The system and tools have been pretty stable from a development point of view, but I recently noticed an opportunity to slightly improve the default ResultsManager daily action dashboard template that I thought I would share.

A key concept of GTD is translating your projects into next actions and organizing them by context. Often the value of context assignment is the journey rather than the end. If you think about the specific "how", "where", and "when" of the next action, you will force yourself to translate it into a more "physical" action than it otherwise might be.

One area I am trying to improve is better defining contexts that match my personal situation and style. In practice there have been only a few lists that I proactively seek out from a context point of view:

• "phone" (short for "weekday 9-5")
• "errands" (particularly important in this era of high gas prices)
• "contact X about" (very useful in combination with the the "relationship central" "I owe" and "waiting for"

The problem comes when a "contact about" next action also involves a context. For example…

• Take ActivityDaughter to store to shop for camp supplies (@errands, ActivityDaughter@)
• Call TravelAgent about summer vacation (@phone, TravelAgent@)
• Call mom for mothers day! (@phone, mom@)

The default ResultsManager Daily Action dashboard filters are set up to avoid you getting a long list of "No Context" next actions that are really "Contact X about" items, by filtering out next actions that involve "partners" from the "@" lists and channeling all these to the "contact…" branch. The result is an errand or call that has a partner doesn't show up on the errand or calls list.

This can be addressed by breaking the context-list branch into two such that one captures specific contexts (regardless of partner) and another captures "no partner/no context" items. I thought I would share the procedure for those interested in learning more about customizing dashboards.

Assuming you already have a daily action dashboard generated, you can quickly open the underlying template by clicking on "open template" on the ResultsManager menu:

If you expand the "Next Actions" branch you can see there are parallel "partner" filters, with the first excluding any "contact about" partners from the next action lists and the 2nd to enumerate them:

What we have done here is leverage a lightly documented filter parameter of "_undefined" and "NOT _undefined" to channel defined contexts to the first branch and then "No Context" items to the 2nd, which are further filtered by the original "Partner=N" filter.

Once you have adjusted your dashboard template, you can save it and start using it. If you would prefer to keep the original, you can change the dashboard name (under application/prepare/properties):

and then save it in the "My Dashboards" folder (or elsewhere if you choose):

If you have chosen to save the template as new, you need to "install template" from the ResultsManager menu while it is active to add it to your list of available dashboards:

If you have questions, just comment below. If you want to learn more about how to build a dashboard template from scratch, see the 7 steps on the wiki. If you don't want to go through the "do-it-yourself" exercise above, you can just download the template from the ResultsManager Dashboard Library.

Related posts:

1. Map2Table — Export your map branches to a linked web page table
2. Focusing in on One Area of your Life
3. Putting Things in Context

The Next Action Analysis macro calculates and sorts these metrics for ResultsManager users by harvesting information from the Daily Action Dashboard. It also creates lists of actions and projects associated with the various components (e.g. aging tasks) as well as provides targeted advice on how to attack and improve your situation.

To have some fun with this, and provide readers with a framework for "climbing back on the GTD horse" in the new year, we initiated the "Next Action Analysis 2008 GTD Challenge". The goal was to get an initial assessment in the 1st half of January and then work to improve it by the end of the month.

Thanks to everyone who entered. It isn't easy to share the state of your "system". I think it was helpful to everyone to see that others are in the same boat. The entries and results are summarized below (Courtesy of Map2Table):

	Initial Score	Final Score	Improvement	Current Score
Juan	2.00	6.07	4.07
AO	6.40	7.50	1.10	9.59
Arkadiy	6.77
Bill S.	7.60
DW	7.95
Jose-Miguel	8.20	9.82	1.62	9.41
Mal	7.00
Renaldostheold	7.40	9.22	1.82	9.96

And the winners of the 2008 GTD challenge….

• Highest Final Score: Jose-Miguel
• Biggest Improvement: Juan
• Random Drawing: Renaldostheold

I think a few of these folks may have already claimed their prizes :-).

Here are some random thoughts and advice on use of the tool…

Context is King
In general it felt like the revised scoring was well balanced, and put me on the areas needing focus, but the one area that probably merits more weighting is the penalty for actions lacking context. The "no context" list is always with ripe with "blobs" that need more thought and review. Eliminating items from this list tends to help several others scores. For example sending them to someday/maybe, defining a new/younger physical next action, marking already complete items done, can be impactful on several dimensions. I am looking at raising the weighting here but need to decide where to steal the points from. Thoughts? My guess is "project proritization" or "Target Dates".

My Favorite?
If I personally had to give up using all but one tool from this site, this would be the one that I would keep. I have found it has kept me focused on all aspects of my system and forced me to address the stale tasks that were bogging it down. The delay in getting this contest entry posted is a testament to that as the "game" of improving your score can keep you focused on your important projects (rather than your blog :-).

How Many Next Actions are Too Many?
In order to get 10.0 on the "feasibility" scale, you need to knock your next actions down to 80. You'll only get a 5.0 on that dimension if you have 150 actions. That's a pretty stiff penalty, but the purpose is to reinforce the concept of actually doing the items on your list rather than carrying them around for weeks or months at a time. The scoring make your next action list expensive real estate that you want to populate with things you are committed to doing in the near term.

