Usage Patterns

We have decided to use David Allen's "Getting Things Done" methodology as a means to catalog the usage patterns that Chandler affords. We describe David Allen's methodology and the specific usage patterns below.

David Allen has a concept of "phases" that people go through to deal with their "stuff":

• Collect -- getting everything from the world and your head into your system
• Process -- a form of triage where you do, delegate, defer, or delete
• Organize -- where you arrange (file) your tasks to make them easier to act upon later
• Review -- where you look at and prioritize previously-organized tasks
• Do -- where you actually do the work (outside of your task management system) to finish an item

(See David Allen's one-page diagram of his workflow (PDF).)

Note that "Collect" and "Review" are things you do in batch -- with groups of items -- while Process, Organize, and Do are things you do on individual items. You process an item and then organize that item, instead of processing sixteen items and then organizing those sixteen.

In the Chandler world, here is a more detailed breakdown of the kinds of things that users or Chandler agents will do in each of those modes:

• Collect
  • receive email messages
  • receive invitations to events
  • receive invitations to tasks
  • enter tasks (either in the ubiquitous text entry box or in the Taskpad)
  • enter calendar events into the calendar
  • Enter contact
  • enter notes
  • receive RSS feeds
  • enter unfiled items^? (which might later turn into Tasks, Events, or Email messages)
  • collate action items from meeting notes
  • transcribe items from sources Chandler has no access to, e.g. voicemail messages
  • receive any item that Chandler will be able to receive in the future (e.g. from plug-ins)
  • shared items
• Process
  • read email (in order to figure out what you're going to do with it)
    • do: reply to email if less than two minutes
    • do: forward email
    • delegate: forward email
    • make a task from reading an email
  • go through unfiled notes
    • convert unfiled Notes to Tasks/Events/Email
  • go through unfiled calendar items
    • accept/reject invitations
    • suggest alternatives dates
  • delegate: send tasks to other people
  • delegate: mark items as delegated (delegation done outside of Chandler -- in person, by phone, or by email)
  • defer: "snooze" tasks to a later (probably specified) time, much like the "tickler" file in the Dave Allen method
  • Q: do we need a single place to process all items?
  • Q: how do we model delegation?
  • Q: how do we defer tasks (tickler affordance)?
  • Q: how do we convert to actions, while processing (e.g. reading email, go through notes)?
• Organize
  • "File" as reference
  • "File" as someday/maybe
  • "File" in tickle file
  • "File" tasks and support material under right project
  • "File" appointments and support material in the calendar (specific date/time or day)
  • "File" under next-action list
  • "File" by context
  • Trash Item
    • trash spam (agents)
    • trash items by hand
  • Other categories for filing:
    • status
    • sphere of life
    • contact/group
    • context (e.g. at computer, at home, in meeting with Mitch)
    • urgency and importance
  • Further organization within a ItemCollection See #OrganizationCollections
• Review
  • View groups of Items in interesting groups
    • today, this week, this month, this year
    • by next action list or status
    • by context
    • by delegated tasks
    • by project
    • by someday/maybe (deferred) tasks
  • Nested Reports with two or more of above criteria. See #NestedOrganizations
• Do
  • search for supporting information
  • write/send email
  • phone people
  • go to meeting
  • write document (in external word processor, spreadsheet, etc)
  • attach and send document via email
  • arrange/coordinate event
  • edit ("clean up") notes

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Other usage patterns to consider beyond Dave Allen's list?

• Where does sharing fit into above picture? (Under "keep your tools at hand.")
• Monitor -- where you are working on one thing but keeping one eye or ear open for things that come up unexpectedly. The unexpected things could be conveyed to you by phone calls, email messages, calendar alerts, and so on. Monitor mode is also, in effect, a transport mechanism for reminders.
• Prioritize -- Allen doesn't focus on prioritization, but allocating time in proportion to importance is a key hallmark of time management (particularly of the Franlin-Covey system). An important job element for administrative assistants who pre-process their boss' email is to prioritize the messages: not just to delete, do, or defer to their boss, but also to call attention to messages of particular importance. (See A Collaborative Assistant for Email.)
• Annotate -- Annotating an item can fall under "Do" if the annotations expand or clarify the original item. However, if the annotation is a reminder or a task, then it is a "Collect" activity.
• Create an audit trail -- People sometimes invest some effort in documenting (sometimes with timestamps) the history of a task, particularly the decisions made and why. Sometimes the purpose is to be able for the individual or the institution to avoid wasting time rehashing decisions. Sometimes the user wants a record to be able to protect themselves from future criticism.

Possible Chandler "Affordances":

• Integrated Today View/Colleciton bin
• Context-free text entry box
• Browsing
• Filtering
• Search box
• Collections and affordances around collections
• NavBar^? navigation
• Notifier/Reminders
• What agents can help out with above usage patterns?
• What sorting functions are useful?

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From MimiYin

#OrganizingCollections We might want to add "organizing" collections of items into various orders and groups. ie. In my project: The End of the Cold War 1980-1990, I have 80 items. I may want to create several different "documents" that arrange these 80 items in various ways: By head of state (Reagan v. Gorbachev), By country (US v. Russia), By Sphere of Influence (Western Europe v. Eastern Europe), By Chronology (1980-85, 1986-90) etc.

#NestedOrganizations -View groups of items..." We might want to add that people want to see cross-sections of these views: ie. Show projects with pending tasks. Show things I've done by project over the last two weeks.

-- ElizabethGrigg - 25 Feb 2005

Lots of people have trouble following workflow schemas invented by others, even GTD. Mostly in order to map your workflow into someone else's schema, this is very advanced. The less sophisticated users will have a very hard time mapping tasks to time slots using a schema other than their own. This is a barrier to entry. Some solutions: A) Have workflow schemas be plugins to chandler itself, not part of the core design. Once plugged in, they would certainly look like the core design. Plugins can be a simple xml file that Chandler understands (such as opentag "phase" closetag "phase" type tagging.) B) For less sophisticated users, attempt to capture schema dynamically, such as rightclick - self select an option "recurring appointments are working for me, use them again when planning out new tasks." This dynamically builds a custom xml as described in A above. Ironic that this is more sophisticated functionality for the less sophisticated user. But we want them -

Contributors

• DuckySherwood and ChaoLam - 08 Dec 2003

-- ChaoLam - 26 Dec 2003

-- ElizabethGrigg - 25 Feb 2005