULD make a call at any time of day or night!)

And anything without context could really be done at any time and if "Active" then that really means ASAP, no?

What am I missing?

PS Yes, I do have a view in MLO that sorts by Context. Also I can go through the contexts and see each one separately.

 

[TesTeq]

People working from home often need to create artificial contexts to balance their time usage. But I would not base such form of scheduling on emotional states.

 

[Ship69]

People working from home often need to create artificial contexts to balance their time usage. But I would not base such form of scheduling on emotional states.

Yes, when you get right down to it, one has to question what is the point of Contexts for us work-at-home folks?
I do find it important to have some way to
a) Balance activities across different Areas of Life
b) Balance activities across different parts of the brain / different levels of energy required

I also find it difficult to review my entire list of Active tasks multiple times a day because I seem to have so many of them - typically I might have 50 or 60 at once... (and things are not helped because I am semi-dyslexic!)

 

[Folke]

Yes, when you get right down to it, one has to question what is the point of Contexts for us work-at-home folks?
I do find it important to have some way to
a) Balance activities across different Areas of Life
b) Balance activities across different parts of the brain / different levels of energy required

I also find it difficult to review my entire list of Active tasks multiple times a day because I seem to have so many of them - typically I might have 50 or 60 at once... (and things are not helped because I am semi-dyslexic!)

I agree with this.

As for a) balance across Areas, I belong to the part of humaity that considers it both perfectly possible and very useful indeed to group projects etc under one single Area. I do that, and have done so for years. It primarily helps me do my reviews in a focused way, and it also allows me to concentrate (work) on one particular area if I want to. (Other people report having serious difficulties with this approach. I think this is due to their definition of the areas, and what they want to use the area definitions for.)

As for b) balance across the brain, I partly agree in principle. I do have a context för "Clearheaded" (similar to your "Reflective") and I find that to be very useful indeed, but I have also played with tags for "large effort" and "quick and easy" and have found those to be of less practical use for me. (Again, I think the usefulness depends totally on exactly what "angle" you take in your definitions.) Nowadays I have obly a few contexts - @Person (for calls, meetings, conversation...), @Out (errands etc), @Clearheaded (need to think trrough thorougly, perhaps reprocess), @Desk (proper computer, reference docs ...), @Info (brain, wallet, iphone ... a kind of @anywhere context)

As for reviewing the entire next list, I use a color coding scheme (review "constantly", daily or weekly), which I find tremendously useful. I also use filters and list groupings (context, project/area etc).

 

[Oogiem]

So if not "person, or place or tool" then what should I use to distinguish Contexts?
...

What am I missing?

Maybe nothing but maybe you are defining tool far to strictly. For example, I have a context of Outside with Help. There are tasks that I need an additional person to help with and they clutter up my Outside context so I split it into with help and by myself.

I also work from home, and I could usually move to any context other than the ones for the 2 major shopping places we go at any time. However, the mental energy and time spent switching from one application (tool) to another when I am doing computer work means that I am far more efficient if I have a context for each major app I run. So I have separate contexts for LibreOffice, Banktivity, Scrivener, DEVONThink & Lightroom. I track hobby or fun projects in my system as well because I often have ones that take a long time with many interlocking pieces. It only makes sense to separate them out into a hobby context so that when I know I am busy with more critical stuff I can just ignore the entire lot of them. I separate out phone calls that can be made at any time vs phone calls that can only be made during business hours. But since I have my phone with me all the time I can often find time to quickly flip into one of those contexts and make the calls no matter where I am. If the phone call needs something else, access to my computer or papers or something I don't put it in the phone context. One reason is I often make phone calls while waiting for the sheep water tanks to fill or, since we are going to be lambing soon, while watching a ewe in labor.

I've tried using weather related contexts and ones that focus on my time available but for me I've found that I am better just using my intuition on the time and weather can usually eliminate entire contexts. If it's snowing out I am clearly not going to get anything done in the outside context that isn't related to keeping the sheep fed.

One huge advantage of having more well defimned contexts rather than fewer amorphous ones is that you can more easily review a list in a context quickly. Right now I have 121 current active projects with 264 available actions yet most of my context lists have less than 10 items in it. The 2 big ones, Computer Internet and Misc Mac Work are large today because it's the first and I have a bunch of recurring actions that kick off on the first of each month to update various accounts and get statements downloaded and so on. I expect that they will be back down to a more normal number by the end of the weekend.

 

[TesTeq]

Yes, when you get right down to it, one has to question what is the point of Contexts for us work-at-home folks?

For example you can have @ComputerWithInternet and @ComputerWithoutInternet and schedule Internet blackouts to balance the work.

 

[Ship69]

For example you can have @ComputerWithInternet and @ComputerWithoutInternet and schedule Internet blackouts to balance the work.

Not wishing to brag but I almost never have internet blackouts where I live.
Unless you are suggesting that I create such a thing artificially - which may have some merit I guess, although I'm not sure.

> As for a) balance across Areas, I belong to the part of humaity that considers it both perfectly possible
> and very useful indeed to group projects etc under one single Area.
I find this can be read on two ways. Do yo mean that you have more than one Area of Life or not?

 

[Oogiem]

Not wishing to brag but I almost never have internet blackouts where I live.
Unless you are suggesting that I create such a thing artificially - which may have some merit I guess, although I'm not sure.

Not TesTeq but I create such a thing artificially. I have @Computer Internet and @Misc Mac Work. It's easy to get sucked into rabbit trails when on the Internet so separating those tasks out into a single context can be very useful so I focus on just them.

Also, here in Rural US, we not only have vast areas with no cell phone or Internet service at all, but even where we do have service of one sort or another our bandwidth is very limited at times. It's helpful to see what needs the net connection so I can choose to work in that area when I know the local net will be less congested.