Do you Trust your Trusted System?
I've found the key to using tools like GyroQ, MindReader, and OutLinker to capture commitments into MindManager, is knowing that you maps are not black holes. If you don't trust it, you'll tend to keep "important" items piled up on your desk or in your OutLook Inbox. Keeping your NAA score up, and reviewing the flags it raises regularly, can help you build that trust into your system such that it become closer to 100%.

Are your Projects Projects?
It is very easy to fall into the trap of throwing all your tasks under "area" buckets (e.g. "Home Repair") that last forever rather than defining specific projects. The project priority and target date metrics are there not so much to yield benefits to your dashboard, but to help you decide whether a project should go to the someday/maybe list or be broken out as a smaller/more specific project.

Are your Targets Targets?
As mentioned above, the purpose of the target date assignment metric is not so much for the value of setting targets, but for forcing as many items as possible into defined/do-able projects. One thing you want to avoid is perpetually setting unrealistic targets such that you spend your time discouraged by them or postponing them.

If you use "Mark Task Complete" to set up routine "good habit" reminders, try setting just the start date rather than both the start and due date. For example, if you have a daily reminder called "empty in-tray", set it as a "daily" with just a start date. That way it will show up on your next action lists, and you'll take satisfaction in checking it off, but it won't clutter your "overdue" lists.

How to Deal with In-trays?
Based on my experiences with this tool, I've begun setting up my in-tray's with a "project" icon, particularly on "map central" maps. The key advantage of this approach is that it ensures that its parent "project" flags as needing next actions if it becomes empty. It also helps you avoid letting random "bits and pieces" actions find there way in under a map central map. I'll blog more about this later. You can also remove a central topic from the project list by giving it a category of "mc*", but this option should be used with care.

Have you tried it?
The script has improved quite a bit over the last month, so if you haven't done so recently I would recommend downloading the latest copy. Recent versions provide the option of opening a wiki page dedicated to providing advice on improving the weakest aspect of your score. If you are a routine dashboard user, or have ResultsManager, but have "fallen of the GTD horse", give this a try. It doesn't require that you have any other "AO" tools. All you need is ResultsManager for generating Daily Action Dashboards.

Next Steps?
Any interest in further contests? Are there any other aspects of the DA dashboard that could be assessed? I'd write more, but I need to get going on some procrastinated "next actions" so I can improve my "Freshness" score :-).

Related posts:

1. Next Action Analysis 2008 GTD Challenge
2. Six Components of a GTD Review
3. Next Action Analysis Updated

In these cases it can be handy to convert this into a tabular format for sharing or review as shown below.

The tabular format can be particularly appealing to map-averse "list people".

The map2table macro can do this conversion quickly for you. The resulting html file can be shared on a web site or easily imported to Excel or Word. It creates the table by compiling a list of the main topics under the selected topic (usually the central topic) and then searching each branch to accumulate the 2nd dimension of the table. You have the choice to set the 1st layer topics as the row to column headings.

The tabular format is also useful when you want a new way to look at a custom ResultsManager dashboard like "Committed Projects and Next Actions" and assess the balance across your areas of responsibility (see earlier blog entry).

Note that the macro will capture a 4th level of detail by combining the text of the underlying topics into the title text of the table hyperlinks so they can be view if you hover on the entry. It also adds hyperlinks associated with the topics by default. More details are available on the macro's wiki page.

Related posts:

1. Export a MindManager Map to Microsoft Excel
2. Map2Table — Export your map branches to a linked web page table
3. GyroTimer 2.0

Here is a summary of the changes:

1. Added more targeted recommendations for the specific metrics with the most room for improvement along with wiki links that provide GTD advice and ways to use MindReader to address problem. Please add your advice.
2. Metric subtopics now list the projects or actions that need to be addressed (e.g. activities needing context, projects needing actions, etc). I particularly like the "You have the most work to do in the X context". On those days where you have your choice of "contexts", this can tell you where to go. Having these lists close at hand can be a catalyst for review and action.
3. The scoring was changed so that absolute metrics (e.g. #tasks, #overdue, etc) are scored on an exponentially declining scale rather than with a minimum cutoff. For example, you get 10.0 if you have no overdue tasks, 5.0 if you have 2, 2.5 if you have 4, 1.25 if you have 6, etc. That means if you have 300 next actions and pair that down to 200, you will see your score improve a bit rather than stay flat at 0.0.
4. The 5F's reported is now sorted so the worst dimension is listed first.
5. A new metric measuring the percentage of the projects that have had prioritized was added.
6. You can exclude "map central"-like central topics from the projects list by assigning a category of "mc*" to them (deactivate after adding the category). Use cautiously as you don't want stray action items living under one of these excluded projects. This category is intended for the central topic of a map where the project(s) are not in the central topic.
7. A status summary is shown during report generation so you know the macro is moving along.
8. Three random "activities of the day" are now included at the bottom of the report. For those days where you just don't know where to start.

Here is a sample output of the macro:

You can compare this to the old version.

Phase I of the 2008 GTD Next Action Analysis Challenge is complete with seven entrants vying for "Most Improved" over the next two weeks. There is still two weeks left to get your entry in for top score and/or the random drawing. I can think of several ResultsManager Power Users who have yet to submit an entry (that is unless they are one of the anonymous entries :-).

