Getting Things Done Template 1.1, by Wil Ussery

[wussery]

I have uploaded a templated based on David Allen's Getting Things Done methodology to the forum. Any feedback would be appreciated.

[vamp07]

This is very interesting. I downloaded it and am going to see how I can include the concept into my UR file. I love the fact that the dB/Method was well documented.

[vamp07]

What the purpose of having "due date" and "needed by" date? Isn't it the same thing? Why use one for delegated tasks and another for tasks assigned to oneself? When I see stuff like this I am reminded of how wonderful a program like zoot is for this sort of thing. What you really want is for actions to happen when you drag an item to a given folder. For example marking something as completed and assigning a completed on date should happen just by dragging it to the completed folders.

[wussery]

Originally posted by vamp07
What the purpose of having "due date" and "needed by" date? Isn't it the same thing? Why use one for delegated tasks and another for tasks assigned to oneself? When I see stuff like this I am reminded of how wonderful a program like zoot is for this sort of thing. What you really want is for actions to happen when you drag an item to a given folder. For example marking something as completed and assigning a completed on date should happen just by dragging it to the completed folders.


The purpose of the Needed By Date is to separate those tasks, which are delegated from the Due Date Tasks, which are specifically tasks that YOU are responsible for. The workflow that you would like to see, needs to be brought to the attention of Kinook as an enhancement request. This is the only way the product will get better. We must be patient, as Ultra Recall is a relatively new program.

The functionality that you describe above is available in Ecco Pro. I would like to see some Calendar Functionality in the next version of UR, with User Designed Data Forms and saved VIEWS.

[vamp07]

Did you ever get your searches to work? I tried incorporating this method into my own files. I started with the Next Actions and children whose names start with @. I then created a search for parent whose name start with @ etc but nothing seems to pick up on that stuff I place in these folders. I then went to your template and tried the same thing and the searches don't work either.

[wussery]

Originally posted by vamp07
Did you ever get your searches to work? I tried incorporating this method into my own files. I started with the Next Actions and children whose names start with @. I then created a search for parent whose name start with @ etc but nothing seems to pick up on that stuff I place in these folders. I then went to your template and tried the same thing and the searches don't work either.

Yes I did test the @ search option that I have incorporated and they do work.

[wussery]

Originally posted by vamp07
Did you ever get your searches to work? I tried incorporating this method into my own files. I started with the Next Actions and children whose names start with @. I then created a search for parent whose name start with @ etc but nothing seems to pick up on that stuff I place in these folders. I then went to your template and tried the same thing and the searches don't work either.

vapm07, my apologies for the misstatement below. You are correct the code for the Next Actions Search button is faulty. Change the criteria to Parent Title Contains Keywords and keep everything else the same. The current search criteria is Parent Title Matches Wildcard. I had this running before and obviously changed the parameters. Thanks for the heads up.

[vamp07]

When I switch to keywords and use @* it thinks everything in my dB starts wit that string. I am not filtering on any dates in my testing. Not sure how keywords are supposed to interpret "@*". I suspect the search code is pretty messed up.

[wussery]

Originally posted by vamp07
When I switch to keywords and use @* it thinks everything in my dB starts wit that string. I am not filtering on any dates in my testing. Not sure how keywords are supposed to interpret "@*". I suspect the search code is pretty messed up.

I currently have one Task (Due Date) under the @Phone folder and the Next Actions Search button only returned this one item. I'm not sure what's different between your setup and mine.

[vamp07]

If you pull out the "and due date ...." does it still work as expected?

[kevina]

Currently the @ character is not recognized as an initial character of a keyword, so no keywords will be stored with a leading @ character. Since no (auto-generated) keywords will ever start with a @ character, Ultra Recall ignores it in your search criteria, so your search criteria is actually *.

When a Quick Search criteria uses a wildcard symbol (*, ?, [ or ]), Ultra Recall basically does a Matches Wildcard type search for you behind the scenes (searching all string Attributes and keywords). In your case, since the @ will currently never exist in (auto-generated) keywords, Ultra Recall ignores it. The resulting * search (of keywords), which will obviously find all Info Items.

The workaround for now (actually it isn't so much a workaround as a more specific search) is to change your search to be an Advanced Search with a criteria of Item Title matches wildcard @* . This should work as expected.

We can change Ultra Recall to allow the @ character at the beginning of keywords which will make these searches work as expected on keywords as well...

[tfadams]

Originally posted by kevina
Currently the @ character is not recognized as an initial character of a keyword, so no keywords will be stored with a leading @ character. Since no (auto-generated) keywords will ever start with a @ character, Ultra Recall ignores it in your search criteria, so your search criteria is actually *.

