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Planning with Agenda Fusion
5 August 2002
It's all Jeff Mitchell's fault, really. I was so spoiled by the organizational perfection of Shadow on PalmOS that none of the Pocket PC outliners I've tried quite measures up. ADB Idea is fast, but lacks project management features. Pocket Mindmap is better for brainstorming and general planning, but exporting to Pocket Outlook is a slow, tedious and manual process. Streamliner has great project management features, but doesn't integrate with Pocket Outlook at all, making it impossible to see your action items in "daytimer" apps like Agenda Fusion or Dashboard.
Slowly, it's sunk in on my thick skull why none of these "two-body" solutions work for me as well on the Pocket PC as they did on PalmOS. Prepare to groan, loyal readers, but it comes down to my paradigm.
On PalmOS, it's normal to use different apps to enter different data. Even apps like Shadow and Arranger that make heavy use of data from the stock applications are pretty much stand-alone apps in actual use. I frequently had one hardware button mapped to DateBk4 and another mapped to Shadow.
On the Pocket PC, I've grown accustomed to creating data without directly running the programs to whom that data belongs. I make heavy use of the New menu on the Pocket PC, which allows me to create new items from pretty much anywhere in the system. If I need to create a new appointment while I'm writing in Pocket Word, I can do it and go back to my document without missing a beat.
There is no effective way I've been able to find to use this system with outliners or planning tools. If I create a task from the New menu, this task doesn't fit into my plan. It's just floating out there completely independent of my outline. ADB Idea makes it much easier than Pocket Mindmap to add tasks into your outline after the fact, but that's still extra work I don't need. The point of planning is to make me more efficient and effective, not take up more of my increasingly scarce time.
So outliners on the Pocket PC platform fall short because they don't integrate tightly enough into an already tightly integrated system, what's the answer? Something that pulls that data together even tighter: a SuperPIM.
I reviewed the two Pocket PC heavyweights a while back, and you can't miss with either of them for PIM use. That said, I think Agenda Fusion has the edge in planning, so we'll focus on that one here. There are also other new promising contenders on the horizon, so stay open, stay flexible and try out new things. The competition is just making everyone's software better.
For those of you that aren't familiar with Agenda Fusion, it's basically a replacement for Pocket Outlook that gives you a more comprehensive interface to your Outlook data. If you enter a task in Agenda Fusion, it will show up in Pocket Outlook's Tasks and on the desktop. The big strength that it gives you over the stock applications is integration. You can not only see appointments and tasks on the same screen, but also get to contacts and some notes within the same application.
I've found that Agenda Fusion is also pretty darn good for long-term planning, both as a result of inherent Pocket Outlook features and features unique to Agenda Fusion itself. The first key to using Agenda Fusion for planning is categories.
For people like me that cut their teeth on PalmOS PDAs, it takes a little mental stretching to fully make use of categories on the Pocket PC. On PalmOS, you only get 15 categories per application, categories aren't shared between the Datebook, Address Book and To Do List, and records can only be assigned to one category at a time. On the Pocket PC, this is not the case. You can have as many categories as you want, you can create a category for a contact and then use the same category for an appointment with that contact, and you can assign as many categories as you want to any record.
As with PalmOS, the Pocket PC starts you off with the basic categories of Business and Personal. While I recommend you keep these as blanket categories, they don't offer much granularity, and that's what you need for effective planning. I have categories for every major project, as well as general activities like Writing and Fitness. I assign as many categories as are applicable to each new event, contact or task I create. For example, a appointment to add new content to Writing On Your Palm would be assigned to the categories: Business, Jeff Kirvin Enterprises (the parent corporation that owns Writing On Your Palm), Writing On Your Palm, Web/PC, and Writing.
Why assign so many categories? Filtering and grouping.
Agenda Fusion's Task view lets you group tasks by priority, due date, start date, all kinds of stuff... including category. I find the category grouping by far the most useful, as it allows me to see all the tasks that fall into each category. This is similar to using an outliner, as it shows you a meaningful breakout of your data.
