{"id":4825,"date":"2019-04-30T20:33:02","date_gmt":"2019-05-01T02:33:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/?p=4825"},"modified":"2019-04-30T20:33:42","modified_gmt":"2019-05-01T02:33:42","slug":"toodledo-adds-start-date-underlines-feature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/toodledo-adds-start-date-underlines-feature\/","title":{"rendered":"Toodledo Adds Start Date Underlines Feature"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Toodledo<\/a> team just\nadded a new feature which is quite important for my MYN system<\/a> users.\nIt\u2019s the ability to display underlines on tasks that have a start date of\ntoday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This Is Important for Two Reasons<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, in MYN methodology, if you set the start date of a task to the future, the task is hidden. Then on that date the task reappears at the top of the corresponding priority section in your visible task list, ready to work on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Outlook with MYN settings, it appears there on that day underlined. The underline draws your attention to the task, reminding you that it just appeared that morning, and that there might be a significant reason you scheduled it for today. It helps the newly arriving task stand out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Toodledo never had that capability, but now it does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second reason it\u2019s important<\/strong> is that in the MYN methodology, there is an optional 4th<\/sup> urgency zone called Target Now (see Lesson 16 in my Toodledo-MYN video set<\/a> or Lesson 15 in my Outlook-MYN video set<\/a>). The Target Now section lists non-critical opportunity now tasks that you really want to act on today. It\u2019s a great way to add focus to your day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The way tasks are tagged for that in Outlook MYN settings is to for you to set the start date to today, which causes it to be underlined, and so it stands out clearly at the top of the normal priority section. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Toodledo never had that underline capability, but now it does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interestingly, this was one of the few features Toodledo lacked, with respect to MYN. Given that it is now here, and given that Toodledo handles due dates much better than Outlook, I’d say that Toodledo is now the best MYN platform out there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Okay, so next, let’s talk about how to activate this new feature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

How to Activate the\nFeature in Toodledo<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For it to work, the underline feature requires that the Start Date column to be present, which it should already be if you are using MYN settings<\/a> in Toodledo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once that’s there, then go to the Settings window (click your profile in upper right, then click the gear icon); scroll down the settings list about half way and find Row Style, and then click Edit; then use the third dropdown to choose \u201cTitle is underlined if Start Date is Today.\u201d Save the changes. Be sure to refresh your tasks screen after that. Set a task to a start date of today and you should see an underline on the task name. And future scheduled tasks will now come in underlined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Future Plans: This\nSetting will be part of the MYN Methodology Preset<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Toodledo company is also committed to making this\nfeature a part of the MYN Methodology preset that you can activate at this link<\/a>. That should\narrive shortly; but for now, you\u2019ll need to add the underline setting by hand,\nusing the steps above.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another Nice New\nFeature<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another nice new feature that Toodledo recently added is the\nability to multi-select tasks for batch editing. For example, you could select\na batch of tasks to add today\u2019s start date to, to make them all Target Now\ntasks, in one click. This new Toodledo feature is written up here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So that\u2019s it for the new features I want to highlight. Many more new features are on their way in Toodledo, I hear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My Thoughts about\nToodledo and Its Pricing<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the way, for the rest of this article, I am going to go off topic and rant a bit. Read on if you like, or quit reading here, because the guts of the article are what you just read above.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So here goes. I know a lot of you felt frustrated by the\nprice increase the new owners of Toodledo implemented at the start of the year.\nI\u2019ve been completely silent on this, mainly to let people vent and get their\nfrustrations out, and hopefully find their own peace with it. But I am now ready\nto state my opinion on it, and here it is: I\nhighly approve of the price increase<\/em>. I think it was overdue, I think it was\nbadly needed, and I think it was absolutely correct. And by the way, I have no\nfinancial ties with the company. Zero. I just love the product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One reason I support the increase is that the company can\nnow start adding a ton of new features, like the two features I just listed.