If you are a ResultsManager dashboard user, I recommend you download the macro and give it a try whether you want to enter or not. It includes several snippets of code that were previously shared separately including Next Action Roulette, Fire the oldest 10% of your tasks, Are your Next Actions eligible for Retirement, and "percent complete". No other a software is required. I recommend assigning it to your topic context menu to make it easy to run on your Daily Action Dashboard.

Note that I use the wiki to transfer programs from my home to work PC. This helps me avoid lagging too much in getting updates on the site. The downside is that sometimes undiscovered bugs creep in for a few hours. This particular script has has more than its share and probably a few remain. If you run into a problem let me know or just circle back in a day or so for the corrected version.

READER SURVEY
From a scoring point of view, I've found the "Feasibility: Number of Next Actions" metric to be the most difficult to evaluate. I initially assigned "70" as a 10.0 score but I'm wondering if that is unrealistically low. How many actions should a 10.0 dashboard have? How many is too many as to constitute a red-flag 6.5? Ditto for projects — Please comment below.

The blog will be quiet for the next 2 weeks as I hunker down and vie for the top score prize!

Related posts:

1. Logging Next Action Analysis Results
2. Next Action Analysis: 5 Metrics for Assessing your GTD System
3. 2008 GTD Challenge Results

I had my "schedule tire replacement" next action on my list for many weeks and had elevated to priority 1 and given it deadlines during my weekly review, but it hadn't happened. Why? Among other things it was drown out by the 140+ other action items call for attention on any given day. It also probably had to do with lack of a "scheduling" context to focus on things like "find a time to do this".

In any case, it caused me to reflect on how effective my weekly reviews were. One downside of computer-based GTD systems is that they lack the tactile "copy onto a fresh page" review that a paper system provides.

During my reviews I try to get my in-trays emptied and push less urgent/important projects into the future or onto someday/maybe lists. The projects I have on my "committed" list all seem worthwhile and needing to be done at some point. Most have been reduce to a key next step to advance them. The problem is that all those "key next steps" still add up to much more than can be done in a 1-week horizon. The result is a "Hot Daily Action Dashboard" that Nick Duffill describes in his "Migrating from doing to reviewing" essay and as discussed by Mike W. in "Mind on Fire" and "Fighting Fire with Fire"

I decided I needed to review my "trusted system" in a way that get the daily action dashboard de-cluttered and under control. I thought it would be useful to propose a scorecard and some quantitative metrics to assess different attributes of the state of a GTD system. I came up with 5 dimensions to assess (5 F's):

Next Action Analysis Dimensions (5Fs)

In order to assess these dimensions, I identified several metrics such as "average task age", "number of next actions", "number of projects", etc. that could be calculated and combined for each dimension. These five metrics can then be combined to calculate an overall "NAA Score" on a 10.0 scale, with each dimension contributing 20% according to the table below. 100% is given for metrics at the "goal" level and declining amounts down to the "0% level"

Next Action Analysis Scorecard

[NOTE: The scoring metrics have been updated -- see wiki for updated table]

This approach can be used on any automated GTD system. I have implemented a macro (ao_next_action_analysis.mmbas) for analyzing a ResultsManager daily action dashboard. Sample output of the Next Action Analysis macro is shown below:

Note that the macro calculates the "percent complete" for your dashboard. Although not included in the Scorecard, this metric provides some incentive to keep your dashboard in place over the course of the day as you complete items rather than refreshing it constantly. This metric includes repeating items that have been marked complete with a red check icon.

Note that in additional to calculating several metrics, the report also enumerates lists of your oldest and youngest actions along with projects that are dated/undated. It also provides a "Random Activity of the Day" for those times where you just don't know where to start.

As we enter this Olympic year and the season of New year's resolutions and annual goal setting, I'm hoping this can provide some fun and focus to the weekly review process. Treat the NAA score as an Olympic event and go for 10.0.

Let me know what you think of the assessment metrics and give the macro a try if you are a ResultsManager user. More information on the tool is available on the Next Action Analysis page on the wiki.

Related posts:

1. Next Action Analysis 2008 GTD Challenge
2. Next Action Analysis Updated
3. 2008 GTD Challenge Results

Sigurdur's request was for a "Hot Actions" dashboard that could be synced to Outlook and a PDA that selected tasks based on the following criteria:

• NEXT actions only
• Priority 1
• Explicitly Committed (*committed)
• All Dates

Here are the steps to achieve this:

1. Create a new blank map (Application, New, Default Map), and add some information and placeholders to the central topic that will tell the user when it was last refreshed and from what map central:

   

2. Set the "Subject" and "Keyword" in the file properties (Application, Prepare, Properties). The "Subject" is the dashboard's title "Hot Actions" and the "Keywords" needs to be set to "Dashboard". You can further configure the dashboard to not show parent projects, categories, task info, etc., by visiting the "View, "Show/Hide" menu.

   

3. Build the filters. In this case we need the following:
   • Committed*=Y (only select tasks that have a "committed" icon on them explicitly)
   • Activityowner=%me% (only select tasks for the current user)
   • Activity=X (next actions only)
   • Priority=1

   

   The resulting dashboard will be cleaner if you hang the filters off the main topic rather than the central topic ("Hot Actions"). The magnifying glass icon indicates the topic is a filter rather than a structural topic in the map. The # symbol says to use the entry just as a filter rather than a visible enumeration of its output. You should order the filters to exclude as many items as possible as early as possible in the tree. In this case, the explicitly committed flag is probably the most "rare" entry, followed by the user being the owner of the task.

