 |
Tasks - externalize, prioritize, schedule |
The first step towards achieving a Task-Focused workweek is to create
tasks in your Tasktop Task List for everything you need to get done. Once all
of your tasks are captured in the task list
(offloaded from your mind into your Tasktop), you will be free to concentrate completely on the task at hand
rather than worrying about remembering the other tasks that need to get done.
Lets get started by adding a new task to book a flight to
Hawaii next month. In the toolbar of the Task List view, click on the New Task
button
.
The New Task wizard (shown below) will open requesting you select a
repository to hold your new task. For tasks of a personal nature (not
intended to be shared with others), select the "Local Tasks" option. For now
select "Local Tasks" and press Finish.
Pressing finish will result in a "New Task" being created in the
Uncategorized folder of the Task List and its associated editor opening in
the main (central) area of your Tasktop. To open the editor for this task
again in the future, double click on the task in the Task List. In the text box near the top of the
editor you will find the summary, currently "New Task". The summary is
the text that
will be visible in the Task List and is used for all identification and
search within Tasktop. Giving tasks a memorable name with pertinent keywords
helps and starting your task summary with a verb is recommended. Replace the current summary "New Task" with your own i.e. "book trip
to Hawaii" and press the save button
located in the main Tasktop
toolbar. Notice that the label has been updated accordingly in the Task
List.
Just below the task summary are a number of attributes that can
optionally be set on your newly created task:
- Priority - Choose between five different levels of priority:
Very Low,
Low, Normal,
High,
Very High
- Status - Personal tasks can be in one of two states: Incomplete,
Complete
- Created - This is the date the task was created and is not
modifiable
- Completed - Upon changing the task Status to Complete, this field will
report the completion date automatically
- URL - If a task is tightly coupled to a specific web site, enter the
url here and use the trailing buttons to:
reset the task summary to match the given web page title,
open
the web page
Tip: Most of these fields can be ignored with the exception of Priority. As the
number of tasks increases, determining which to work on first can become a tough decision. To help this decision process, we recommend
setting the Priority of a
task upon initial creation then reprioritizing as part of your
regular weekly planning process.
The next section of the local task editor is the Personal Planning
section which allows you to optioanlly schedule a task. Note that if you do
not schedule a task or set a due date for the task, it might not be shown in
the task list if the focused mode is selected. Only tasks that have incoming
changes or that are scheduled for this week will be shown when the task list
is focused.
Here is a description of the main fields for a task:
- Scheduled for - if you have some sense for when you would like to
make progress on a particular task, set a scheduled for date and Tasktop will remind you when it is time to work on this task via a subtle notification popup.
(Note that notifications can be turned off via Window (menu) >
Preferences > Tasks and unselecting Display notifications for
overdue tasks and incoming changes) Additionally, the task is guaranteed to be visible in a timely fashion
within your Task List when it is focused on your work week
(details of focusing the Task List on the workweek is available in the
developerworks article).
- Due - if there is a hard deadline for this task, set it here. Tasks
with a due date have a
decoration in the Task List
-
.
Over due tasks have a
decoration in the Task List -
.
If the Task List is in focused mode, tasks with due dates in the current
work week will be included, and tasks that have due dates on or before
the current day will be displayed in red.
- Estimated hours - Set a time estimate for this task and enable the
Task timing and progress bar to get visual
feedback about your progress on a task.
- Active - reports the time spent working on this task
And finally, the Notes section of the local task editor is useful for
jotting down information
pertinent to task.
You've now successfully created, prioritized, and scheduled your task.
Where to go from here:
- Start working on your new task - lean about
Task Activation and how a single click
can quickly reveal just the important resources and simplify multitasking
- Learn how to organize your tasks into Categories
Task Activation - work Task-Focused
One of the core principles of working Task-Focused is that only the
important resources (files, websites, etc) that pertain to your current task
should be visible. The files and resources that are important to a task
comprise what we term a Task Context. Any other uninteresting
resources represent noise and only compounds the problem of
information overload. By
reducing the number of extraneous
documents visible, Tasktop helps you spend less time searching for documents and more
time working towards your goals. Now that you've entered your tasks in the Task
List, the key to working Task-Focused in your Tasktop is to activate each
task as you work. This simple act of activating each task as you work will
leverage your Tasktop's focused web and document management, make
multitasking a snap and enabling task time reporting.
