JAN
11
2015
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New TODO application that blocks distractions while you workTL;DR: flow is a sticky TODO manager with support for the pomodoro technique and blocks distractions (cat pictures too) while you're focusing on a task: git, AUR, Windows, OSX "A good task manager application is one that can beat a .txt file." Even though I was (am?) KOrganizer's maintainer I could never get used to its TODO view. It simply didn't fit my workflow. The only time I used it was when I was programming it. For my important stuff, I used a text file instead, and was happy. Meanwhile I've been experimenting with the Pomodoro Technique to help me focus at work and thought it would be fun to create an hybrid between todo manager and pomodoro app in QML. So, what do we need to make a better organizer than notepad ? Here's the 5 ingredients I chose to put in flow:
1. STICKY Korg needs so many steps to add a TODO that people lose motivation. 2. POMODORO Each task has a play button, click it, you're now in a 25 minute focus block. "What kills productivity are the context switches, not farmvilling." The key is to group related tasks, do all your non-productive tasks at once, preferably in pomodoro breaks. When a co-worker asks you a favor, open flow and queue it. When the 25 minute focus block ends handle the tasks that you piled up meanwhile. 3. BLOCK DISTRACTIONS Flow supports blocking distractions when a pomodoro starts (via a plugin system). 4. WHEN more important than WHAT I found out that for me the first level of grouping should be about the "when". In flow there are two areas, 5. SIMPLE and LIGHT Conclusion So there it is, please give flow-pomodoro a try. I would also like to hear about your current KOrganizer workflow and if you feel it makes you productive or not. P.S: While writing this blogpost 3 KMail and 2 gchat notifications were blocked and one facebook attempt was killed. |
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Comments
I actually like korg
I like to organize my TODO's as todo/sub-todo hierarchies. The only thing that prevents me from using it more is the inability to easily turn a todo into an event. For example, drag a todo to the time-line to allocate time for a task. Anyway, great post and great app. I'll be trying this, for sure.
It looks nice, maybe you
It looks nice, maybe you could add a plugin to blacklist executables to it?
Btw. I've packaged it for Gentoo in my overlay:
https://github.com/mrueg/mrueg-overlay/tree/master/x11-misc/flow-pomodoro
brilliant app
This looks like a real brilliant app. Awesome work!
Where can I download this Application
Did I missread, or isn't there a link where I could get this application?
In the two first lines I
In the two first lines I posted the links to git, windows and OSX
have you ever looked at http://taskcoach.org
I like it a lot, probably similar to Korganizer, but also runs on Windows.
Getting Things Done - is its principle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done
You have to maintain it and be exact, otherwise it won't support you and you think it is NOT helpful ;)
- Such a tool heavily depend on your correctness - it is not so much about pomodro or whatever.
Advanced task management (GTD style?)
I use(d) korganizer extensively for my work, as it was the central tool to help me organize meetings, work phases, juggle between many projects and teams at the same time, and more importantly, manage my own tasks.
To me, a normal day meant completing approximatively 15 to 20 tasks (without taking events into account).
In order to always know what to do when, specially when covering different subjects/projects, I had to rely extensively on the korganizer week view (cf. screenshot : http://i.imgur.com/dBjMs7u.png).
There I could "plan" each day of the week/month by creating tasks as they came along, and giving them an expiration date (which is the only way 'pin' them on the weekday view where I wanted).
Every morning when I opened KO, I could in one glance know how many tasks awaited, and more importantly as each task was in a category, I could see what type of work ('meeting', 'task', etc.) awaited me. I would have used more than one category on each tasks if I could, but KO does not show more than one category color (which is a bummer).
If something showed up unexpectedly and required me to push some tasks to later, then I had to drag and drop the remaining tasks for the current day to the next (which was a PITA as you had to do that one by one, since KO does not support multiple selection of tasks and events). It would have been great to just add the urgent tasks there, and that KO would automatically move the remaining 'today tasks' somehow.
Lastly, there is one very important thing here ; imagine the following use case :
- - - -
You have a task "Ask John to send me the new logo for project X" that you pinned for the 2015-01-27 at 11h30. You manage to send a mail to John about the logo at 11h55. Now, what do you do ?
You can't really count on others to answer you immediately, or even do not forget to answer you. So you have to check back on that task later.
