Michael Linenberger's Blog

Sept 13, 2014

During the last 12 months I’ve recommended two Intel processors for Windows machines, each for a different class of device:

• Haswell for laptops (any size) and mid-weight (1.7 to 2 lb) tablet/hybrids (like Surface 3).
• Bay Trail Atom for light-weight (1.3 lbs or less) tablets like the ASUS T100 or Lenovo Thinkpad 10.

The Haswell chip is very powerful–it has full computing capability but at the cost of a higher weight machine. The Bay Trail Atom is “good enough” for most light processing and excellent for tablet use–a good trade off for very light weight and long battery life.

Well, it was inevitable that Intel would march ahead with new processors, and so Intel is releasing a new processor that may merge these 2 functions. It’s called the Core M. Read about it here:

http://www.cnet.com/news/intel-with-core-m-theres-finally-a-reason-to-upgrade-your-laptop/

Note that even though some laptop makers have already announced machines with the Core-M, I’d say it’ll be 6 months or more before we see enough variety of models to make shopping easy.

I do hope they release some very light weight (1.2 lb) Windows tablets with it because as I switch between my very speedy Haswell laptop and my Bay Trail tablet, I am getting irritated with the lag in simple things like loading web pages on the Bay Trail–enough so that I am starting to reach for the laptop just to browse the web–which is sad.

Keep an eye on Core-M machines for a Spring purchase.

Michael

August 23, 2014

How do you set deadlines in the MYN-Outlook task system?

If you are an MYN Outlook user you probably know that we don’t use the Due Date field in Outlook. That’s because of two significant design issues inherent in Outlook’s use of that field. As a reminder, those issues are: Continue reading →

Aug 18, 2014

As I work one-on-one with MYN and 1MTD users, probably the biggest issue I see repeatedly is allowing the Critical Now section (the High priority tasks section) to get larger than 5 items. Doing that will lead to failures of the MYN and 1MTD task systems. Here are some links to articles where I remind you how to get that back under control. The first is directed toward the Critical Now section, and the second link give tips for getting the whole system cleaned up.

http://www.michaellinenberger.com/blog/use-the-going-home-test-to-keep-your-priorities-under-control/

http://www.michaellinenberger.com/blog/getting-caught-up-with-1mtdmyn-tasks/

Get your task list down to size now, and keep it there, doing that will really help your workday.

Michael Linenberger

Aug 10, 2014

This is just a quick mention of the app 2Day. It’s a Windows Phone tasks app that syncs with Toodledo and can be configured for MYN. A few readers mentioned it some months back, and I finally took a look at it. It seems to work very well with Toodledo. It can be set up to work with MYN, but the steps to do those configurations are a bit cumbersome. If there is big interest in this I’ll write up those steps, so mention in comments if so.

Not an Exchange/MYN Candidate

The app also syncs with Exchange, but when it does that, it does not sync start dates. Same with Outlook.com. So because of that, this is unfortunately not an MYN candidate for those platforms. [Update 8/14/2014: the developer said the app will sync start dates with Exchange in an upcoming release]

2Day should work with 1MTD on those platforms.

Give it a Try

Again, I just took a quick look, but the app looks real nice with lots of powerful features. So if you are a Toodledo and Windows Phone user, give it a shot and report here how it goes.

Michael Linenberger

Aug 10, 2014

The Windows Phone (WP) OS has been increasing in market share—and by most counts it’s now higher than BlackBerry—so I’ve been meaning to search for more Windows Phone apps that fully work with MYN (and 1MTD). In the past I recommended TaskTask for use with Exchange on both iOS and WP, but the WP version, while pretty good, isn’t an exact fit for MYN yet. I will continue to keep my eye on TaskTask, but wanted to find other apps too.

On my recent search I did find another app that syncs with Exchange and it is pretty much a perfect fit for MYN settings. It is simply called Tasks (by In The Hand Ltd).

Continue reading →

Aug 9, 2014

We just added two new video lessons to the paid Full MYN Toodledo Video Training Course. They are Lessons 13a and 13b, and they replace the old Lesson 13.

Lesson 13a describes the optional paid feature packages in Toodledo, packages that were revamped in 2013—this video updates the older Lesson 13 that described them.

Lesson 13b zooms in on one of those optional paid features: File Attachments. The way Toodledo accomplishes file attachments was completely revamped in 2013, and this new Lesson 13b shows those updates. It shows you how to attach files and how to manage files after they are no longer needed.

These new videos are available free to all subscribers of the Full MYN Toodledo Video Training Course, no matter when you paid for the course (even several years ago). If you already own that video set, you can log in here.

As you may know, Toodledo is the software we recommend you use for MYN task management if you can’t or don’t want to use Windows Outlook for tasks.

Michael Linenberger

July 26, 2014

By now you know the differences between 1MTD and MYN, which are the two to-do list systems I teach. The main advantage of MYN is that it can handle a lot more tasks than 1MTD. But 1MTD is much simpler. So I recommend to many users that they start with 1MTD and only advance to MYN once their 1MTD task list gets very large (more than 100 tasks or so). However, many users do collect a lot of tasks quickly and then find moving up to MYN can be a big step–and so put it off too long–and then the 1MTD system starts to fall apart for them.

But here is an alternate solution that may work for you instead of advancing to MYN: you might want to just “extend” 1MTD to make it handle more tasks. Doing that takes a lot less study, and it may be all you need to do to get 1MTD working for you again. I’ll show you how to do that here.

Continue reading →

July 16, 2014

I previously had just one lesson on mobile apps in the MYN Outlook Complete Video Training (the paid course); it was Lesson 22. Well, we just divided that into 3 lessons and put new videos up for the iOS solution (new lesson 22b) and the Android solution (new lesson 22c).

Those two correspond to TaskTask and TouchDown, and both are updated showing the latest software versions of each. The new Lesson 22a is an introduction to the idea of going mobile with MYN.

If you already own that lesson set, you can login here.

Michael Linenberger

July 14, 2014

[This is an update to my 2010 article on the same topic, which described an earlier version of this app]

Outlook Exchange users who are using my 1MTD or MYN systems, if you have an Android phone or tablet you should like this software called TouchDown.

TouchDown is an Android app that serves as a client of Microsoft Exchange Server. It takes your Exchange-based Outlook data (tasks, contacts, e-mail, calendar), and makes them all accessible in your Android phone or tablet.

[09/27/2017 Update: the Touchdown Android app is no longer being sold by Symantec. You might look at the app Nine instead]

And most importantly, TouchDown can easily be configured to show the 1MTD and MYN list format—the same format highlighted in my book The One Minute To-Do List, and the Outlook book Total Workday Control Using Microsoft Outlook.

Continue reading →

July 14, 2014

One minor disadvantage of using The One Minute To-Do List (1MTD), compared to MYN, is that inner sorting sometimes takes a bit more work in 1MTD—and there are a few ways to do it. This is especially true if you go mobile with your tasks, because if you want their order to match your main desktop task list, it may require changing some settings. Let me explain.

What is 1MTD Inner Sorting?

As you may know, in 1MTD you group your tasks on Priority. But in 1MTD, the sorting inside each Priority group is sometimes left undefined. That’s fine if you have a small number of tasks. But if you have 15 or 20 (or more) tasks in the middle priority section, you may want to specify that sorting so that you can position a few tasks at the top of the section—to focus on them first.

Continue reading →