In the Task List view, each task has a faint
button to the left of its summary
(see screenshot below).
Pressing this button will activate the task. Upon activation the button will
turn to
.
Inactive tasks that have been work on in the past and have files and/or web
sites associated with it will have their activation button appear slightly
filled in
.
Additionally, you can activate/deactivate a task from the task editor
itself. Have a look again at the top banner section of the
task editor and you will notice a
button in the top right corner. Pressing this button will toggle the task
active, depressing will deactivate the task.
Task-Focused Web Browsing
If you've been following along with our "book trip to Hawaii" task
example, active this task now. With the "book trip to Hawaii" task active, open a new browser tab -
press the
button in the main Tasktop toolbar (or press Ctrl+T). In the location bar of
the browser tab, paste the following url:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii
Press enter while watching what happens in the Navigator view The
Navigator view gives you access to file folders as well as web pages. If
this view is focused, it shows you only the files/web pages that have been
accessed for the activated task. Once the
Hawaii Wikipedia page has finished loading, you will notice that the
Navigator view's web node has a new entry for the Hawaii Wikipedia page you
have just visited.
Navigating to a couple of the sections of this Hawaii wiki page will
result in further population of the Navigator view with the portions of
the page visited making it simple to navigate to the pertinent sections
of the web site.
This reduces the need for explicit book marking although you can make a
bookmark of one of these nodes by right clicking on the node and selecting
"Add to bookmarks" from the popup menu.
The more pages you visit the more will be added to the Web node of the
Navigator view. Obviously if you visit many pages, the number of entries
would soon become unmanageable. Fortunately, Tasktop will eventually
hide from view the pages you do not re-visit.
Tip: You can always expose hidden file and web content in
the Navigator by holding down the Alt key while concurrently clicking on
parent node (i.e., Web in this case) in the Navigator view or unfocus the
view.
Tip: Accessing this Wikipedia page and other can be
done quickly by entering your search terms (i.e. Hawaii in this case) into
the web search text box and selecting Wikipedia
from the search dropdown menu.
Where to go from here:
- Work task focused with your documents (i.e. Word,
and Excel files) just as easily as we have here with web sites
- Learn how your Tasktop can report on the time and
progress made on tasks
Task-Focused Document Access
So far we've seen how to activate a task and work with web sites. We've
seen the benefit of Task Activation and how it enables Task-Focused web
browsing. Your Tasktop also supports working
Task-Focused with files such as images, and documents
(i.e. Word, and Excel files). To get started working task-focused with your
documents, you must first do a one time configuration step of
linking the folders into Tasktop that hold
your documents. When working under Windows, a common practice is to link in your
My Documents folder ("Documents" on Vista).
Now that all of your document folders are linked in, create and activate a
new task called "explore my documents". At this point you might be
wondering why those document folders you previously linked into your Tasktop are
not visible under the Folders node in the Navigator view. The reason for this is that the
Navigator view is in focused mode - indicated by the depressed focus button
in the Navigator toolbar
. When in focused mode, the Navigator only
displays the files that you have interacted with (opened, saved, browsed,
etc) while the current task was active. At this point, we have yet to open or create any files as part of the
"explore my documents" task therefore nothing appears. You can
temporarily disable the focus filter by toggling the focus button. When not
depressed, the Navigator will reveal all content you previously linked in.
You can then locate and open a desired file. Pressing the focus filter
button will again hide all your linked content but will now reveal the file
you just opened. Another way to quickly add existing files
to the context of this active task so they are revealed is to
search
for a familiar document title using the Find field in the Navigator view.