Let me give you an example. My Business category currently has 35 items in it. This shows me all my business-related tasks, no matter which "sub-category" they're in. Of those 35 tasks, 21 also appear in the Jeff Kirvin Enterprises category, and 10 of those also appear in the Writing On Your Palm category. It's a "flatter" view of your data than a hierarchical outline, but it's also more flexible in that you can see a task grouped under each and every category to which it is assigned.
Filters make categories worth the trouble to set them up. I have a number of filters I use all the time. I can filter on Business just to show the business-oriented tasks, appointments and contacts while I'm at the office. I can use the Personal filter on weekends to just show me my own stuff. But filters are far more powerful than that. By far my biggest use of filters is not what to show me, but what not to show me.
(By the way, one feature Agenda Fusion doesn't have that Pocket Informant does is Saved Views. This makes it easy to predefine and name filters and view settings so they're faster and easier to recall later.)
I have one category that I rarely want to see, and usually keep hidden in my Today and Agenda views. This category is called Goals, and although I rarely see it, it's the most important category on my device. Tasks in the Goals category aren't really tasks so much as outcomes I want to work towards. They're still assigned to other relevant categories, but if I have the Goals category hidden, I won't see them even if the other categories are visible.
One of my goals is to publish the fourth edition of Writing On Your Palm, the long-awaited and oft-delayed ground-up rewrite of my popular ebook. The due-date for this is December 1, 2002. I don't see that in my daily agenda, because it's a goal. But working backwards from that, I know that I have to have the outline written by August 11, and the first draft written by October 15. Those are tasks in my Business, Writing, and Writing On Your Palm categories with start dates and due dates. Those tasks will appear in my agenda as they become active.
While this "flat" view of my goals and sub-tasks works, it would be very difficult to manage if it weren't for one other feature of Agenda Fusion: linking. For each goal, I set a hyperlink to each sub-task. A small chain link icon appears next to each task on either side of the link. I can click on the icon next to a goal to see and edit all the sub-tasks that make up that goal, or I can click on the icon next to a normal task to see the goal to which it contributes. Linking in Agenda Fusion is as simple as clicking on a tab in the task details form and checking checkboxes for the other tasks (or appointments, contacts or files) to which you wish to link.
I also have another "hidden" category, but it doesn't have anything to do with goals. This is my Master Task List, a term blatantly stolen from the Franklin Covey planners. In this category are tasks that I have no intention of doing, at least not in the foreseeable future. For example, I have a number of commemorative sports t-shirts hanging in my closet from championships my favorite teams have won. I never wear these shirts-- I rarely wear any shirt with a logo or design on it-- but I want to keep them around. Rather than hiding them in my closet, I'd like to put each of them in a nice frame and hang them on my wall. I have a task for this, but I know I'm not going to get around to it for a while-- I'm very busy-- so in addition to the Personal category, this task is also in the Master Task List category. This ensures that the intention to perform the task is recorded, but it doesn't clutter up my agenda until I'm ready to do it.
If you find yourself with more and more tasks banished to the Master Task List, you might consider giving them "due" dates, maybe three months or so in the future. When you see a task in the Master Task List go "overdue," either move it to your main task list or delete it as something you'll never actually do.
This all sounds like a lot of work, doesn't it? Maybe more trouble than it's worth? It might be, but there's one more feature of Agenda Fusion that ties it all together, that makes creating new appointments, tasks, even contacts will all the requisite categories and other info with just a few taps. Say hello to templates.
Any time you create an appointment or a task in Agenda Fusion, you can save that item as a template. This allows you quickly recreate similar objects later, with the same subjects, times, alarm settings, and categories. About the only glaring omission in Agenda Fusion's implementation of categories is that links don't make the transition, so you'll have to re-link tasks to parent goals. Not ideal, perhaps, but it will still save you a ton of work.
So let's take a look at putting all this together in practice. I have a project I need to plan out, the aforementioned rewrite of Writing On Your Palm. How do I use Agenda Fusion to plan this project?
First, I want to create a new category for it, so I can see only items relevant to this project if necessary. So I tap on the Fusion menu (the little hurricane-looking icon on the menu bar) then Manage, then Categories. Here I add a category called WOYP4, since this will be the fourth edition of the book.
