MODULE 3: Day-to-day Task Management

3. MODULE 3: Day-to-day Task Management

This module explores the capabilities with- in TPAssist for managing your activities and tasks. After completing this module, you will be able to start using TPAssist to capture and manage the goals, tasks and activities that are part of your world.

STEP 1: Define your context (TPAssist Document Properties)

Before we go any further into using the tools, we will explore a few of the document specific configuration options.

Customising how you use TPAssist and also how you work with Outlook is defined in TPAssist Document Properties. These properties are accessed via the Documents tab of the TPAssist Console.

1) Open the "My Summer Holiday" mind map created earlier.

2) Select the Central Topic.

3) Open the Document Properties tab of TPAssist Console:

In MindManager 7 see the TPAssist Ribbon Tab and choose Properties.

OR in MindManager 6 click the TPAssist icon in the export toolbar at the bottom of the window or choose Console from the Tools menu, or choose TPAssist Topic from the Right- Click menu.

4) If not already, choose the "Document" tab.

The Documents Tab looks like the following.

In addition to Document Properties, the Documents Tab supports a Cut'n'paste Topic Context tool and Replace Resources tool. The In Notes Tags allows you to configure the Topic in-notes tags (See Semi- Structured Notes in the module below).

For purposes of this tutorial, let's define the Customer.

5) In the Customer replace <customer> with "ME".

6) Click OK to apply the changes.

See USER REFERENCE for full details regarding Document Properties.

STEP 2: Active Tasks & Priorities

MindManager already supports task related capabilities for priority, percent complete, start-date, due-date, resources and duration. TPAssist extends these build-in capabilities to provide the notion of "active" or "inactive" linked to task priority.

Let's explore how tasks are "activated":

1) Right Click on "Book Accommodation" and choose "TPAssist Journal"

2) In Status pull-down, choose "Active".

3) Click Ok to apply that change.

4) Now, Right Click on "Book Flights" and choose "TPAssist Journal"

5) In Status pull-down, choose "Active(P2)". (NB: Notice we are choosing "Priority 2" now.)

At this point you should have noticed the task tree is now showing a MindManager priority 2 icon.

TPAssist assigns further meaning to the build-in Task Priority icons.

TPAssist treats Priority 5 as a non-task activity, this task wont count towards percent complete calculation, task tree summarising or be incorporated in exports to Work Breakdown Structures. Priority 5 items are excellent for recording notes and general non- task specific information.

TPAssist treats Priority 4 as in- active task. This association is used in the settings relating to summarising or exports to Work Breakdown Structures.

TPAssist treats Priority 1, 2 and 3 as active tasks.

The colour coding used by Mind Manager lends itself very well to TPAssist's use of these priorities, in that you can scan across a whole map and quickly see where you have active activities and where your priorities are.

STEP 3: Flag a key task

In addition to "priority", TPAssist makes use of the Flag map markers. These flags are summarised across the tree so that the higher order flags can be see clearly seen from the central parts of the mind map.

Let's explore how Flags are used in practice:

1) Right Click on "Organise for time off work" and choose "TPAssist Journal"

2) In Status pull-down, choose "Green" and click OK.

The order shown in the pull-down is the order or importance.

3) Right Click on "Check Passport is valid" and choose "TPAssist Journal"

4) In Status pull-down, choose "Amber" and click OK.

The resulting map will look something like the following.

Notice how now in addition to the two tasks now containing flags, the task tree also has flags.

In this example, the Amber flag is the highest order flag and therefore the Central Topic is flagged as Amber.

Flags can be changed or removed from any end tasks.

STEP 4: % Complete and 100%

As further aspect to TPAssist task support is the management of percent complete. All task related items can have a % complete, in fact TPAssist ignore tasks without a % complete value, assuming these are just notes.

Let's explore how assigning percentage complete task activity level is rolled up to the central topic:

1) Right Click on "Book Accommodation" and choose "TPAssist Journal"

2) Change the % Complete to "50%", click OK.

3) Now, Right Click on "Book Flights" and choose "TPAssist Journal"

4) Change the % complete to "50%" , click OK

Notice how when you used TPAssist to change the percentage complete, the task tree is automatically updated to reflect overall percentage complete:

The overall percentage complete calculation takes into account the percent complete of immediate sub tasks and averages them to obtain the overall percentage complete. i.e. in the sample provided above, two tasks have been defined as half finished, whilst two others tasks haven't started, therefore the overall status is 25% complete.

TPAssist provides additional capabilities to improve the management of complete task structures. Let's now explore that capability.

5) Right Click on "Book Accommodation" and choose "TPAssist Journal"

6) Now click the "100%" button.

Before pressing OK, observe how by pressing the "100%" button, TPAssist automatically completes the task, in addition the Due date is get assigned and flags and status removed.

NB: The Auto-Date button will temporally disable the auto- complete of dates.

7) Click OK to execute that change.

Observe now how TPAssist has removed the priority. In addition, the task item background colour has been cleared, therefore putting the task in the background and out of immediate view.

TIP: The automatic clearing of the topic background colour to make it transparent can be turned off via the Tree Update tab of the TPAssist console.

Finally, observe how the overall task complete has be adjusted to take into account the completed activity.

STEP 5: Added Status Tracking

TPAssist extends task tracking by using the Callout capability of MindManager to provide quick and easy status information relating to your activities. When Auto Callout Handler is enabled in TPAssist Document Properties, TPAssist will create and manage a Callout topic to describe the date and latest status.

Let's explore adding status tracking to your activities.

1) Now, Right Click on "Book Flights" and choose "TPAssist Journal".

2) Now in Status Text enter "Checking calendar for suitable dates." and click OK.

Notice how a Callout topic is now added to "Book Flights". The Callout topic title will include the status date and the Topic Notes of the topic will include the status. This can be viewed by clicking the Topic Notes icon or by hovering your cursor over the icon as illustrated below:

This status is also reflected in the Journal.

NB: The status Callout is automatically removed if you clear the text from the Status Text area in the Journal dialogue.

STEP 6: Record your actions

TPAssist includes a simplistic method for recording the progress you make towards completing your activities. This is achieved using the top half of the Journal dialogue.

The first pull-down list is a pre- configured list of activities. The default choice is "NOTE", and as the tag suggests, provides the means for you to add a simple note to the journal for this topic.

The second option implements a macro that takes the current contents of the clipboard and incorporates it into the journal notes. These macros are usefully for adding portions of text from other applications in to your journal.

"Newline" takes the contents of the clipboard, removes any paragraphs and replaces them with semi-colons (;).

"Newline/Quotes" is the same as Newline except the entire clipboard contents are enclosed in quotes.

"Join" assumes you are inserting a series of sentences that can be joined together.

"Join/Quotes" is the same as "Join" except the entire clipboard contents are enclosed in quotes.

The "CLIP" button takes the results of your journal entry and copies it to the clipboard. This is useful if you want to capture your notes and paste them into another application (i.e. send an e- mail).

Finally, the "Date" control in the top right corner allows you to record activities that occurred in the past by changing the journal date. NB: Once changed, all "auto- date" capabilities will work from that date. The journal date must be in the past, it can't be in the future.

Let's explore the options quickly:

1) Select the central topic "My Summer Holiday", now on the Edit menu, choose "COPY".

2) Select and right click on "Book Hire Car" and choose "TPAssist Journal".

3) Now choose "TASK" from the first pull-down and then "Newline/Quotes" from the second pull- down and then press OK.

Open the Topic notes and observe how the contents of your map was inserted as text into the journal.

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