2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-15 16:39
I had to switch from Windows to Mac not of my own free will and not without resistance. But over time, Apple products came to my taste so much that I remember Windows in much the same way as a person driving a Mercedes recalls his first Lada: with warmth and fear. But there is still an application that nothing has ever been able to replace. This is a MyLifeOrganized computer organizer.
After a complete transition to OS X, I gradually found analogues of all the programs I needed, and even more than I expected. For MLO only, I was looking for a replacement for a very long time, until I settled on the famous OmniFocus. OmniFocus 2 was even more beautiful and even in Russian, but our relationship did not work out.
The main difficulties I encountered with OmniFocus 2 were orientation: the structure of folders and projects is present, but visually everything looks so uniform that it makes decisions incredibly difficult.
is devoid of this drawback already "out of the box", and powerful auto-formatting functions allow you to customize the appearance of the list of folders, projects and tasks as soon as you like. MLO has no competitors in filtering and bookmarking capabilities with filter sets. Therefore, when I got CrossOver for free, which I would never have bought for nothing, I immediately remembered MLO, installed it, and by the evening stopped using OmniFocus.
You can learn more about the desktop version of MyLifeOrganized in the review "". And in this article we will deal with the versions for iOS.
Appearance
I know that all markers are different in color and taste, but in this case, it seems to me that the look of MLO for iOS cannot but please.
You can change the look with swipes. On the iPhone, for example, swiping from right to left on a task displays the data of this task (context, belonging to the project, start and date, visibility in To-Do lists, and so on), and from left to right - the control area.
In the iPad version (MLO HD) we use swipes to add or hide sidebars, down to just a list.
Task properties
When the time comes to assign a property to a task, we can, depending on our needs, use MLO as a simple "trick" or feel the full power of GTD. In the second case, MyLifeOrganized allows us to specify whatever properties we can think of.
- Contexts can contain geolocation and issue reminders not only upon arrival, but also after you have left a place. The radius of the reminder activation is also configurable (from 0 m to 100 km).
- Start and date … We indicate the beginning so that the task does not interfere with us in the To-Do list until a certain time, and the deadline, if, according to the GTD rules, after it, the task becomes meaningless. I deviate from this rule a little and put down deadlines, since I use iCal for meetings and events that are tied to a date. And this is justified, since MLO is synchronized with the calendar (see below).
- Reminder … In order not to forget about the task at the right time and not to clog the list with deadlines.
- Importance and urgency … The ability to use four time quadrants. It also affects sorting, the principles of which are also customizable.
- Target … Year, month, week. Helps with planning and achieving life goals or implementing a 12-week year system.
- Task type (folder, project) … Any task can be made a folder or a project. Note: tasks can have subtasks with any nesting level and sequence of subtasks execution without assigning folder or project properties to them.
- Hide a branch in To-Do … Any branch (folder, project, task with subtasks) can be hidden for display in To-Do lists, but any such list created by a user can be set to show hidden tasks. Why hide? This is a useful feature for Maybe / Someday folders, information folders, or life planning structures.
- The note … Needs no introduction. One has only to say that when we create a task by sending a letter to a special address, the subject of the letter becomes the name of the task, and the content becomes a note.
- Repeat … Repeating tasks after a certain period of time, but with additional settings: resetting subtasks to completed tasks when repeating tasks and automatically repeating a task when completing its subtasks.
- An effort … It is important when you need to roughly understand the percentage of the project completed. But different tasks move the project to the goal at different "distances". This is where this task property comes in handy.
- It takes time … When you have 15 minutes free, the filter by the time required to complete the task will very simply and quickly help you make a decision.
- Overview … The MyLifeOrganized application has a special "Overview" tab, where tasks can be found if they are assigned a certain frequency in this property.
- Dependencies … Not all project tasks always go in a strict sequence. You can create a block task with sequential subtasks, and MyLifeOrganized allows it. Well, what if the dependent tasks are in different projects? This is what the "Dependency" property is for. In addition, we can add several tasks with a logical condition: to start a dependent task, you must complete all or any.
As you can see, the customization possibilities are enormous. But now it's time to figure out how to figure it all out.
Views and filters
Everyone who practices the GTD system and uses computer organizers knows that the main thing that is needed from such software is the ability to provide the user with a list of tasks under certain conditions. Ideally, everything should be simple and fast.
By default, MyLifeOrganized offers many ready-made views for different task properties. But the user is free to create new types or even groups of them and customize each one as he pleases, according to any properties of the tasks described above. To do this, you need to tap on "Ed." in the lower left corner, and then on "Ext. view":
Then you need to select the group to which the view will belong, the name of the view and the conditions for filtering. For one type, you can create both a separate condition and a group indicating the logical relationship between them (and, or), as well as with a parameter, whether all conditions must be met or one is enough.
For example, you often have a situation where you have 15 minutes of free time between meetings at the workplace, but you do not want to occupy them with tasks that require a lot of effort. Then you create a filter, according to which tasks from the Work folder fall into the "15 minutes" view with a duration of no more than 15 minutes and with minimal effort.
Here is an incomplete list of task properties, according to which you can compose the type you need:
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As you can see from even an incomplete list, you cannot come up with such filtering that the MyLifeOrganized application cannot master.
Calendar view
But, in addition to views and filters, there is also a calendar view for planning and making decisions, which will help you understand the daily workload, see the necessary meetings and deadlines.
The display of the calendar view is also customizable.
For example, I adjusted the calendar view so that it displays data from the "Must" (meetings with people and everything that loses its meaning after the deadline) and "Investments" (according to the new view of life balance) calendars.
Plans for the future
The developers of this wonderful application are not going to calm down and are constantly working to improve and strengthen their product. In the near future, it is planned to combine applications for smartphones and tablets into one. It will also include an Apple Watch app. The fifth version for Windows is being developed and the start of the development of an application for Mac is on the way.
At the moment, as one of the Honorary Testers, I'm trying out the new features of the upcoming iPhone update:
Counters … A very handy configurable feature that allows you to see how many tasks are left for each view. The status of available tasks: all, incomplete, completed, started, overdue (the counter numbers have a different color, which depends on the status of the task). For each type, two task states can be displayed simultaneously in any combination, taking into account nested or only root ones.
Parsing … MLO can parse the text that the user enters and convert it to date, time or other properties of the task. For example: call Vasya tomorrow 15:10; ask Oksana in 3 days; report to Alexey remind in 2 hours context Office.
See for yourself that MLO is the best computer organizer for any life management system
Of course, in this article I have not covered everything that MyLifeOrganized can do. I did not touch upon the basic features that any computer organizer should have, but only what sets it apart from the rest and leaves competitors far behind.
However, you can see for yourself. I suggest the following plan:
- You download and install MyLifeOrganized on all devices (45 days trial with all the features of the Pro version).
- Take 10 days to understand the full power of the application.
- Give feedback in the App Store and get one month of cloud sync.
- Use it for another 30 days, during which you make the final decision.
Everything is available and free. There is only one catch in all this: after 45 days of communication with MyLifeOrganized, it will be difficult for you to use other organizers.
Are you ready to make your life better, planning more enjoyable, and activities more productive? Trust me, it's worth it.
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