Getting Started

The Life Balance work area is set up to allow you to focus on particular decisions and activities independently by separating the Why, How, Where and When for your To Do List. The Outline is for strategy and planning, and thinking about Why you are doing a task. The Calendar and event details allow you to think about When you need to do a task. The To Do List view is How to get things done in the moment, what you will use to set your course, deploy your plans and check off completed tasks. The Places section is for setting up convenient filters for Where a task needs to happen. The Balance section provides both a visual status for seeing how you are doing, and the results actively feed back into your To Do List to actively keep you on track. The Task details will help you make clear decisions about each task without comparing that task to every other task in your list.

Understanding the Life Balance window

We have provided a sample data file, which contains examples of various kinds of tasks you may want to set up in your own Outline. You may use them, delete them, or edit them in any way you please. Experiment with different arrangements until you feel satisfied - and change them again when your circumstances change. You can start a new empty file by selecting New from the File menu, or create a new sample data file at any time by choosing New Sample Data from the File menu.

The Llamagraphics web site also contains exchange files that you can use as templates to jump-start your use of Life Balance. You can even mix and match several exchange files to customize a starter document for your particular situation. See Inserting exchange files for details.

The Life Balance window is divided into three areas. On the left are the main panels for the Outline, To Do List, Places, and Balance. On the bottom right are the Calendar panels, organized by Month, Week, or Day. You can switch between panels in the main area and the Calendar area by clicking on the large tabs.

At the top right are the Details panels, where you can see and edit the details of the currently selected item. This area changes automatically to display the details of whatever task, place, or event you have selected in one of the other panels.

Outline

The Outline containing some sample data is what you see when you first launch Life Balance. The Outline is where you list your life goals, create projects that help you achieve these goals, and then create tasks to complete those projects. This is where you enter new tasks and organize them.

Whenever you select a task in the Outline, its details appear in the Details area. You can also click on the triangles in the Outline to collapse and expand sections, and you can drag the triangles and circles to reorganize your Outline.

To Do List

The To Do List displays the tasks from your Outline sorted by overall priority, with the highest priority items at the top. Priority is computed from many factors, including the importance of projects, when things are scheduled, and the balance of your pie charts. Life Balance uses information from the Outline, Task Details, Places, Calendar, Event Details, and Balance sections to build your customized To Do List.

If the lock at the bottom of the To Do List is unlocked, then the To Do List updates automatically as you work. You can also recompute the To Do List manually by clicking the Update button.

Places

The Places panel shows you the list of all your Places. Places are the primary means for filtering the items in your To Do List, so that you can focus on just the tasks that you can complete in a given location or situation. When you create a new place or select a place, the Place Details are shown in the Details panel. You can set hours for when places are available, say which places are part of that place, and add notes for a place.

Balance

The Balance section displays two pie charts related to effort, and a list of your accomplishments.

The left-hand pie chart indicates how you would like to divide your effort among the top level items in your Outline. You can adjust the desired pie chart by dragging slices with the mouse.

The right-hand pie chart indicates how you have actually been dividing your effort among your top level goals. This pie chart changes as you complete tasks — you cannot adjust it directly. Note that the actual pie chart does not appear until you have checked off at least one task.

Calendar

The Life Balance Calendar is always displayed in the lower right hand panel. You can switch among the Month, Week and Day Calendar views using the tabs for the calendar section. When you click on an event in the calendar, the details of that event appear in the Details panel.

You can drag tasks from the Outline or To Do List to the Calendar to schedule them.

Task Details

The Task Details panel displays the specifics of the selected task. You can change the name, importance, place, schedule, effort and notes.

You don’t need to edit all of the information displayed here. Life Balance uses defaults that maximize the priority of a task in the To Do List. The most commonly changed attributes are under the General tab.

Place Details

The Place Details panel displays the name, hours, included places, and notes for the currently selected place. The hours let you record when a place is open and closed, so that tasks for closed places won’t appear on your To Do List. Included places let you merge tasks from several different places into a single To Do List. This is useful for places like shopping malls that may include a bank, grocery store, etc.

Event Details

The Event Details panel displays the start date, duration, repeat schedule, and notes for the currently selected calendar event.

How to set up Life Balance

There is a wealth of information in the full Advice Book, but if you’re itching to get started, here are steps to help you get set up quickly and easily:

1. If you already have tasks entered in another program, you may want to start by opening a file exported from that program, or using one of the converters available on the Llamagraphics web site at http://www.llamagraphics.com/resources/converters.html. See Opening files from other applications for a description of the file formats that Life Balance can open natively. The Llamagraphics web site currently has converters for Outlook, text, ShadowPlan, MyLifeOrganized and OPML, and by the time you read this, other converters may be available. These converters output Life Balance Exchange files. See Creating exchange files and Inserting exchange files for more information on working with exchange files.
2. Take a minute to think about your goals in life, and enter each goal as a top-level item in your Outline. (See Entering Tasks and Subtasks for instructions on creating new tasks.) It’s a good idea to state each goal starting with a verb, like “Earn a living” or “Keep in touch with friends”. You can edit the sample data we provide for you, or create new items of your own.