Now I want to create a template for all tasks that will be part of this project. I create a new task in Agenda Fusion (it doesn't really matter how) and start filling in the particulars. I set the subject to "WOYP4 task" and check off the appropriate categories: Business, Jeff Kirvin Enterprises, Kirvin Media Group, Writing, Writing On Your Palm, WOYP4. While I don't need notes for this, templates are a great place to set up forms or stationary for common activities. For example, you could include the structure of your meeting minutes in the notes for business meeting template.
When I'm finished, I tap on the Tools menu in the task settings, then Save As Template... This saves the task in my list of templates, allowing me to quickly select it instead of a blank task the next time I create a task in Agenda Fusion.
Okay, enough prep work, now to start planning in earnest.
I start with a goal. In the Task view of Agenda Fusion, I filter on just the WOYP4 category. Then I create a task from my template. I call this "Publish WOYP4" and I set the due date as 1 December, 2002. I also add Goals to the categories that it's a member of.
Now I start brainstorming, coming up with all the component steps I'll need to complete in order to reach my goal, or at least as many as I can think of right now (there's always going to be more later once you wade into the project itself). Quickly my task list starts to look like this:
- Publish WOYP4 (the initial goal)
- Outline WOYP4
- Complete first draft
- Revise WOYP4
- Proofread WOYP4
- WOYP4 ebook conversion
- Market WOYP4
Each of these, except the goal, will be linked to the goal. Most will also be broken down into sub-tasks that will in turn be linked to the parent tasks. Start dates and due dates will be assigned to each, working backwards from the goal (this is a case where Agenda Fusion's ability to group by due date could come in handy). This would be a little easier if links could be pre-set by the template, but this gives us all something to pester Developer One about for the next version, doesn't it?
Once a week or so, go through each project category and add new tasks and update due dates. Keep things current and don't be afraid of using the Master Task List category to keep optional, unessential tasks from cluttering your list.
Every morning, take a look at the Today view in Agenda Fusion. I tend to keep the filter on this view set to show everything except the Goals and Master Task List categories. You want to see a realistic look at all your commitments for the day. Take note of where you have blocks of free time. Starting with your highest priority tasks, begin converting them to appointments by tapping and holding on the task, the selecting "Save as Appointment" from the pop-up menu. Assign the appointment the appropriate amount of time needed to accomplish the task in an open time slot. Once I have a task scheduled as an appointment, I generally check off the task itself as complete so it doesn't appear in two places on my agenda.
I have Agenda Fusion set up so that it sets alarms by default for all appointments 5 minutes before the event. While this works, Agenda Fusion benefits from a little help. Whittaker Moore's SuperAlert adds the ability to make alarms repeat indefinitely, and at a volume (I prefer maximum for alarms) independent of the overall system volume. It's well worth the ten bucks for registration.
The end result is that I have all my goals broken down into easily organized tasks, I have time blocked out to ensure that I actually get around to doing them, and have my Jornada acting like a tiny personal trainer (okay, a drill sergeant) shepherding me through the day. I not only know what I have to do, I actually get it done.
Is the system perfect? Of course not. In fact, I can name a few features right off the top of my head that Developer One could add to make it better:
- Floating Events. This is still an unique feature of Pimlico Software's DateBk line, but I wish others would adopt it. I mentioned before that I prefer to change tasks into appointments to ensure that I actually have time to do them, but what happens when I don't? Hey, life's unpredictable, no battle plan survives contact with the enemy. Agenda Fusion would be even better if I could "check off" task-oriented appointments when I do them and have incomplete appointments automatically move forward to the next day.
- As I mentioned before, templates really need to preserve link information. Links really tie subtasks to parent goals (although categories help) and it's a pain to set these up manually for each task.
- Speaking of links, the dialog for selecting linked tasks needs to allow filtering by category. If you have a lot of tasks-- and you will-- it's a pain to scroll through all of them to find the one you're looking for.
- Gantt charts (just kidding!).
Overall, though, Agenda Fusion does a darn fine job of handling project planning from start to finish, even if it does work a bit differently than the outliners you may be used to. Give it a try, and you might just find it's the only planning tool you need.