Similar to when the focus filter is off, upon
clicking on a file or opening the document, the file will become part of
the task's context and remain visible even when the focus filter is on. Clearing the find filter will result in just the
selected file being visible in the Navigator.
Now, to see the effects of all we've learned, activate the "book trip to
Hawaii" task in the task list. Note that you do not have to explicitly
deactivate the "explore my documents" task as it will first be deactivated
and the "book trip to Hawaii" activated immediately after for you.
With the "book trip to Hawaii" task now active the browser are restored and
the web sites visible in the Navigator that we worked with previously as
part of this task. We can now easily switch back to the "explore my
documents" task by activating it in the Task List. The web pages
associated with the previous task are cleared away for us and the Navigator
reveals the files we were working with on the "explore my documents" task.
Effortless Multitasking
How often have you been deeply involved in your work only to be
interrupted by a more immediate, possibly higher priority fire to deal with?
Once the emergency is dealt with, returning to your previous work is often
difficult and time consuming. Sometimes simply recalling what you were doing
is difficult, let alone remembering and locating all the related documents
and web pages you were working with. Tasktop solves this problem for
you making returning to a previously postponed task effortless. To see
this in action, imagine you have just been asked to do some other work, you
would start by deactivating the "book trip to Hawaii" task by pressing thebutton
next to the task in the Task List. The web pages are closed and Tasktop is ready for the next task. Follow the steps described above
to create a new task. Upon returning to the "book trip
to Hawaii" task whether it be hours, days, or months later, simply re-activate
it by pressing on the task in the Task List and watch as your previously
browsed web pages are restored automatically and the Navigator view is populated with familiar web sites and documents related to this task.
Multitasking is now a single click experience.
Task Timing
When you have a
task active, Tasktop will track the exact time you spend within
Tasktop. Tasktop Pro will also track the time spent working in applications outside of Tasktop.
To view the time spent on a task, open the task editor and
select the Planning tab. Under the Personal Planning section,
the time spent working on the task is presented under the "Active"
time. Note that time is accumulated while you are using your
computer, time spent away form the computer (no interaction detected) will
not be accumulated even if the task is active. This will help give you a
realistic indication of how much time was spent on this particular task.
To make the time spent on a task more visible in Tasktop,
enable the task timing counter and progress bar via Window (menu) >
Preferences > Tasktop. Once enabled, look for the
timing progress widget in the lower right corner of Tasktop:
Once you activate a task and begin to work, the hours and minutes
you spend working will be reported here backed by a green
progress bar:
The green progress bar grow from left to right until the time you
have spent exceeds the estimate time set within the Personal
Planning section of the Planning editor. Once you have exceeded your
estimate, a red bar will begin to grow from right to left indicating
the proportion of time spent over the estimated time:
Categories - organize your tasks
As you create more tasks in your Task List you may find the need to group related tasks
together. To facilitate this need, the Task List has Categories. Right click
in the Task List view and from the context menu, select New > Category.
Enter a name for you new category in the resulting dialog. A category will
now be present in your Task List. You can now move tasks into
categories in a number of ways:
- Tasks can be dragged in and out of Categories in the Task List
- Right clicking on tasks in the Task List or right clicking within
the Task editor to reveal the popup menu and selecting Move to > MyCategory will move the chosen task to MyCategory
Queries & Task Repositories -
collaborate with others
Please see the
developer works article regarding task repositories and queries.
Tip: Tasktop Technologies is the creator and maintainer of the
Eclipse Mylyn technology upon which
Tasktop is built. For more in-depth information on working in a task-focused
manner using your Tasktop Task List, please see the following articles
written by
Dr. Mik Kersten, President and CTO of Tasktop Technologies:
|
Agenda |
The Agenda is a compact overview of your weekly schedule of
tasks and events drawn from your Task List, Google, and
Outlook calendars. To open the Agenda, click the
button or nearby hyperlink in the lower right corner of the
Tasktop application window. Along with the scheduled tasks, the
Agenda also includes an interactive calendar to aid planning. To
configure calendar synchronization, click the Configure... link in the bottom right of the
popup and follow the instructions outlined in
Configuring Tasktop.
