New post by MLO Workspaces logic

_posts/2024-07-23-mlo-workspaces-logic.md

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+---
+tags:
+  - tasks
+info: aberto.
+date: 2024-07-23
+type: post
+layout: post
+published: true
+slug: mlo-workspaces-logic
+title: 'MLO Workspaces logic'
+---
+
+Title: Some thoughts on Workspaces
+
+URL Source: https://groups.google.com/g/mylifeorganized/c/t25iRj2ZQ8c
+
+Markdown Content:
+### Alan Limebeer
+
+unread,
+
+Jan 14, 2018, 11:31:36 AM1/14/18
+
+to MyLifeOrganized
+
+Hello all,
+
+So I'm a loooooooong-time user (early 2000's) of MLO and have configured and used it in many different ways over the years, trying to leverage the full power of this amazing tool to capture all my interests and to-do items across all my Areas of Focus, Interest, and Responsibility, present them in clean, organized, and optimized and relevant lists, and do all that in as efficiently and easily as possible. It's been a long journey of testing, trying things out, chucking out ideas that didn't work, going back to the drawing board, re-investigating MLO features and how to leverage them And today, using a combination of flags, folders, projects, outlines, lists, importance, urgency, contexts, and some very fancy Advanced Filtered Views, I have a system that truly captures "everything" in an almost perfect system and process that is easy to use, update, and add to. But over the years, the one feature that has eluded my understanding has been Workspaces. I've never been able to come up with a way to leverage WS to make my system more efficient and easier to use. I've always ended up abandoning any configuration that included them because they inevitably ended up complicating things and slowing things down, becoming cumbersome and unwieldy. Now, I want to be clear, this is completely a failing on my part to understand how they were meant to be used, and not the result of a poor or pointless design. I've never seemed to be able to get my head around how to use them right, and I've never liked that. If there's a way for a tool to help make things easier to manage, I want to utilize it. So with that in mind, I set out this week to finally be able to check off "complete MLO setup" in my "implement GTD" project :)
+
+After spending a few hours over the last couple of days combing through the posts in this Group and Googling the net in general, I think I've distilled the purpose of Workspaces down to a very simple and concise explanation and I wanted to post it here to see if any of you all might share what you think about what I've come up with. What I've come to understand about Workspaces is as follows:
+
+Essentially, workspaces are used to apply views to a subset of the outline.
+
+➜ either to apply different views to the same subset(zoom) of the outline, or
+
+➜ to apply the same view to multiple, different, subsets at the same time, without having to zoom out, find a different branch, and zooming back in.
+
+You can also customize a view (adding further filters, groupings, sortings, etc.) applied to a Workspace without affecting other Workspaces using that view (unless you Save the view, then it overwrites the view and applies it to all Workspaces currently using it) without having to create a new, separate, and specialized View for one specific purpose (the goal being to keep your views as generic as possible so they can be applied and reused in multiple "contexts" (general meaning of the term context, not MLO-specific).
+
+So far this definition has been working really well, and I'd love to hear any feedback or thoughts any of you pro users might have. Have I missed anything? Is there another way to interpret or use the feature-set of Workspaces? Did I nail it? Is there anything else I should consider them for?
+
+Looking forward to hearing thoughts.
+
+Cheers all,
+
+Alan
+
+### Dwight
+
+unread,
+
+Jan 14, 2018, 2:03:17 PM1/14/18
+
+to [email protected]
+
+Hi, Alan. I think that you have created comprehensive and definitive  
+documentation of the function of a workspace, omitting just one small  
+point which I will get to later. You may or may not want to also mention  
+use cases that give the workspace value to the user - my favorite is use  
+of the tab bar as a kind of speed dial for views. I keep 26 of my  
+favorite views (or view/zoom combinations) in tabs, each locked and  
+pinned so that only the icon shows (I have many custom icons). I'm able  
+to bring up the exact view I want in a single click almost every time.
+
+The missing piece is synchronization of selection and zoom. I don't use  
+zoom synch much but selection synch is very useful. For readers who  
+don't know, I will explain that the workspace setup window allows the  
+user to control several things about functioning of a workspace, one of  
+which is "synch selection with first tab". This is one of several  
+aspects of MLO which dictate that the first tab should always be a  
+locked, pinned "All Tasks" view. Here is a scenario that shows the use  
+of this option:
+
+My setup has four tabs, all locked and pinned. First is All Tasks.  
+Second is Calls, showing every active task whose context includes  
+"call". The third is for my customer BVMI, and shows anything with the  
+#BVMI context, together with all children. The fourth is "recently  
+modified" showing any task modified in the last three days, sorted and  
+grouped by date/time modified, most recent first.The workspaces for  
+Calls and BVMI are set to synch with the first workspace, RecentMod is not.
+
+I see an RFP from BVMI's competitor NJPHC and add a note to my inbox to  
+look into submitting a bid. Later, I am making my morning phone calls  
+and the next one is Touch base with BVMI >WorkCallsEastern #BVMI. I tap  
+on the task to select it and display the note which gives me the phone  
+number and some reminders from my last call. I tap the phone number  
+which places the call. While the phone is dialing, I tap the BVMI tab.  
+The tab comes up, showing me everything in my profile related to this  
+client. There are a few pages of it, but the display is open to the  
+project that we need to discuss. We discuss the project stats, the  
+weather, and the customer's daughter's upcoming wedding. I mention, for  
+full disclosure, that I will be considering submitting a bid for NJPHC.  
+My client gives me several good reasons to forego this bid so I tap the  
+RecentMod tab, delete the note about the bid, tap the BVMI tab and  
+finish discussing projects, tap the calls icon, mark the call completed,  
+and go on to the next call.
+
+How did selection synch help me?
+
+When I was viewing the CALLS workspace and tapped the Touch Base with  
+BVMI task, it became the currently selected task in the Calls workspace.  
+Because the Calls workspace does selection synch with the first tab (All  
+Tasks), Touch Base With BVMI also becomes the currently selected task in  
+All Tasks. Because the BVMI workspace does selection synch with the  
+first tab, Touch Base with BVMI is now the selected task in the BVMI  
+tab. (This is all really just to make Calls and BVMI synch selection  
+with each other, All Tasks is just a necessary intermediary). When I tap  
+the BVMI tab, it will open to the correct page because the Touch Base  
+task is the currently selected item and the view opens there.
+
+When I tapped the RecentMods tab, it did not try to find the Touch Base  
+item because it does not do selection synch. When I go back to the Calls  
+page, it is still pointing to my current call. My activity on the Recent  
+Mods page did not affect the current selection, even though Calls synchs  
+selection, because RecentMods does not synch selection.
+
+I hope this gives you an idea of when to use and when not to use  
+selection synch.
+
+\-Dwight