File sharing, locking, etc... between multiple users...

[Jonathan Lynch]

Hello again,

That is useful stuff to consider. At some point, I am going to create an app
called Manager Mage, or some such thing, - that will be used for
coordinating the efforts of each individual.

Task Mage approaches this from a very different perspective.

It is from the point of view of the stream of consciousness of the person
sitting at his desk, working on multiple projects.

Date oriented to-do list programs just suck, because not all tasks can be
assigned to a date or time. Most tasks, in my experience, are on-going.

So, task mage uses task files that do not have a particular date or time
attached to them. Each task file has its own sub-to-do list, and any item in
a sub-to-do list can be assigned to the calendar as needed, but it doesn't
have to be.

So, from the users perspective, when he is on the front page of task mage,
he has a to do list on the right side of the screen that automatically
organizes his tasks into whatever categories and sub-categories he sets up
for himself.

The left side of the screen contains a table that is used as a schedule for
the current day, that he can use his today schedule or not as he wishes. All
he has to do is drag items from his to-do list to his schedule.

Each item in his to-do list contains a link to that task file.

So, when he is working on a task, he can just click the link for that task,
go to the task, make whatever changes to his notes, status, sub-to-do list,
etc... that he needs to make, then go back to the front page to see what he
needs to work on next.

He can also add new tasks very quickly.

The idea is to be able to switch between tasks, make changes, and go back to
what you were doing so quickly that the yours short-term memory has not
dropped the details of what your were working on at that moment.

This allows for efficient multi-tasking.

In general, multitasking is very ineffecient, as has been shown by multiple
studies, because it takes considerable mental effort and time to orient on a
task, then re-orient on what you working on before you switched.

Task Mage eliminates that problem.

And I know it works, because I use it all day long at work, and it makes me
way more efficient, and with using it I almost never forget about tasks.


Manager coordination is a whole other perspective - one that will require a
different app that integrates with Task Mage.

Gonna take me forever to finish this project.

Cheers,

Jonathan


On 2/17/06, Jim Ault <JimAultWins at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Thanks for the note.  Very glad that my ramblings might have triggered
> something valuable for you.
>
> Something more.  Those not interested.. . stop reading now.  You won't
> miss
> a thing  :-)
>
> As you may have realized by now, I tried to use some of the HCard ways of
> handling stacks to think about work flow organization where each part of
> the
> process becomes an object that only deals with its children and next level
> parent(s).
>
> Children know how to locate their parent(s) at any moment, therefore when
> the parent changes, the child can reference that change and respond
> accordingly.
>
> In the work flow sense, a child is actually the individual worker
> executing
> a step in the work flow, so there can be two workers each using their own
> child to update to the same parent or group of parents.  These parents can
> be at the same level, each having a different function.
>
> An example would be a staff meeting event.  Work flow would include
> scheduling, updating, building the agenda, sending notices to attendees
> and
> other parties, inviting comments, publishing the list of attendees,
> post-meeting minutes, notification of interested parties, archiving for
> future reference, scheduling follow-up.
>
> All of these parts could be a parent and the child would be the particular
> staff meeting on Thur at 9 am [metaphor would be a card in a 'scheduled
> event stack].  It would know that it needed to report to the parent that
> handled any scheduling, the one that handled invitations, the one that
> handled archiving of company information, etc.
>
> In this scheme,
> ...the child would ask each parent "Are there any updates to me (running
> on
> Rebecca's computer [metaphor would be a card on her computer that would
> show
> the data from the card in the 'scheduled event stack')?"
>
> ...the child would say "Here is the revised list of attendees for your
> consideration, from me (running on Mark's computer), which submits the new
> data to the parent for updating and availability to any object that
> requests/requires it.  Basically , you have a lot of 'landing zones' for
> data that is handled by one-or-more parents.
>
> Here the child does not know or care what the parent does with the new
> data.
> Time and date stamping is essential.
> I would encourage designing, building, and embedding an audit trail now to
> help with the debugging and design.  It is an invaluable tool.
>
> Hypercard of course.
>
> Hope you head stops swimming over the weekend.
>
> Jim Ault
> Las Vegas
>
> On 2/17/06 7:37 AM, "Jonathan Lynch" <jonathandlynch at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I just want to say, Jim, your ideas on this topic are greatly
> appreciated.
> >
> > Please share all of the here, as many of us might use them, or adapt
> them to
> > our needs.
> >
> > Take care,
> >
> > Jonathan
> >
>
>
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