Once
configured and a synchronization has occurred (manually initiate
event synchronization by pressing the Refresh Events
hyperlink), the Tasks you have scheduled or have set due dates
for and any events from your chosen calendars will be present in
the Agenda view. Clicking on events within the Agenda will
either result in the task opening in the task editor or events
opening in their associated calendar. Changes you make when
within the calendar will be reflected in the Agenda.
Rescheduling a task in your Google calendar will result in the
task being rescheduled in your Task List and will be updated in
the Agenda. Likewise, when a task's schedule or due date changes
in the task list, these changes will propagate to the
synchronized calendars
Use the links provided on the right column of the popup
to open your Google or
Outlook calendars within Tasktop.
To view your agenda in further detail, press the Show All button
in the lower left corner of the popup to reveal the
This Week's Events
page.
Calendars
Tasktop comes complete with Outlook and Google calendar
integration allowing synchronization of tasks to your calendars
and retrieval of upcoming events from calendars to your
Agenda. View Outlook and Google calendars
directly from within Tasktop by following the appropriate links
on the Agenda. You can easily view
and modify your Google and Outlook calendars without leaving Tasktop. Tasks
within your Task List can be synchronized to calendars based on scheduled or due
dates. Setting a date on a task will result in the task appearing in your
calendar. Drag tasks to reschedule within in your chosen calendar and Tasktop will propagate these changes to your Task List for you. Get started
synchronizing to and from calendars by configuring your chosen calendaring
application via the Calendars view in the Configuration Perspective (Help >
Configure Tasktop).
For details see Outlook or
Google calendar
configuration.
Tip: A number of the Tasktop's features including
Calendar integration, Task sharing via Task Repositories,
and Web Applications can be configured and customized via
the Configuration Perspective. Open the Configuration
Perspective via the Help (menu) > Configure Tasktop.
When done with configuration, return to your previous perspective
by pressing the Close Configuration button located in the top right
corner of the window.
Outlook Integration
- Create Outlook email tasks in Tasktop from Outlook
- Synchronize your Outlook tasks to Tasktop
- View your Outlook calendar from within
Tasktop
 |
Outlook Email Tasks |
Many tasks originate in email. Often,
these tasks become lost in your inbox, scattered amongst various
appointment requests, informational items, news alerts, and so on.
With the Outlook Email Task support in Tasktop, you can
easily create tasks for these email and manage them along with all
your other tasks within a single task list. In addition to providing support for scheduling email tasks
in your Task List, you can also associate files and web sites with
the task making it easier to locate when returning to the task at a
later date.
To get started working with Outlook Email Tasks, click the
Outlook Email link under the Tasks and Calendar section of the
Feature Overview page (accessible via Help (menu) > Feature
Overview). Clicking this link will result in the
following:
1) An @Tasktop folder is created in Outlook
2) An '@Email ' query is added to your Task List in Tasktop. Upon dragging an
email into the @Tasktop folder in Outlook, it will appear within
the @Email query within the Tasktop Task List (once the Task List
synchronizes). Task List synchronization occurs once every 1/2hr by
default (configure via Window (menu) > Preferences > Mylyn > Task
List). You can force synchronization on a particular query by
selecting the query in the Task List and pressing F5.
You can now view your Outlook email tasks within Tasktop or open, forward,
and reply to the original email in
Outlook using the associated editor toolbar button. Tip: If you get
warnings about Outlook security permissions see the related
FAQ entries.
Tip: The Tasktop toolbar includes a
button for launching new email
creation using your default email client.
 |
Outlook Tasks |
Tasktop integrates with Outlook Tasks allowing you to manage,
synchronize and create new Outlook Tasks directly from within
Tasktop. To get started using Outlook Tasks within your Tasktop:
- Click the Outlook Tasks... hyperlink on the Feature Overview
page (accessible from Help (menu) > Tasktop Feature Overview).
- Select Outlook Tasks in the resulting New Repository Query
dialog and press Next.
