TWO CRUCIAL COSMIC SMALL TWEAKS - that will boost LB's functionality to unlimited integration and versatility.

Dear Llamas :-)

It has been many years that I am using LB now.
And it is the third time that I post in this Forum.

The suggestions below is a result of many years of researching hundreds of applications, applets and approaches for my company and personal work.

In the world of information management only two functionalities have been truly revolution-al in the past 10 years. Both of them have been around since the internet and google, but only found their way into the way we manage data and create lists lately.

Life Balance is basically totally programmed already for both these functionalities, it therefore remarkable to me that you haven't come to implement these till now.

• Dynamic Linking

and

• Tagging

DYNAMIC LINKING using the notes tab in LB

The first functionality is of course related mostly to searching (and finding) related information quickly. Many file managers (like 'Yojimbo', 'box.net', 'Together'...) save each entry with a unique URL ID that does not change even if the file is moved to another location. That means that when I link to a Yojimbo file (for example: x-yojimbo-item://94E3D74C-78B5-4AA6-8809-8B63EC2931E4) my system will find this specific file on each system even in 20 years when it moved to a different folder, computer, format, etc. The file has a unique identity in the form of a URL.
I use these file-URLs everywhere with amazing results!
For example, if you have a meeting or a project, put all relevant information for a meeting in a box.net folder and then copy the folder-URL and the URLs of important files in that folder into your meeting/project "notes" — now you have an unlimited potential to link this Meeting/Project/AreOfResponssibility/ToDo/anything... with any form and amount of data on any modern device (iphone, ipad, pocketpc) all run box.net, yojimbo and many other similar applications.

CONCLUSION: Since this quiet revolution has already happened, and the world is moving towards associative linking/grouping of information, I *strongly* urge you to tweak the "notes" section of LB to accept URLs. That's all.
This simple tweak will open a whole world of new possibilities for LB users to organize their related project and To-Do and thoughts' info. Nothing of the existing logic and auto-prioritizing of LB will get lost. it simply creates an infinite Bucket for related data that can be reached (on almost any device!) by clicking on URL-links.

IMPLEMENTATION: it would be nice to have LB desktop automatically purge the URL of a file or web address that is dragged into the notes section. But that is not the most important thing. On the Palm version if URL are a lot of work, you can simply sync them into the palm and only show them on the desktop.

TAGGING
The second functionality that is revolutionizing data management is tagging. Just like Linking, Tagging has been around since many many years, but only now people realize what non-linear, non-hyrarchical filtering really means! many crappy applications that have nothing much to offer BUT tagging, have been very successful recently. In fact, I have heard from an Apple employee that they are going to support system-wide tagging (instead of the current "comments" in the "More Info" window of each file) in a couple of years. LIFE BALANCE HAS **ALREADY** THE TOOL TO IMPLEMENT TAGGING. In essence a tag is a filter that can be selected together with another filter. IN other words, were A B C are filtering categories, being able to filter all items that belong to A and B would make it a tagging functionality. That only makes sense if an item CAN belong to A and B simultaneously.

All that would need to be changed in LB to enable tagging is to allow (the option) of assigning multiple Places to a single Task AND filtering ToDos by selecting multiple Places or excluding multiple places.
veeery simple. But extreeemly powerful!!!

There is no way around tagging. Here is why:

let's say I have the following places in my LB (among many others):
· "Burned Out"
· "Home"
· "My Kitchen" (included in "Home")
· "Hotel"
· "Urban Area" (include "Home" and "Hotel" among others)
· "Crazy ideas"
· "A lot of free time"

In the Project "Have Fun" I enter the following ToDos:
> "Bake my own bread"
> "have some ice cream"
> "Go to a restaurant"

Now, what I really want LB to do is to make me do one of these actions when I feel "Burned Out" (i.e. when I am in the "mood-place" of "Burned Out"). BUT, I want LB to offer a different ToDo depending on my physical-place ("Home", "Hotel", Kitchen") and Charachter-Place ("Crazy") and available time ("A lot of free time").

The most natural and common (in many other applications) way to do just that would be to add multiple places (=Tags!) to the ToDos as follows:
> "Bake my own bread" ["Burned Out" + "My Kitchen" + "Crazy ideas" + "A lot of free time"]
> "Have some ice Cream" ["Burned Out" + "Hotel"]
> "Go to a restaurant" ["Burned Out" + "Urban Area"]

If that would be possible, then the next day when I felt "Burned Out" I could ask myself "Where am I physically?" "Do I feel like doing something crazy?"

Then I'd update my ToDo with multiple Places selection/exclusion as follows:

• "I feel burned out — I feel like doing something Crazy — I am at home"
=> [selecting places: "Burned Out" + "My Kitchen" + "Crazy ideas"].
I get the result "Bake my Own Bread"

• "hmm.. nice, but I have only an hour"
=> [exclude the place: "A lot of free time"].
I get no results

=> [de-select: "Crazy ideas"]
I get: "Go to a restaurant".

CONCLUSION:
So, in terms of tagging there are three very simple updates that must be implemented to get full non-linear associating and filtering of ToDos:
1) Allow assigning of multiple Places for one ToDo
2) When filtering the ToDo list, allow selection of multiple Places
3) Allow exclusion (negative selection) of multiple Places when filtering

Practical Implementation:
let's take the iphone to make it clear.
When you assign Places to a task simply allow multiple selection (excluding is only relevant when filtering not when assigning).
When filtering allow multiple selection as well as follows:
to select a place tap it once, to *Exclude* a place tap it another time, to deselect tap a third time.
design: An excluded place shows an "X" next to it instead of a "V".

GTD'S "Knowledge Work" has evolved into a fully fledged "Re-Search Once and Again Work".
All the data we creatively work with is put together by some sorts of searching and filtering algorithms rather than static folders.
Many veteran users who love the idea behind LB are forced to revert to other applications to be able to link all their data and then filter it with multiple overlaid conditions.

Dear Llamas,
I hope that you will read this post carefully and take it in account in your very next development steps for the ipad and right afterwards. I am convinced that these simple tweaks will put LB exclusively at the very top of all time management applications. Hundreds of posts on Yahoo, Daylite, TRO, GTD, Omnifocus forums prove my point!

Hopeful,

Gavriel.