Make subtopics appear in To Do list
I would like to have the choice to make subtopics appear in the To Do list. Everything I do is not a work project. I have lists of errands to do that I need to be able to categorize. They need to be organized into sub and sub sub topics or else I would have a list a mile long. Please give me the choice to have them appear. This is very disappointing. Also there doesn't seem to be a consistent logic to determine which ones will appear. I have some items which are only at the subtopic level which appear on To Dos and then others don't, even if they are rated essential.
Thanks,
Suzanne
ps I will attach it if you want to check it out.
RE: Make subtopics appear in To Do list
I'm not sure that I understand your question. So please forgive me if I seem to stray off topic. Not enough coffee yet this morning. :)
First, Life Balance does not assume that all your tasks or projects are work related. (Caring for my house, dog, and elderly cat figure prominently in my list, and helping with the juggling between work and personal life that everyone does these days is what the software is about.)
However, there are many settings within Life Balance that affect what appears in your to do list view at a given time and place. The Life Balance method involves sorting tasks by importance, and filtering the view to give you the view of the tasks that are relevent now.
Here's a summary of the things that you can check within the structure of your Outline that can cause tasks not to appear when you think they should, that may be a good place to start: in the frequently asked questions list:
http://www.llamagraphics.com/LB/faq/detail.php?id=23
If you are asking about the circumstances when a higher level project sometimes appear on your task list, there is a frequently asked question on that topic as well that may help you:
http://www.llamagraphics.com/LB/faq/detail.php?id=21
The idea is that the higher level project is suppressed from appearing on your to do list as long as there is an subtask that still needs doing (this can be a repeating task in the future.) If all the subtasks are happens "Once" then the project will pop up so that you can think about what else needs to be done, or check it off and get credit for finishing that project.
You may also benefit from a quick read of the walkthough document, and the Advice Book PDF file, if you haven't done so already. You can find those in the resources section here:
http://www.llamagraphics.com/resources/documentation/index.html
I'll also take a look at the .zip, in case there is something going on there that I can identify for you quickly. I will remove that from the web site though to protect your privacy. In general, when you have data that you want to post for us to look at, I recommend that you contact support via email so that the files don't hang around.
Unless it is a template that you actually intend to share, of course!
Best wishes,
--Catherine--*
Catherine E. White
President
www.llamagraphics.com
Creators of Life Balance software
for Palm OS, Macintosh and Windows.
RE: Make subtopics appear in To Do list
Okay! Now that I am fortified with a few sips of coffee....
I am happy to report that this is an easy one! You have the importance slider for all your top level tasks set to Importance NONE!
What that is saying to Life Balance is that the project is completely unimportant and so all its subtasks won't appear on the to do list view. (This can be handy for planning a project ahead of time that you don't intend to work on yet, but it is definitely not what you want.)
Life Balance asks you to set the importance slider to say how important is this task or project to the project that it contributes to -- that it is under in the Outline. For top level, that is how important is this long term goal to "my life as a whole."
So Christmas is currently set to being Essential, but Errands is set to NONE.
Life Balance also separates out the reason something needs to be done, the "Why" from the place where it needs to be done, the "Where.". In the to do list view you have the Place set to "Calls" which has filtered out all the Christmas tasks, etc. If you set the Place popup to "All Places," you will see more of your tasks appear.
You have also named one of your long term projects "Calls" in the Outline. You may want to rename that in the Outline to be more of a project type name to capture the reason you are doing those tasks, and what you hope to get out of getting them done. Then you can use Places to capture the information on where something needs to happen.
Places may work really well for you. Then you can set the view in the To do list to "Home depot" and see all the things you need to get while you are there. Or have a place for "At my desk" or "telephone."
I hope that helps get you unstuck! Let me know if you have other questions.
Best wishes,
--Catherine--*
Catherine E. White
President
www.llamagraphics.com
Creators of Life Balance software
for Palm OS, Macintosh and Windows.
RE: Make subtopics appear in To Do list
Maybe I've had too much coffee now!
You may find the following audio lesson (MP3 or Quicktime) to be just the information that you need for setting up your Outline.
http://www.llamagraphics.com/audio/index.html
It is short. It won't take long to download and listen to.
:)
Best wishes,
--Catheirne--*
Catherine E. White
President
www.llamagraphics.com
Creators of Life Balance software
for Palm OS, Macintosh and Windows.
RE: Make subtopics appear in To Do list
This is great, thanks so much, and from the President herself!!
I had lowered the importance so that the category names (word CALLS) wouldn't appear in To Dos (not realizing it affected the whole category - now I get it), but then later I had given it the place of Category so it wouldn't show up anyway.
Well it was very useful to share my file with you, and I would appreciate it if you would remove it from the post although I doubt anyone would be very interested...
I have an ongoing category of Calls to have a place to put the people I need to call, or friends I need to catch up with, but I may give friends their own place. When I have a free moment and have time for it I glance at my list. I'll have to think about that one and how I plan my categorie. Maybe I haven't grasped the concept yet, but I sure could use some help with prioritizing. I just took a career development class at lesley U. where we talked about this and I am going to forward your website to our class. The teacher was teaching us to break down the career search into smaller steps and this is perfect for that.
Now I will go through your suggestions. I love this software so I am glad I will be able to make it work.
I haven't been able to figure out how to make the done tasks NOT appear so I have been deleting them, which I think negates the pat on the back function. I don't want them appearing on my to do list and I am afraid of purging them because I don't know wheter I will be able to control just what will be purged.
Thanks!!
Suzanne
ps If you want you can use the file for my other question about a printing problem. I was trying to print that file. Thanks!
RE: Make subtopics appear in To Do list
Hi There Suzanne,
I am glad to know that the information was helpful to you. Thanks so much for letting your class know where to find us too! We don't have much of a marketing budget, so every kind comment counts! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
I also wanted to let you know that I removed the data file from the earlier post. If you click on the icon, it says the Admin (me) removed it.
The other thing to take a look at in the To Do List view there is a little lock icon at the bottom left of the window on the Mac. If that is "unlocked" then the list will automatically update whenever you check off a task in your to do list view. What that does is update the To Do List view, which recalculates the list based on what happened, and that also removes the done tasks from the view. It does not removed the checked off tasks from the Outline or the Balance sections. You can still see your accomplishments there.
Purge will reassign credit for any tasks that it does delete to the parent project, so it will not affect the Actual pie chart unless you get rid of a whole section. Also purge will not delete anything that is set to repeat in the future.
I hope that the Life Balance software is useful to you with your Career Development plans too! Cool!
And when you call your friends, tell 'em I said hi! :)
Best wishes,
--Catherine--*
Catherine E. White
President
www.llamagraphics.com
Creators of Life Balance software
for Palm OS, Macintosh and Windows.
RE: Make subtopics appear in To Do list
Hello Catherine,
Thanks!!
What I meant about not wanting things to appear in the list is that the outline is the list that I print out and carry in my purse so I don't want all the checked off items on there. I wish I could have the choice to have them not appear.
If I printed toht etodo lists I would want to be able to print them as compactly as possible so as to fit on a page (maybe front back) so I can put it in my purse. I have a palm, but I find I am a lot more efficient if I can see it all on a page and check off items (that's my pat on the back for the day).
Have you had a chance to check out my printing problem? I have concluded that the outline is set to only print two pages... Please check that out (other question - no reply yet)
Thanks,
Suzanne
ps this weekend I will look through all the things you recommended.