4. Save your dashboard template. You can save it in "My Maps\My Dashboards" or in a separate folder if you would rather keep your custom dashboards in a separate location. I like to save mine as "AO_NAME_template.mmap" with the "template" portion reminding me that this is a template rather than an actual dashboard.
5. Install the template by clicking on "ResultsManager", "Install Template". The button will be grayed out if you missed something in step 2 or haven't saved the map.

   

6. Step 6 (under version 6) was to save and close the dashboard template. Under version 7 you can leave it open for further refinement after testing.
7. Test dashboard on a simple map that contains examples of what you are looking for rather than the whole map network by clicking on "ResultsManager", "Create Dashboard":

   

   Once you establish that is it working right, you can test it on your "Map Central" and save the resulting dashboard. Once it is saved, you can open it and refresh it directly rather than choosing the "Map Central" and selecting the dashboard template to use.

   
   If you want to change the template, you can open it from the dashboard by clicking on "ResultsManager", "Open Template".

   You can download this "Hot Action" dashboard from the ResultsManager Dashboard Library.

8. Related posts:

   1. Creating a ResultsManager Dashboard Template
   2. Committed Projects and Next Actions
   3. It's 10 O'Clock — Do you know where your in-trays are?
   ]]> http://www.activityowner.com/2007/10/07/building-a-custom-resultsmanager-dashboard/feed/ 1 http://www.activityowner.com/2007/09/11/activityownercom-turns-10/ http://www.activityowner.com/2007/09/11/activityownercom-turns-10/#comments Wed, 12 Sep 2007 03:18:22 +0000 ActivityOwner http://www.activityowner.com/2007/09/11/activityownercom-turns-10/
9. What is the Next Action for ActivityOwner.Com?
10. 2008 GTD Challenge Results
11. GyroQ: Top 20 Uses Revisited

Looking into this problem I discovered that Google launched a custom search feature last fall that lets you create your own search engine to look at specific set of sites. The blog now has a search box in top right corner that will search the whole site rather than just the blog and allow you to use Google query syntax. You can also visit the custom search directly at search.activityowner.com.

You can also use this approach to create and custom search engines that for a favorite site or set of sites. For example, if you find yourself searching for information on the MindManager object model frequently, you can use the MindManager Object Model Search Engine or build your own.

Taking this one step further, I set up a ResultsManager Search Engine that is limited to the following sites that have content that focuses on use of the tool:

• ActivityOwner Blog
• ActivityOwner Wiki
• ActivityOwner Forum
• Beyond Mind Mapping (Nick Duffill)
• Gyronix
• Gyronix Forums
• Taming Project Chaos
• Node Glue
• Forge Monkey
• Underlying Blog
• Visual Strategist
• Eric Mack Online
• Curtis Bingham (any day now)
• GTD MindManager Yahoo Group
• MindManager Yahoo Group
• MindManager 6 Object Model

This enables more targeted searches without the need to specify extra keywords.

Related posts:

1. forum.activityowner.com returns
2. forum.activityowner.com
3. RSS Feeds added for Yahoo MindManager and GTD_MindManager Groups

• ResultsManager Dashboard Template Library
• GyroQ Tag Library
• MindManager Macro Library

Each item has a link to the blog entry or wiki page that describes its use. These scripts and templates can be useful directly or as examples to help you learn how to create them yourself.

Related posts:

1. Wiki Authors/Editors Wanted
2. Building a Custom ResultsManager Dashboard
3. Creating a ResultsManager Dashboard Template

The new ResultsManager tab (below) on the "Ribbon" toolbar pulls all its functions and features together into one place — accessible visually with one mouse click or by their familiar short-cut keys. This simplifies day-to-day use as well as providing a focal point for training new and potential users. I've been beta testing the program for a couple weeks and got the OK from Nick to give a a quick run down for ActivityOwner.Com readers. Here are the highlights by command group:

Dashboard
You can create a dashboard or send changes from a dashboard with a button click (or Alt-e-d). In addition, you can now open the dashboard's underlying template in one click. This previously took several steps to track down which template was associated with the dashboard, find it, and open it. This is a huge time saver if you are developing a template or just curious what is going on behind the scenes.

Activity
You have quick access to the "edit activity" button, or can access it with Alt-e-y or by clicking right on a topic. You also have button access to insert activities (alt-i-y) or set them complete (alt-e-c). My favorite new feature is quick and visual access provided to the common icons used by ResultsManager. Now you have one-click ability to toggle a branch's exclusion or toggle its activity, project, or someday/maybe status. You previously would need to launch the (sometimes sluggish) "edit activity" dialog to do this or drag icons from other topics. Again, this is a huge time saver.

Tools
The "Multimap Checker" searches your map network for broken links, maps you have a role in, and outlook business topics. This has been around for awhile, but the accessibility granted by this button will increase its use. I actually hadn't even used it frequently enough to realize the benefit of the "has tasks I own" functionality. The "add dashboard filter" button aids in building custom dashboard templates. Again, this is something I've tended not to use when it was buried in Mindmanager 6 menus.

Options
You can customize the order of the the command groups in the ResultsManager tab under "options". Some may prefer the order to be "Dashboards" followed by "Activity" (as shown above), rather than the default "Activity", "Dashboards".