Unfortunately, as you manage a large number of projects and interact with lots of people, you can't really keep track of every single tasks you do that needs follow-up actions.
That's why for every tasks that needed follow-up actions (specially those actions interacting with other people), I added in the task 'comment' field a quick description of what I did and when, and eventually what happened during the execution of the task (ie. what John told me : "Mail sent the 2015-01-27 at 11h55 (I wish you could create links to kmail mails directly on a word in the comment text) - John answered right away and told me he should send me the logo in two to three days").
Then when John told me it would get back at me in a few days, I marked the tasks "Ask John to send me the new logo for project X" as achieved at 11h55 via updating the expiration date so that the week view reflected the reality of which and when tasks were achieved (not when they were initially due), then I copied that task, and pasted it three days later, edited that pasted task to (1) set the achievement to 0%, and (2) rename the title to "Follow-up : Ask John to send me the new logo for project X".
Three days passes.
I contact John by phone at 10h00, but nobody is answering. I add "2015-01-30 at 10h : Contacted by phone, nobody's answering" on a new line in the task comment field.
I contact John again by phone at 16h15, but a colleague answers and tells me John is on vacation and should return 4 days for now. Bummer. I add "2015-01-30 at 16h15 : Contacted by phone, Oliver answered, John is on vacation and will get back on 2015-02-02" on another new line in the task comment field.
I did the task I created for myself for today, so I change the achievement to 100%, but I still haven't retrieved that logo, so I copy that task and paste it (again) the 2015-02-02 this time, (1) set its achievement to 0%, and does not change its name since it's still a follow-up.
Four days passes.
In the morning I find in my calendar the "Follow-up : Ask John to send me the new logo for project X" task awaiting for me, but honestly have no idea what it is since I had a very rough week-end ;). Fortunately for me, in the task comment field I can see :
"Mail sent the 2015-01-27 at 11h55 - John answered right away and told me he should send me the logo in two to three days
2015-01-30 at 10h : Contacted by phone, nobody's answering
2015-01-30 at 16h15 : Contacted by phone, Oliver answered, John is on vacation and will get back the 2015-02-02"
...ok, I'm up to speed.
You phone John and gently remind him to send you that project X logo, he answers that he will sent it to you in 5 minutes (yay !), you thank him and hang up. Few minutes later you receive the logo in your mail. Finally ! You happily mark the tasks as completed at 9h45 adding a small comment to it "John sent the Logo by mail (link to the mail)"...
But wait ! It's not the project X logo, it's the project Y one !! :(
You phone back John, but unfortunately he already left for another meeting. There, you can rinse and repeat, copy the task, paste it in a near future, add a comment line "Received wrong logo the 2015-02-02 at 9h45, tried to contact John by phone at 9h46, but no one answered", and go one with that never-ending task, etc.
- - - -
This is unfortunately based on day-to-day reality, where interactions with other people are (and will continue to be) chaotic.
It would be great to have KO help manage this kind of use case (or even do that on its own ; move tasks in the future, have links between tasks so you could 'jump' from tasks to tasks, have a clear view of a task and all it's follow-up iterations, etc.).
The method as it is :
Pros :
Cons :
As you can see, there is still a lot of room for improvement :)
TL;DR
To sum up, after years using this system what really matters when managing tasks is :
(I would have more used sub-tasks and sub-categories if KO would have allowed it, but it won't :x).
Wishlist to improve the workflow :
Advanced task management (GTD style?)
I use(d) korganizer extensively for my work, as it was the central tool to help me organize meetings, work phases, juggle between many projects and teams at the same time, and more importantly, manage my own tasks.
To me, a normal day meant completing approximatively 15 to 20 tasks (without taking events into account).
In order to always know what to do when, specially when covering different subjects/projects, I had to rely extensively on the korganizer week view (cf. screenshot : http://i.imgur.com/dBjMs7u.png).
There I could "plan" each day of the week/month by creating tasks as they came along, and giving them an expiration date (which is the only way 'pin' them on the weekday view where I wanted).
Every morning when I opened KO, I could in one glance know how many tasks awaited, and more importantly as each task was in a category, I could see what type of work ('meeting', 'task', etc.) awaited me. I would have used more than one category on each tasks if I could, but KO does not show more than one category color (which is a bummer).
