When sorting Today, more Automation.
My workflow starts with opening the Today list and sorting it. Changing priorities, re-dating things that won't happen today, moving things to "next actions." etc. Here's a behavior that would be helpful. When I re-date an item so that it is due a week from now, it should automatically drop off the Today list, and show up in the Next Actions list. I find that I am having to do a lot of dragging and dropping that slows the process down. I've also noticed that sometimes when I drag things into the Next Action list they lose their association with their project. That's kind of a pain.
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2 Posted by schelske on 11 Mar, 2010 06:45 PM
I just discovered that in the task drop down (far right) there is a "remove from today" option. So that's better than what I'm doing now.
But it's still a couple clicks more than I'd like. Seems like as soon as I change the date and hit save, if the due date isn't today, and the "show in today" time frame doesn't include today, the item should automatically drop off the list. IMHO, anyway.
Support Staff 3 Posted by Christiane Magee on 18 Mar, 2010 10:44 PM
Hey Schelske...
Glad you found the Remove From Today option in the drop down menu. I understand, though, what you mean in that you'd like to clean out your Today view and add new tasks in Today. Another user had requested this button or feature and I think it's a good idea, especially if you need to quickly review and re-prioritize your tasks for the day.
One thing, though, that we probably won't do is automatically remove re-dated tasks from the Today view. There are times where people will still want to do that task Today despite the fact that the due date got removed or changed, Today is truly what you choose to do today, not always based upon due dates, as per GTD.
4 Posted by schelske on 19 Mar, 2010 10:09 PM
Hmm... I can see that making sense. I might want to keep an over-due project in my today, with the over-due status, for motivation. Or change a date to later, but still have it visible in "Today."
I wonder if there would be a way to have an option of some kind? Maybe on the task dialog where the "Save" button is, if I change the date an extra button could appear that says "Save and remove from Today." I don't know. That may be too complicated. I can't quite let go of the idea that a computer is really great with dates, and the "Today" list should in some way represent - at least first thing in the morning, before I sort it out - an actual representation of what is really due today. When I sort, most of the things I move are things that are getting pushed back and re-dated. So my work flow is really repetitive. Click Task. Re-date. Save task. Drag to "Next Actions." Some mornings I'm doing this 20 or 30 times. When I start doing a simple repetitive task over and over I start thinking, "Hey, this is what computers are good at. Why am I doing this?"
Maybe I'm just doing it wrong. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the subject.
Support Staff 5 Posted by Christiane Magee on 23 Mar, 2010 02:56 PM
Hi Schelske...
we were actually talking about this this morning as we are working on
scheduled and recurring tasks and the addition of this new feature
will no doubt add to, and make us modify the UI for due date setting,
add/remove from Today etc... all these need to be more accessible and
fewer clicks away - 100% agreed. So figure with the addition of this
new feature the amount of clicking is going to be reduced as doing
these repetitive tasks is not the best use of your time and we are on
the same page.
So stay tuned...
6 Posted by schelske on 23 Mar, 2010 06:36 PM
Thanks for the status report. Glad that you're thinking along these lines. Fun to be in the development process with you a bit.