- Enter a title for the Outlook Tasks query
- Choose from the available Outlook task folders
|
Outlook Calendar Configuration |
Task Synchronization
To get started synchronizing tasks to your Outlook calendar do
the following:
- Double click Outlook Calendar in the Calendars view to open the Outlook
calendar configuration properties
- Press the Refresh Calendars button to update the list of available calendars
- Under the Synchronize Tasks To group, choose the calendars you wish to
synchronize your tasks to
Directly below calendar selection within this same group are
two check boxes:
- Synchronize Due Dates - Synchronize tasks with a due date
set to the chosen calendars (Recommended)
- Synchronize Scheduled Dates - Synchronize tasks with a
scheduled date set to the chosen calendars
. In order for tasks in your Task List to be synchronized
to the calendars you chose in step 2, at least one of these two
options must be selected.
Upcoming Events
The Tasktop Agenda displays upcoming events and tasks
from your configured calendars. To configure display of events from
your Outlook calendars perform the following steps:
- If not already open, double click Outlook Calendar in the
Calendars view to open the Outlook calendar configuration page.
- Within the Retrieve Upcoming Events group, choose
the calendars you wish to see events for.
From the Tasktop Agenda you can now get a
quick overview of your tasks and events synchronized from your
Outlook calendars as well as view and edit your
Outlook Calendar from within Tasktop.
Google Integration
- View your Google calendars from within
Tasktop
- Create email tasks from your Gmail account
 |
Google Calendar Configuration |
Task Synchronization
- Switch to the Configuration Perspective. Double click Google Calendar in the
Calendars view to open Google calendar configuration properties.
- Under Credentials, enter your Google account id (including the @gmail.com)
and password (a functioning Google account is required before
proceeding). Press the Refresh Calendars button to retrieve a
listing of your Google calendars.
- Beneath the Credentials group is the Synchronize Tasks To group. This
group controls synchronization of tasks from your Tasktop Task List to the
selected calendar. Start by placing a check mark in the box next to the
calendar you wish to synchronize your tasks to.
- Directly below calendar selection within this same group are two check
boxes:
- Synchronize Due Dates - Synchronize tasks with a due date
set to the chosen calendars (Recommended)
- Synchronize Scheduled Dates - Synchronize tasks with a
scheduled date set to the chosen calendars
In order for tasks in your Task List to be synchronized
to the calendars you chose in step 3, at least one of these two
options must be selected. You may choose to synchronize tasks with
only a due date set, only a scheduled date set, or both.
Tasks will now be synchronized with your Google calendars.
Upcoming Events
The Tasktop Agenda displays upcoming events and tasks
from your configured calendars. To configure display of events from
your Google calendars perform the following steps:
- Double click Google Calendar in the
Calendars view to open Google calendar configuration page.
- Within the Retrieve Upcoming Events group, choose the calendars you wish
to see events for.
Tasks and Events from the selected Google calendars will now appear
in the Agenda.
|
 |
Gmail Email Task Configuration |
To get started creating tasks from you Gmail messages, first open the browser
to your Gmail account. Locate an email you would like to track as a task in
Tasktop and give it a special label, "Task" for example. If this label does not
already exists you will need to choose the New label.. option and enter Task for
the label name.
The next step is to configure Tasktop to synchronize all Gmail messages with
the Task label to your Task List. To do so will require a one time setup of a Gmail
task repository within Tasktop and addition of a special Gmail query to
your Task List.
Open the Task Repositories view located in the top left corner of the Tasktop
Configuration perspective (Tasktop Home toolbar button > Configure Tasktop).
Within the Task Repositories view toolbar, click the Add Task Repository button
and choose the Gmail option:
With your Gmail task repository configured, create a Gmail query
(right click in the Task List and select New.. > Query, Gmail),
give it a name and
choose the label previously applied to the email message (i.e. Task).
The Gmail message you previously tagged will appear
as a task in your Task List under the Gmail query you just created.
Now you are free to open, review, schedule and plan your Gmail tasks
along with all your others.