Help
Help is more accessible along with the demonstration and implementation maps.

"Instrumented View"
A final new feature (available for version 6 users as well) is an "instrumented view" of what ResultsManager is up to while it is generating a dashboard. Instead of seeing a progress bar advance and reset multiple times, now you can watch the program progress through opening all your maps and then generating the dashboard. This gives you a good sense of the where the program is as well as to identify opportunities for improving generation speed.

General
The Ribbons is "smart" — it knows what type of map is currently open and only highlights the applicable functions. This helps you understand what you can do in a given context and avoid error messages. Commonly used ResultsManager commands have also been added as appropriate to the individual MindManager "Home", "Insert", and "Tools" ribbon bars for more convenient access.

Gyronix could have easily taken the easy road on this upgrade and just assigned the existing commands to shortcuts under the Application menu and the topic context menu. Their hard work here really hits it out of the park and saves MindJet's bacon by making V7 a compelling rather than disruptive upgrade that adds significant value to new and existing ResultsManager users.

MindManager 7 is available today for a 21-day trial and an upgrade price of $119. Although not recommended, you can use V7 side by side with v6 (a feature in itself) with just occasional glitches due to v7 "winning" (e.g. when you double click on a map, Snag-it imports) on ties. The earlier ActivityOwner.Com review of MindManager 7 points out some of the nice features in upgrade. The main downside cited was the learning curve associated with the new Ribbon interface, which lessens over time. You can avoid a major portion of the learning curve if you re-enable the side-bar tabs. Instructions for exercising this somewhat hidden option are available in the "MindManger 7 Setup Tips" under construction on the wiki.

ResultsManager is still in beta testing as Gyronix runs the new code they have added through its paces. Current licenced users can download it at http://www.gyronix.com/go.php?750 and help Gyronix shake it down, recognizing that is is not officially released at this time.

MindReader has been upgraded to work with Version 7 and works well with our without GyroQ. The only remaining "ActivityOwner Tool" issue to be worked out for v7 is getting the automated GyroQ "Put it in Front of the Door" script working reliably. It current can be made to work for one dashboard by using send keys to trigger the dashboard regeneration rather than the GyroQ run:rm:dashboard command. Hopefully this can be simplified in future MindManager releases. . See Putting it in front of the door again for instructions on addressing this issue.

Related posts:

1. MindManager 7
2. Building a Custom ResultsManager Dashboard
3. Creating a ResultsManager Dashboard Template

The problem is the ActiveX viewer only works under Internet Explorer. Given that FireFox users make up nearly 40% of ActivityOwner.Com readers, its use has been limited here. I recently learned about the IE Tab add-in, which lets FireFox run IE-rendered tabs.

If you are running under Internet Explorer, or have installed the IE tab add-in, you will be able to view the ActivityOwner.Com "sitemap" below. If you have not previously installed the ActiveX component, you will need to click through some installation prompts. If you are not able to successfully install the add-in here, try visiting the Mindjet page and installing from there.

The activeX add-in is used in the ResultsManager Dashboard Library "view" links to provide a quick way to review ResultsManager filter designs.

Background on the code an parameters associated with embedding maps can be found in MindManager Viewer API documentation.

Related posts:

1. map2wiki — Convert MindManager Maps to wiki format
2. Mapping the MindReader Configuration Map
3. Using MindManager as a Twitter Reader

The "Daily Actions Plus" dashboard template recently uploaded to this site's ResultsManager Dashboard Library adds a "Targets I'll hit" branch. The filters in the branch are similar to those in the deadlines branch, but look for activities that meet the following criteria:

1. Committed
2. No deadline
3. Actual or inherited due date that is overdue or due in next 7 days

It looks like ResultsManager assigns a Due Date of "Today" for activities that have an explicit start date for some reason. In order to avoid the false-positives associated with this, the filter limits today listings to those activities that have an explicit due date.

This dashboard also includes a leading branch (described in a previous post: "Its 10 O'clock, Do you know where your in-trays are") that enumerates activities present in your in-trays that need to be processed.

Note that Mike has been describing ways to improve upon the Daily Actions Dashboard by setting up filters for explicitly committed items that you might find of interest.

Related posts:

1. Committed Projects and Next Actions
2. Next Action Analysis: 5 Metrics for Assessing your GTD System
3. What's next for your team?

Running through this process with the dashboard on-screen during the weekly meeting can facilitate communication as well as a rapid status update to the project maps. This helps ensure the maps remain a "trusted system" for the group.

In order to use the template,you needed to do a search/replace to configure it for a manager/direct-report pair and then save and install separate templates manually for each of them. If you got an idea for an improvement or found a bug, you would need to modify each dashboard separately or modify the original and go through the search/replace process again.

The new GyroQ 1:1 meeting template generator tag posted in the GyroQ tag library provides a means to get around some of these inefficiencies. It prompts you for the name of the manager and direct-report, and then goes through the process of synthesizing the entire dashboard template from scratch. The advantage of this approach is that it lets you improve and customize the master version (via the code) and then generate individual dashboards for use rather than modify them individually or go through the search/replace process again off a master dashboard.