 

[Folke]

> As for a) balance across Areas, I belong to the part of humaity that considers it both perfectly possible
> and very useful indeed to group projects etc under one single Area.
I find this can be read on two ways. Do yo mean that you have more than one Area of Life or not?

Haha, did not see that myself. What I meant is that I have many Areas of Responsibility (about a dozen), but I generally have no trouble whatsoever determining which ONE area a given item belongs to.

Others report difficulties with this approach - they have their areas defined in such a way that many or most projects belong to more than one area and they would want to map this entire complexity, or not at all, and therefore cannot put items in just one area. For me, areas are just a way to keep things separated by objective, as it were, primarily for my reviews (but also for retrieval and focusing), and I think it is quite easy to determine which area (role) is the "driver" of any given project. I have no need for keeping a record of which other roles are also involved.

 

[bcmyers2112]

Yes, when you get right down to it, one has to question what is the point of Contexts for us work-at-home folks?

My main office is home-based, and while my job (sales) requires me to travel to client sites there are days when I work exclusively from home. Nevertheless I find person/place/tool contexts useful.

You mention being able to make a call any time of day, but is there really any benefit to making business calls outside of business hours when you have no chance of reaching that person? You may therefore benefit from a calls context, or perhaps work calls. If your job requires lots of calling, as mine does, it may also be worth creating separate lists for work and personal calls.

You might also benefit from contexts around specific tools, like a computer context, or even a context for a specific computer application you use often (like email, or spreadsheet, or something specific to your job).

Another practical reason to use person/place/tool contexts is that it takes a lot of mental energy to unhook from one type of task to another. For that reason I find that if I have one or two really important calls to make or emails to send, it often makes sense to complete other calls/emails while I'm in that mode.

I have ADHD, and while I don't know if that bears any resemblance to being "semi-dyslexic" I also have difficulty with long lists of tasks, which is why I find creating contexts around specific tools useful even if all of those tools are available to me on many days. If nothing else, it creates shorter lists to review. I find that makes reviewing them easier, even though I'm reviewing the same amount of actions.

Ultimately the reason why I don't try to apply areas of focus/responsibility or moods or other filters to my context lists is that GTD was designed to be a ground-up approach to managing one's commitments rather than a top-down approach. GTD's premise is that by clarifying all of your commitments at the various horizons of your life (actions, projects, roles, areas of focus, etc.) you can intuitively choose the best action to take in the moment based on what context or contexts are available to you. This is in contrast to other methods like Franklin-Covey where you first consider your mission/goals/values and then choose actions based on those.

In my personal experience the GTD method has always made more sense; among other reasons, it makes no sense to me to worry about actions that support my mission/goals/values when I'm not in a place where I can take action on them. I've tried categorizing my lists by more than just context so I could take things into account like "priorities" and "goals" but found it to be a waste of energy.

As mcogilvie has already said, another key to success with GTD is creating a system that doesn't create excessive "friction." In other words, it should be so easy to use you don't have to think about it. I've found that when I've categorized my lists by more than just context (like by AOF, priority, time needed to complete, etc.) I've avoided updating & using the lists. Even if you're using a tool that supports such categorizations, you still have to think about them even if only for a moment when entering new items into your lists. That thinking takes more energy than may be apparent at first blush.

You're free to organize your life as you choose, but you've asked for advice from GTD practitioners. This is what I have to offer. It it's helpful, great. If not, good luck following your own path. Whatever you choose, I hope it works well for you.

 

[TesTeq]

Not wishing to brag but I almost never have internet blackouts where I live.
Unless you are suggesting that I create such a thing artificially - which may have some merit I guess, although I'm not sure.

Yes, I'm suggesting artificial scheduled Internet blackouts.

 

[Folke]

A brilliant description by bcmyers just above! I agree with everything, and actually often also manage stuff at that very "vanilla" GTD level, even though I also, as a complement, use some of the more advanced linking features that my app offers and which I find very useful.

Let me begin by stating frankly that most of the stuff that I do never makes it to my lists at all. I am talking about "work as it shows up", impulses, reactions, stuff that comes up in conversations and gets resolved immediately, emails that I answer while going through the mailbox etc etc. I only write things down if they are for later and if I know I would be angry at myself if I forgot about them.

So, the next "level" of stuff are short-term things that come to mind during the day, or during my morning review, which I feel I must do today and which I feel I must write down in order not to forget to do them later. I write those straight on my Today list in a very brief format because I know I will remember what it is about when I deal with it a couple of hours later. I usually do add a context, though, because I keep my Today list grouped by context, so it is handy to have the action sitting in the right group right from the start, but that's all I usually do.

If I know, though, or realize later that day, that this task will be for another day, then this is where my more elaborate "filing"/"linking" comes into play. I then do these three things:

- set a minimum review pattern ("priority") for it (blue = review at least once a day (this is my "default"); red = review "almost constantly"; turquoise = review at least once a week). This is accomplished by simply tapping a key.
- assign it to a project. This is accomplished by dragging the task to the project title in the left menu. (This impliciltly also assigns it to an AoR as every project already belongs to a given AoR). (I only seldom create new projects, because I only have major projects listed as projects. Minor projects I keep listed as actions with subactions.)
- review the wording, add comments etc, if necessary

So, all in all, most of what I do is actually dealt with in a very simple vanilla style, but I do appreciate having the more elaborate cross-linking and alternative viewing capabilities for the stuff that will sit on my lists for a longer period of time and which I would have difficulty finding and reviewing if I did not have it organized in a more structured way that I feel comfortable with. I think bcmyers's description explained very well why the vanilla style GTD provides a very good basis for the majority of my stuff.