Urgency vs. Importance?

[gbrandt@thetcsgroup.com]

How will OF distinguish between the two for any given task or project if at all?

For all its warts, LifeBalance (and hence the clone MyLifeOrganized for Windows), did the best job with this that I know of.

-gb

[BwanaZulia]

If it sticks to more traditional GTD there won't be much urgency or importance.

In GTD if a task needs to be done at a certain hour, it is an event on the calendar. If it needs to be done on a certain day, it is an event on that day. All other tasks are only given context (at home, at work, internet, google, anywhere, errands) and you do them when you are at the right context and have the right amount of time and energy.

BZ

[geoff]

If it sticks to more traditional GTD there won't be much urgency or importance.

In GTD if a task needs to be done at a certain hour, it is an event on the calendar. If it needs to be done on a certain day, it is an event on that day. All other tasks are only given context (at home, at work, internet, google, anywhere, errands) and you do them when you are at the right context and have the right amount of time and energy.

BZ
I have to admit, I like GTD for what it sets out to do, but I'm not a GTD purist. It seems adding a simple weighting slider (optional of course, noone would be forcing you to use it) could easily augment the "buzz saw" work your way through the day approach of GTD with a forward looking, get the most out of your life, aspect that is fairly unique.

Lot's of bang for the buck there for one screen widget and a few lines of weighting code. Not to mention it would attract a whole segment of "planners & doers" vs. the pure "doers" that GTD attracts to the fold...

-gb

[chuckbo]

I'm unclear on how this will be treated in the system.
On the 15th & on the last day of the month, I want to log on to our online system, check my pay advise, and enter the data into Quicken. I'll schedule it for those dates since the data isn't available earlier. I want to do it as soon as possible so it doesn't back up and so running reports are correct. But it's not Urgent that it has to be done on that day, so it has to be able to slide. That seems to be the most difficult situation I face with iCal.

chuck

[BwanaZulia]

Chuck, you can do this with kGTD today (so I assume with OmniFocus). You set a todo, as part of the project, give it a due date and in the note field say "recur in 1 month". It rises up in your todos, when you do it, it resets for next month. No priority needed.

BZ

[chuckbo]

And if I don't get it done that day, will it automatically "roll forward" to the next day(s) until I complete it? That was the cool thing that the Handspring permitted that iCal and the Palm never supported correctly.

[BwanaZulia]

Any task not completed stays at the top of your iCal tasks list (and or Palm).

The other option is the "renew in x days/weeks/months" which will take a task and when completed make it due that amount of time from the time it was completed.

Pretty flexible, really and I hope it is all in OmniFocus.

BZ

[chuckbo]

Partly correct about the iCal - and I don't remember enough about Palm to say for sure. Unless they've changed/fixed how it works, a [past] dated, incomplete task only stays on your iCal list if you don't set the option to hide due dates outside the calendar view. But if you uncheck this option in order to keep overdue items from disappearing, you also see every dated item for the future that's on your tickler list, even if it's a year away.

[ratz]

For what's worth the urgency / importance algorithm for the above mentioned MLO; is public domain; I wrote it from scratch based on disatisfaction with the LB one. Any application may implement it if they like; there's one other app in developement that may use it. If Omni ever wants to persue the algorithm they simply need to ask, and they can have it for free.

I have to admit, I like GTD for what it sets out to do, but I'm not a GTD purist. It seems adding a simple weighting slider (optional of course, noone would be forcing you to use it) could easily augment the "buzz saw" work your way through the day approach of GTD with a forward looking, get the most out of your life, aspect that is fairly unique.

Lot's of bang for the buck there for one screen widget and a few lines of weighting code. Not to mention it would attract a whole segment of "planners & doers" vs. the pure "doers" that GTD attracts to the fold...

-gb

[Bluecoat93]

One of the things that I, personally, really like in iGTD is the 1-5 priority rating for tasks. While I realize this is bordering on heresy to GTD purists, it's absolutely essential to my workflow.

In my system, I have somewhere around 800 tasks that would all fit in the context @Online (I'm a network engineer). Without some kind of priority system, I'm hosed when it comes to figuring out what to do out of that pile.

In Kinkless, I solved this by creating @Online-P1, @Online-P2, etc. to indicate priority. In iGTD, I make heavy use of the priority fields. It's awesome because I can keep all my tasks in the @Online context for easy scanning and review, but still have them ordered.

Even if it's optional, I definitely would love it if OmniFocus had some type of priority rating for tasks.

[petro]

I'm with many others in saying that I'd love a Mac app (as opposed to running Parallels 24x7 for running MyLifeOrganized), but I can't move to OmniFocus until support of prioritization is supported.

Please consider ratz comments, LifeBalance had an algorithm, but it wasn't great. MYLifeOrganized is fantastic for this. And if you don't use it, it won't harm the GTD purists. So it's a win-win. A simple slider bar will do the trick. If you don't like it, don't use it.

As an example of priority, I've got my entire life now organized in MLO.

Work
- Minor Routine Stuff
- Task 1
- Task 2
- Major Important Projects
- Task A which is very important?

Personal Stuff
- Personal Health
- Schedule doctor's appt

Evantual Prioritized List of Tasks
------------------------------------
Dr's Appt
Task A
Task 1
Task 2

I want to be able to give individual tasks, and parent tasks various levels of priority. I want to come in to the office in the morning, and work on the things most important to accomplishing my goals in life, without forgetting to go to the dentist.

I want a database that is "pre-prioritized" so I don't have to spend effort in the morning deciding what to focus on.

Until OF supports prioritization of events, I'm stuck running Windows. This is not a rant, and I know that future development is never something you should hold out for, but it seems there's many others in the forum with the same non GTD purist attitude who also want to get things done.