   As you enter each goal, set the Importance slider in the Task Details to indicate how important that goal is to your life as a whole. This will form the foundation of the priorities in your To Do List.

   Don’t worry too much about making this list perfect. You can always go back and edit these items later.

3. In the Places section, enter names for the places or situations where you typically need to look at your To Do List. There’s no need to enter every place you go, just the places where you’re going to stop and consult Life Balance. For most people, this will be a handful of places like Home, Work, and Running Errands. These places will be used later to filter irrelevant items from your To Do List.
4. Go back to your Outline, and for each goal, think of a few projects that will help you achieve that goal. Enter these as subtasks under the appropriate goal. For now, don’t get more detailed than that. We’ll enter tasks in step 6.

   By default, Life Balance assumes that each project is essential to achieving the goal it’s listed under. If any of your projects aren’t absolutely essential, you can drag the Importance slider for that project to a more appropriate value.

   Often, projects will be associated with a particular place, so go ahead and select that place now. For instance, a project like “Clean out the basement” would happen at Home. If you can’t decide on a particular place, leave it set to “Anywhere”. Assigning these places now will save you time when you enter tasks later.

5. Go to the To Do List and click the Update button. Make sure that the Place popup at the top of the list says “All Places”. Life Balance will display your projects with the most important ones at the top.

   See if this order matches your intuition. If not, adjust the importance sliders for your goals and projects, come back to the To Do List and update again.

6. Now you can enter tasks at your leisure. Create each task under the appropriate project in your Outline, and it will automatically inherit the place that you have assigned to that project. (The value of the importance slider is not directly inherited, but Life Balance takes the importance of the project into account when computing the overall priority of a task.)
7. Whenever you want to consult your To Do List, select the appropriate place from the popup at the top of the list, and click Update. Life Balance will recompute the prioities in your To Do List and move the most important tasks to the top of the list. It will also filter out tasks that can only be done in other places. (Tasks that are assigned to Anywhere will always be shown.)

Weekly Planning

Life Balance is not so much about static weekly planning, but more about continuous dynamic planning.

One of the most important concepts to understand in Life Balance is that what you get done today dynamically affects what Life Balance suggests that you do tomorrow. One problem with most to do lists is that they are perpetually out of date. Your actions affect the environment in which you are working, and your list needs to reflect those changes to truly represent what you are doing and where you are going!

It is our observation that people who are first starting to use Life Balance often do quite a bit of extra work to maintain the traditional style of static weekly system that they are familiar with — carrying tasks forward from day to day, putting everything into buckets for particular days, making artificial appointments with themselves, etc. Often that work is unnecessary.

While there are other ways to think about your weekly planning, here are the steps that we recommend. One Life Balance customer recently told us that he was able to trim back his daily planning session from one hour each day to just a few minutes. What could you do with an extra hour each day?

1. Subdivide and Conquer. Look over the list for any existing project headings that have popped up, or things which look too big to tackle and that need to be broken down some more. A project like "Move to France" is not something that you can just do in one sitting since it involves real estate and international travel. So add in tasks under that for what the specific next steps might be. You won't necessarily know all the steps that will be needed to complete the project, and you may not do all of these tasks. This is a good time to brainstorm and to capture your ideas.
2. Top Down thinking. Are there long term projects that are not on the list at all that you want to think about, research or do? Are you happy with your top level tasks? Usually this means looking at the second level and asking yourself, "WHAT ELSE could I possibly do for that long range goal which would make that top level goal happen and be wonderful!?"
3. Bottom up thinking. Are there tasks that you are already doing that you need to add to the list? For instance, you may have committed to work on a project, and started in on the initial tasks. Projects sometimes sprout up quickly, or you may have tasks that have become a daily habit that you want to change. Take the time to include projects and tasks that might not otherwise track or get credit for doing.
4. Adjustments. What else has changed? Look at the list with "Include Closed Places" and "All Places." Does the order reflect the current state of things? If not, select a task that seems like it is too high or too low and travel up the hierarchy until you find the HIGHEST project that needs adjustment in importance. This will then take care of all the related tasks that also need adjustment.
5. Weeding. Are there any things on the list that should just be deleted as dead ends?
6. Balancing. Switch to the Balance section. Is the Desired pie chart reflecting where you want to put your effort in the coming week? If you caught the flu, then you might cut back temporarily on work. If you are preparing for a trade show, then you might increase that slice to the max and let the laundry take care of itself until it is time to pack the suitcase.

Not all steps need to be done each time. You will find that with practice, you will tend to do this quickly whenever you feel the need to review your plans, and less as a strictly "Weekly" planning regimen.

Using the Online Help

Life Balance desktop edition for Windows comes with a complete online help system. To display the online help, choose “Life Balance Help” from the Help menu. This will open the Microsoft Help application, where you can browse through the Life Balance help by contents, look in the index for particular terms, or search for words of your choice.