\nBeing able to rapidly add new features like that is hugely<\/em> important for a software product, to keep it viable and\nrelevant in a rapidly changing software world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You know, I strongly feel that the previous owner was\u2014is\u2014a\nfantastic guy. He is a deeply principled person who, with sincere passion and\npurpose, created a world-class product all on his own. I truly believe Toodledo\nis, by far, the best task management software out there, hands down, and this\nsingle person, Jake, did it all, basically by himself, along with raising a\nfamily and having a real life to boot. He simply loved his vision, and he made\nit happen. And you as a Toodledo user are benefitting from the results of his blood,\nsweat, and tears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Jake could only do so much. Think about it: he was the sole programmer, the sole marketer, the sole website developer, and the sole support staff. And as the years went by, as I continued to work with and teach others how to implement MYN on the Toodledo product, I came to feel that, from a business perspective<\/em>, that owner (bless his heart) was giving away way too much<\/em> for free. Unlike Microsoft or Google, who can give away or underprice certain products as loss leaders (Outlook.com, Gmail), thus leading buyers to their other high-priced products (Office 365 at $12.50 per user per month). Or by making a ton of money off embedded advertising: think Google. Unlike companies like that, Toodledo was Jake\u2019s only<\/em> product. And yet, still, he gave most of it away for free. And also, out of principle, he did not embed ads. Again, bless his heart. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in my mind, if the Toodledo product and company were to\nthrive as a viable and growing software business, the product really needed to\nbe priced at its full<\/em> value\u2014and I didn\u2019t\nthink it was. This was a world-class product, comparable in feature robustness\nto web-based products like Salesforce.com, or Travelocity, that was mostly being given away free<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The results? Happy users, but very limited ongoing development.\nFor example, simply to update his Android app, the previous owner had to crowd\nsource his development work\u2014which is a slow and risky way for a company to do\nproduct development. And he had to back-burner tons of really cool features that\npeople wanted. Features that I wanted<\/em>\nthat would help my MYN users. For example, this underline feature I wrote about\nabove\u2014I personally requested that from the previous owner over five years ago<\/em>, and it never got in. And\nmy MYN users were one of his biggest customer sets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But now, with the recent price increase, I feel it really is\npriced at its value<\/em>, and not\ncoincidentally, the new company can now afford to hire a team of programmers\nwho can really advance this product to even higher levels. When I asked the new\nowners for the underline feature back in December, it arrived in Toodledo in only\na few months!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And let me be clear. In my mind, you don\u2019t have to wait for\nthat many new features. Even with the current feature set, Toodledo is by far\nthe most powerful task system out there in terms of raw capability,\ncustomizability, and intelligent design (Windows Desktop Outlook Tasks is its\nonly real competitor). It\u2019s the only<\/em> system\nthat I recommend to people who cannot use or who refuse to use Windows desktop Outlook\n(Mac and Gmail users for example), and it is even better<\/em> than Windows Outlook tasks in many ways. As you may know, I\nhave a full video\ntraining set<\/a> on how to use MYN with Toodledo\u2014it\u2019s the only other<\/em> task platform I will teach MYN on,\nbesides Outlook. That\u2019s how strongly I feel about the quality of Toodledo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And in my mind, if Toodledo, because of its superior features, even gives you back as little as 10 minutes of wasted time a day, the new price is an absolute bargain<\/em>. I mean think about it: for the cost of one Starbucks Mocha per month, you can get an advanced feature set that gives you a way to really take back control of your workday, in ways that almost no other product can do. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So my opinion? Flat out, even at the new price, Toodledo still\nseems like a really<\/em> good deal to me, given\nthe quality of the product. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, that is my 2 cents on Toodledo pricing. Place your\ncounter rants in comments below, I am ready.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Toodledo team just added a new feature which is quite important for my MYN system users. It\u2019s the ability to display underlines on tasks that have a start date of today. This Is Important for Two Reasons First, in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[43],"class_list":["post-4825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-toodledo"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4825"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4825\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4834,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4825\/revisions\/4834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}