The script also provides a working example of the steps necessary for generating a custom ResultsManager dashboard template. Note that the scripts works most reliably if you let it run undisturbed. The send key commands and select statements can become confused if you interact with the computer/MindManager while it is running. You will be prompted to replace the previous versions of the template if you are regenerating one. If the script works correctly, it will finish by informing you that the new dashboard template has been installed.

This video shows the 1:1 meeting dashboard template generation process using a hypothetical example using "Nik Tipler" and "Nick Duffill" as the manager and direct report respectively.

Usage Example
In order to test the dashboard template, I created a map with several "Yard work" projects using Nik and Nick's names :

and then generated a 1:1 meeting dashboard from that map:

This video shows process of the above dashboard being generated.

How the Dashboard Generating Script Works

If you are a manager and want to stick to the original dashboard template, one strategy would be to program it to have your name hard-coded as the Manager and use %me% as the direct-report, and then change the %me% setting in dashboard options prior to generating the template. You have to remember to set it back, but otherwise it provides a relatively simple solution.

Related posts:

1. "So how are things going…?" : Setting the agenda for an effective 1 on 1 Meeting
2. Creating a ResultsManager Dashboard Template
3. Building a Custom ResultsManager Dashboard

1. Context
2. Time Available
3. Energy Available
4. Priority

So how do you go about implementing this approach in the new Next Actions by Context Dashboard described at the end of this post? First you need to think about defining contexts. There is no “one size fits all” approach in the “context” of GTD — a lot depends on personal preferences as well as the set of environments you find yourself living and working in day to day.

Background
Merlin Mann’s 43folders website — the epicenter of GTD on the Web — has several essays on the topic including simplifying your contexts and context love that contain useful insights. The 43Folders discussion forum includes a 80-entry thread where dozens of people enumerate their experiences and preferences. Merlin's podcast on putting geeks in context suggests people with computer-intensive lives split things by @computer and @not-computer, and focus on the not-computer opportunities to increase the balance in their lives. Mark Wieczorek, in his post on what context do I put my next actions in, discusses various approaches to context and advocates for keeping context lists as simple as possible.

ResultsManager provides a default list of contexts which includes (Anywhere, Home, Web, Office, Computer, Travelling, Errand, When I’m alert, When I’m tired). The documentation also recommends including contexts for “Quick” things that will take less than 10 minutes and “Weekly Review” or “Monthly Review” for things that want to defer consideration on.

Personal Experience
As I have experimented over the past year or so, I’ve found three "contexts" were particularly useful. First I found my “errands” lists allowed dozens of tasks and projects to be completed or advanced with one side trip to a hardware or office supply store. That’s not rocket science, but having ResultsManager handle the cross-referencing, while I focused on individual project planning, made a difference. I often found I didn’t even need the list at hand –- just having seen it compiled earlier in the day/week was sufficient.

Second I have found that many personal project “next-actions”, reviewed on a Sunday morning, required a quick weekday phone call during “work” hours to get moving. Having several of these calls queued up for 10 minutes over lunch (when I otherwise would have stayed immersed in email triage) pushed ahead several “home” projects that otherwise would have stagnated.

Finally I have found having “Contact about/owe/owed” lists at hand to be useful in both formal 1:1 meetings and chance encounters.

A Framework
What made these these contexts different from others? The common theme is that they are items with relatively narrow opportunity windows that would otherwise compete with other options. The take home lesson is the realization that many people can probably do 80% of their “next actions” in 80% of their contexts. You might want to consider the four quadrant model below when defining the contexts you will use:

In the 1st quadrant you have context where you spend most of your time and can do most of your work (home, office, web). In the 2nd quadrant you have contexts that are available infrequently (time slots compatible with exercise, 1:1 meetings, quiet blocks of time, etc), yet have many competing tasks that can be done in them. The 3rd quadrant contains slots where you spend a relatively large amount of time (e.g. a commute, family dinner) where there is a limited set of of available activities. Finally the 4th quadrant represents contexts you find yourself infrequently and where you have limited task options.

A frequent traveler like David Allen might put “Airport” in the 1st quadrant, while for me it’s in 4 and probably not worth putting a lot of effort in trying to build a context around. These days I’d put un-networked PC time in this category as well. On the other hand, a daily commute or even family dinners might add up to enough time to think about how to use it more effectively (e.g. podcasts, family plans). The key is to be prepared to make better choices in the scarce 2rd Quadrant times and also to push some rewarding activities into underutilized 3rd quadrant time periods.

Beyond the above, it is easy to spend a bit too much time arbitrarily slicing up the 1st quadrant (e.g. home-yard, home-desk, etc.) to try to make their 100-150 item lists manageable. What can be more effective, and is probably neglected, is moving to step 2 of the criteria and thinking about the rough block of time required.

The 2nd Criteria: Time Available
I’ve break my next actions up into 3 categories of time required: 15min, 1hr, and 2 hours. I found this useful for three reasons. First it obviously helps you pick the task(s) that fit in your available time. Second, thinking about how much time something will take often sparks the recognition that the task isn’t really the next action or could be better defined. This is true of putting tasks into contexts as well. Third, when its Saturday morning and you have 2 hours to spare and are staring at a 15 minute task at the top of your list, and choose not to do it, it forces consideration of whether its due to procrastination or the realization that it’s the 1st step of a project you are not ready to move on that really should be on the someday/maybe list.