If something showed up unexpectedly and required me to push some tasks to later, then I had to drag and drop the remaining tasks for the current day to the next (which was a PITA as you had to do that one by one, since KO does not support multiple selection of tasks and events). It would have been great to just add the urgent tasks there, and that KO would automatically move the remaining 'today tasks' somehow.
Lastly, there is one very important thing here ; imagine the following use case :
- - - -
You have a task "Ask John to send me the new logo for project X" that you pinned for the 2015-01-27 at 11h30. You manage to send a mail to John about the logo at 11h55. Now, what do you do ?
You can't really count on others to answer you immediately, or even do not forget to answer you. So you have to check back on that task later.
Unfortunately, as you manage a large number of projects and interact with lots of people, you can't really keep track of every single tasks you do that needs follow-up actions.
That's why for every tasks that needed follow-up actions (specially those actions interacting with other people), I added in the task 'comment' field a quick description of what I did and when, and eventually what happened during the execution of the task (ie. what John told me : "Mail sent the 2015-01-27 at 11h55 (I wish you could create links to kmail mails directly on a word in the comment text) - John answered right away and told me he should send me the logo in two to three days").
Then when John told me it would get back at me in a few days, I marked the tasks "Ask John to send me the new logo for project X" as achieved at 11h55 via updating the expiration date so that the week view reflected the reality of which and when tasks were achieved (not when they were initially due), then I copied that task, and pasted it three days later, edited that pasted task to (1) set the achievement to 0%, and (2) rename the title to "Follow-up : Ask John to send me the new logo for project X".
Three days passes.
I contact John by phone at 10h00, but nobody is answering. I add "2015-01-30 at 10h : Contacted by phone, nobody's answering" on a new line in the task comment field.
I contact John again by phone at 16h15, but a colleague answers and tells me John is on vacation and should return 4 days for now. Bummer. I add "2015-01-30 at 16h15 : Contacted by phone, Oliver answered, John is on vacation and will get back on 2015-02-02" on another new line in the task comment field.
I did the task I created for myself for today, so I change the achievement to 100%, but I still haven't retrieved that logo, so I copy that task and paste it (again) the 2015-02-02 this time, (1) set its achievement to 0%, and does not change its name since it's still a follow-up.
Four days passes.
In the morning I find in my calendar the "Follow-up : Ask John to send me the new logo for project X" task awaiting for me, but honestly have no idea what it is since I had a very rough week-end ;). Fortunately for me, in the task comment field I can see :
"Mail sent the 2015-01-27 at 11h55 - John answered right away and told me he should send me the logo in two to three days
2015-01-30 at 10h : Contacted by phone, nobody's answering
2015-01-30 at 16h15 : Contacted by phone, Oliver answered, John is on vacation and will get back the 2015-02-02"
...ok, I'm up to speed.
You phone John and gently remind him to send you that project X logo, he answers that he will sent it to you in 5 minutes (yay !), you thank him and hang up. Few minutes later you receive the logo in your mail. Finally ! You happily mark the tasks as completed at 9h45 adding a small comment to it "John sent the Logo by mail (link to the mail)"...
But wait ! It's not the project X logo, it's the project Y one !! :(
You phone back John, but unfortunately he already left for another meeting. There, you can rinse and repeat, copy the task, paste it in a near future, add a comment line "Received wrong logo the 2015-02-02 at 9h45, tried to contact John by phone at 9h46, but no one answered", and go one with that never-ending task, etc.
- - - -
This is unfortunately based on day-to-day reality, where interactions with other people are (and will continue to be) chaotic.
It would be great to have KO help manage this kind of use case (or even do that on its own ; move tasks in the future, have links between tasks so you could 'jump' from tasks to tasks, have a clear view of a task and all it's follow-up iterations, etc.).
The method as it is :
Pros :
Cons :
As you can see, there is still a lot of room for improvement :)
TL;DR
To sum up, after years using this system what really matters when managing tasks is :
(I would have more used sub-tasks and sub-categories if KO would have allowed it, but it won't :x).
Wishlist to improve the workflow :
"A good task manager
"A good task manager application is one that can beat a .txt file."
Did you thought about storing the tasks in todo.txt style? Would be very cool for syncing with apps on my mobile phone..
http://todotxt.com/
debian installer?
hello, is there a way to install on debian based distros without having to compile? maybe, a ppa?
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