When a Quick Search criteria uses a wildcard symbol (*, ?, [ or ]), Ultra Recall basically does a Matches Wildcard type search for you behind the scenes (searching all string Attributes and keywords). In your case, since the @ will currently never exist in (auto-generated) keywords, Ultra Recall ignores it. The resulting * search (of keywords), which will obviously find all Info Items.

The workaround for now (actually it isn't so much a workaround as a more specific search) is to change your search to be an Advanced Search with a criteria of Item Title matches wildcard @* . This should work as expected.

We can change Ultra Recall to allow the @ character at the beginning of keywords which will make these searches work as expected on keywords as well...

Just jumping in to say this is precisely the reason I puchased Ultra Recall after using it only a few days - responsive developers. Well, that and it's a very useful program :)

[vamp07]

As far as I can tell a wildcard search of @* for the parents title does no work. Could somebody at kinook confirm or deny this?

Thanks

[kinook]

I'm not sure what you mean by 'parents title', but this works here:

1) Create a new database
2) Rename the Notes item to @Notes
3) Configure the Advanced Search item to be Item Title matches wildcard @* and start the search
4) It finds one result, the @Notes item

[vamp07]

Works for me to. Now try doing the same search but looks for "parent title" make sure you have children of stuff that has names starting with @.

[kinook]

Ah. Parent Title shouldn't be in the list of searchable attributes (as that capability is not currently implemented). You can do a search for the parents via an Advanced search of:

Item Title matches wildcard @*
and Has Children equals Yes

(make sure Has Children is checked in Tools | Options | Attributes if it doesn't show in the list of attributes in the search grid).

We'll consider adding this capability in a future release.

[wussery]

Originally posted by kinook
Ah. Parent Title shouldn't be in the list of searchable attributes (as that capability is not currently implemented). You can do a search for the parents via an Advanced search of:

Item Title matches wildcard @*
and Has Children equals Yes

(make sure Has Children is checked in Tools | Options | Attributes if it doesn't show in the list of attributes in the search grid).

We'll consider adding this capability in a future release.

I have Parent Title selected as the Attribute in my template, but I'm using "contains keywords" as the Comparison operator and I have *@ as the value and this "appears" to be working for me. I also have To-Do >= to Today's Date and FLAG is indented to the right of the To-Do row. All operators on the left are AND. The only problem I'm having with the searches, is the issue with the "=" operator is not working properly for dates. So, if you're looking for something >= to Today's date, it will only process the > date. Bummer.

[wussery]

Originally posted by kinook
Ah. Parent Title shouldn't be in the list of searchable attributes (as that capability is not currently implemented). You can do a search for the parents via an Advanced search of:

Item Title matches wildcard @*
and Has Children equals Yes

(make sure Has Children is checked in Tools | Options | Attributes if it doesn't show in the list of attributes in the search grid).

We'll consider adding this capability in a future release.

The Parent Title search option is critical to add to your next version. This will facilitate searching based on a folder structure of Parent/Child. To only be able to search on the Child item, really limits the flexibility of the program. This is not an attack, but an observation from a person that would like to see this product succeed.

To give you an example. In my GTD template I have a Folder called Next Actions (Parent Folder) and Subfolders called @Computer, @Customer Site, @Email, @Meetings, @Phone, etc. It is these folders that I would like to place my Tasks, which will be children of the @ folders.

It would be advantageous to do a query of one's database to show ALL task regardless of context that are due today or within the next 7 days AND have NOT been Completed. This Search criterion above would yield all data from ANY of my @ folders as long as the date contraint is met and the task has not been completed. Without the Parent Title Search option, I have to build a query for each @folder.... not elegant.

[VincentPeppe]

Originally posted by wussery
I have uploaded a templated based on David Allen's Getting Things Done methodology to the forum. Any feedback would be appreciated.

Without a robust text editor, and without the "one pane with columns" approach of Ecco, I don't see UR as a potential PIM or Project Manager. It beats Windows Explorer as a way to aggregate related documents and images, but it has no tools for outlining tasks in hierarchies.

I am still looking for an Ecco replacement and have had trouble installing Ecco on a Windows XP machine. I am also searching for a research collector, annotator, that can receive feeds.

Nonetheless, UR is beautifully executed. The care and attention, and style, shine through.

[wussery]

Originally posted by VincentPeppe
Without a robust text editor, and without the "one pane with columns" approach of Ecco, I don't see UR as a potential PIM or Project Manager. It beats Windows Explorer as a way to aggregate related documents and images, but it has no tools for outlining tasks in hierarchies. Also, while it can collect web pages, it does not automatically capture the URL string or any other information about the page, as does Onfolio.

I am still looking for an Ecco replacement and have had trouble installing Ecco on a Windows XP machine. I am also searching for a research collector, annotator, that can receive feeds.

Nonetheless, UR is beautifully executed. The care and attention, and style, shine through.

All I can say is go to the suggestions area and post what you would like to see in a future version of UR.