One final aspect that is merited is some differentiation between “can-do” and “should-do” for a particular situation. In this networked world, you need to create some artificial boundaries in the 1st quadrant around work, home and other areas of your life. Breaking out "area of focus” sub-lists out underneath each context can help with that.

ResultsManager Implementation
MindManager only represents time in 1 hour increments, so if you want to enumerate tasks by time available you need to utilize the Category field. If you prefer, you can instead just combine the time aspect into the context (e.g. home15, web60).

Sometimes the default various branches in the "Daily Action" dashboard can get a bit busy for printing. I've found it handy to delete all the branches except the The “Committed Next Actions” branch, remove the main topic, and then balance the map so that the context list fans out around the main topic. In order to implement the above as well as add the ability to break out sub lists by category and area, I built a "Context Dashboard" template available in the Dashboard library. This dashboard enumerates committed actions by context and “Contact about”. Note that you specify a person to contact by putting their name in the Owner field and adding a trailing @ (e.g. Bob@). If an activity has both a context and a contact, it is listed in both branches. The dashboard also enumerates a branch for activities lacking both a context and contact. It also includes a branch enumerating the tasks that are currently in the in-tray and need to be processed.

The context list is broken out by category, which in my case I currently use for time (15m, 1h, 2h). You might choose to hyphenate the time with the energy level (e.g. 2h-tired) to better follow the GTD model.

This list is further broken out by “Area” and tasks sorted by priority within those lists to complete the “decision in the moment” evaluation criteria. Overdue tasks are shown in red. This enables a large overall list to be quickly scanned for a subset like Web-15min-Home.

Note that one advantage of using the Category field for "Time Available" is that you can use the Power Filter to select only the activities with a given time requirement across several contexts from the dashboard.

Again, for printing a large dashboard, you might want to remove the main topic and balance the map to make better use of the printed page. You may also wish to review how to create a ResultsManager Dashboard and modify the filters or filter order to fit your preferences (e.g. remove layers or change their order). I have also included versions that sort by category first and a simple version that only sorts on context. Give one a try and see how it works for you.

Related posts:

1. Linking Projects to Next Actions — A ResultsManager non-issue
2. New MindReader features: the "m" tag and explicit context
3. Map2Table — Export your map branches to a linked web page table

In these meetings you want to identify activities slipping behind deadlines, review commitments you have made to each other, discuss items you've been accumulating to talk about, and quickly review the project portfolio for red flags. With this housekeeping out of the way, you ideally have some time left over to discuss project opportunities and personal development.

ResultsManager dashboards provide a means to compile raw material for meetings from MindManager project maps. For example, the "Relationship Central" portion of the default "Daily Action" dashboards provides "waiting for", "I owe", and "Contact about" for each person you interact with.

Unfortunately this covers only a subset of what you want to review in a Best Practice GTD-focused meetings with your direct reports. For example, your direct reports are likely responsible for projects that haven't been explicitly delegated by you in ResultsManager — you want to be aware of everything on their plate, particularly if things might be slipping. In addition, they may have "Contact About" items for you in project maps that need to be discussed. While you can work around this by generating daily action and review dashboards for your direct report, this becomes unwieldy to archive and is difficult to share.

In order to try to pull all the relevant information together in one place, a custom "One on One Meeting Dashboard" has been added to the site's ResultsManager Dashboard Template Library. This dashboard template breaks out a meeting agenda as follows:

1. Any Overdue activities for your direct report
2. Committments (owned by each party)
3. To be Discussed ("Contact About's" for both of you)
4. Mini-review for projects with no…
   • next steps
   • target completion date (this will surface projects that are not projects)
   • assigned priority
5. Project Overview (could be augmented to include next actions)

Here is a snapshot of sample dashboard generated from the demo maps provided with ResultsManager:

Branches with no content for a particular meeting are automatically eliminated (the trick is to put a space in front of the main topic text). The resulting dashboard can be marked up during the meeting, with changes sent back to project maps and a copy saved for future reference if desired.

Configuring the Dashboard on your system:
Unfortunately there is not a dashboard keyword (e.g. %other%) for use in single generic 1:1 dashboard. The 1:1 dashboard template described above uses a placeholder ("NAMEHERE") that must be replaced with the name of your direct report and then saved separately.

Procedure:

1. Familiarize youself with the procedure for creating a ResultsManager dashboard template.
2. Load the 1:1 dashboard template
3. Choose "Edit", "replace all", choose "options" and check off "topic text" and "notes".
4. Enter NAMEHERE in search and enter your direct report name in "Replace With". It will make 14 replacements.
5. Click on File, Properties, and replace the NAMEHERE in the subject with your direct reports name
6. Choose "File", "Save As" and save the dashboard template into your "My Dashboards" directory with name of direct report in name to differentiate it.
7. Choose "Tools", "Install ResultsManager Template", to install the template.
8. Close the dashboard template
9. Open the appropriate "Map Central", and generate the dashboard.
10. Mark it up in your meeting (sending status changes back to raw maps
11. Save the marked up dashboard to an archive directory. Make sure to include a block symbol if you are going to link to it from maps that will be scanned in the future by ResultsManager.

[Note: See the more recent post on achieving the above using a GyroQ script]

Give it a try and provide ideas and suggestions in comments below or at info@activityowner.com.

Related posts:

1. Generating a 1:1 meeting dashboard template with GyroQ
2. Creating a ResultsManager Dashboard Template
3. What's next for your team?