Tip: You can easily create a new task for yourself from any web
enabled device using Gmail's email filter/labelling. Configure
a Gmail filter to automatically apply the "Task" label to any email
received with a subject that starts with "task:". Then send yourself
an email with "task: take out the garbage" in the subject from any
web enabled device (i.e. a cell phone) and upon synchronizing, your
Tasktop will have this new task in the task list when you next open
Tasktop!
IMAP Integration (advanced)
Your Tasktop supports creation of email tasks from IMAP email
accounts. To get started, create a folder in your IMAP account using
your standard email client naming it "Tasks" for example. To create
a task from an email, move or copy an email into the newly created
"Tasks" folder using your email client. Once the one time
configuration steps are completed below, dragging email into the
"Tasks" folder in your email client will be all that is necessary to
have the email appear as a task in your Tasktop.
IMAP email configuration
- Open the Task Repositories view (Task List view menu > Show Task
Repositories View)
- Right click within the view and select "Add Task Repository"
- Select "Generic IMAP (Advanced)"
- Enter your IMAP repository settings in the resulting dialog, press the
Validate button to ensure they are correct, and press Finish
- Create a query in the Task List. This query will being in your IMAP
email messages form a specific folder ("Tasks" for example). Right click in
the Task List and select New > Query. Choose to query over the IMAP
Repository you created in step (4)
- Specify the label for your query (i.e. Imap Tasks) and the select the
folder your email tasks should be created from ("Tasks" if you're following
along with our example)
Upon synchronization, any email you now place in the "Tasks"
folder using your email/IMAP client will now be synchronized to the
"Imap Tasks" query in your Task list. You can now work with these
email tasks just as you would any other task i.e. activating to
build up context.
then follow the Feature Overview link or click on the
Feature Overview tab at the bottom of the editor. The Tasktop Feature Overview is an interactive page that shows where features are located and how to use them. Each feature is named
and hyperlinked within the page. Clicking on hyperlinks will open the
feature being described. A short description accompanies each feature
hyperlink. Mouse over feature hyperlinks to reveal a tooltip with more
details about the feature. Once you have explored your Tasktop via the
Feature Overview page, consider reading up on more detailed usage and
configuration of these features in this User Guide.
in the browser navigation toolbar gives you quick access to common actions
when web browsing including:
in the Navigator view's toolbar. In the wizard page, select the desired folders
and upon pressing Finished
they will become available in the Tasktop Navigator view.
button appear
after finding. If you don't immediately see the file you are
searching for within the present results, pressing this button will reveal files more deeply
nested in your file system that mach the search criteria.
button available to the right of the Find section of the
Navigator view. The Find text entered in the Navigator's Find field will be
added for you in the File Content Search dialog.
. The Dashboard
shows all of the tasks on which you have been working
this week. The information is
shown in a table that lists tasks that you have spent time
on as well as in three charts: a bar chart that shows time spent
per day and two pie charts that show time spent per category and per working set.
. Click on
this to regenerate the charts and Tasks table with the latest task activity data.
in the table section header.
Enabling this option shows all completed tasks as green in
the Time Spent chart. A Working Set Legend at the bottom of
the dashboard shows the five working set slices that you
have spent the most time on and their corresponding colors. 
next to the date range picker. If no working set exists, the Select Categories dialog appears.
- By default this is selected. When selected tasks are organized per day with time spent on each
day displayed. If unselected, the total time spent for each task in the date range
specified are displayed.
- By default this is unselected. When selected tasks are grouped according to the specified project
and activity and total time spent per project per activity is shown.
- By default this is selected (Include Incomplete Tasks).
This control toggles whether incomplete tasks are shown
in the Tasks table.
button in the main toolbar to open the Feature Overview
and select the Partner Connectors tab. Each partner
connector has the option to install, create an account, or
find out more about the partner connector via their web
site. To install, simply click the install hyperlink. After
accepting the license agreement the partner connector will
be installed. It is that simple.
button in the toolbar