Gyronix recommends a "1 map per project" approach, with each project map set up with three main branches (In-tray, resources, and plan) and a central topic that spells out your vision for the desired result. In the process of converting your maps into this format, you may find many of your "projects" are not really projects in the GTD sense, but are actually "areas of focus" (see David Allen, Getting Things Done, page 205). For example, "Maintain cars", "Manage Finances", "End World Hunger" are not really projects you can finish in the near term. You may find these area-of-focus "projects" several layers deep in your map pyramid. They tend to host a pile of next actions that are not well organized toward a near term goal.

One way to quickly surface these project "imposters" is to force yourself to set rough target completion dates for for all your projects. This serves several useful purposes:

1. if you have a "project" that you can't envision an end date for, it probably isn't a project, but an area of focus.
2. If you look at a project (e.g. "clean the garage") and realistically can't see a particular need or driver to complete it in the near term, it likely belongs on a someday-maybe list. The next actions associated it are probably cluttering your lists and leading to what Nick Duffill refers to as "hot dashboards". Even worse than procrastinating on these items, you might start down the path of something you are not committed to finish. If the "next action" is "research options for project X" that may be fine, but if you "buy lumber" for the "build shed" project that turns out to be a someday/maybe, you might just end up with a both a cluttered basement and dashboard!
3. You might find that sorting your projects out by completion target shows that you are being unrealistic in terms of what you can accomplish in the near term.
4. Finally, having a target date on a low priority project that falls off the radar will force it onto your "overdue" list in your review dashboard for reevaluation.

The "Projects by Target Month" and "Projects by Target Week" dashboard templates in the Dashboard Library sort out committed projects by the target date and separately list projects lacking a target date.

You might find you have a few straggling "Area of Focus" maps that don't convert well to a one or more defined projects. You can work around this by translating them into a near term milestone. For example, "keep books up to date" might translate better toward a goal of "Complete 2006 tax return by 4/15", or "Exercise" to "get xxx workouts in before 12/31/06". If you find you are expecting to complete an unreasonable amount of projects in the next month, it may be time for a reality check.

The one pitfall of setting a lot of target dates, particularly if they are unrealistic, is that the overdue projects will show up at the top of your review dashboard. Resetting those dates can distract from the work of reviewing the projects and someday/maybes below them.

Side Note: Remember you can still group your area-of-focus projects together in dashboards by using the "Area" field in the ResultsManager edit dialog.

Related posts:

1. 2008 GTD Challenge Results
2. Committed Projects and Next Actions
3. Daily Actions Plus

The "Meeting Actions" dashboard provided with ResultsManager looks at your maps from a team-oriented view. While it is nominally advertised as providing a summary of action items from a meeting notes map, it can be used to summarize action items across a range of projects and maps linked into a map central.

The "Meeting action" dashboard can be tweaked slightly (by changing the activity filter to "X") to enumerate committed "Next Actions" by person. This dashboard can be downloaded by clicking on the image below or visiting the dashboard library.

This dashboard along with a Committed Projects and Next Actions dashboard can provide a good starting point for team-based usage of ResultsManager.

Related posts:

1. "So how are things going…?" : Setting the agenda for an effective 1 on 1 Meeting
2. Committed Projects and Next Actions
3. Generating a 1:1 meeting dashboard template with GyroQ

Note that you can add an in-tray to a map by clicking on "Map Parts", and dragging over the Gyronix In'Tray map part to be one of your main topics. I personally had not seen their utility until the advent of GyroQ.

All the activities added under that in-tray will inherit the category of "Process". That enables you to build a dashboard filter that will summarize all the activities sitting in your inventory of dashboards. One logical place to put this would be a customized "Daily Action" dashboard. Before undertaking this, you would probably find it useful to be somewhat familiar with how to create a custom dashboard template.

Steps:

1. Browse to your "My Maps/My Dashboards" directory and open the "ResultsManager Daily Actions Dashboard (Power User).mmap".
2. Choose File, Properties, and set the Subject to be a new dashboard template title (say "Customized Daily Actions Template". Insert "Customized" into the comments section for your own reference.
3. "Save As" the file back to the "My Dashboards" directory with a new filename (say "Customized Daily Actions Template.mmap").
4. Insert a series of dashboard filters as shown below. The notes on the category filters should be "Process" and "Not In-tray". The optional "Area" filter enumerates any "areas" the tasks are inheriting from the parent map they reside in. This can be used to group related items from several maps together in a meaningful way (in case you have to prioritize your triage rather than follow David Allen's recommended GTD method of strictly working from the top of the pile).

   If you want the "To Be Processed" branch to disappear in maps when it is empty, you can used the undocumented trick of adding a space before the " To be…".

5. Choose "Tools", "Install ResultsManager Template" to install the dashboard.
6. Navigate to a map central page and choose "File, Create ResultsManager Dashboard".

   
   
   If you are lazy, you can just Download the dashboard template directly.

   Once you have generated the dashboard, you'll have a summary of any open items in your maps and can then just check them off in place if you've gotten them done already (by choosing "Topic, Set Activity Complete") or click though the hyperlink and deal with them on the raw map.

   - –
   I've subsequenty realized that the "sweep up" dashboard has similar functionality. Having not used in-trays prior to GyroQ, I hadn't understood the purpose of this map previously.

   Related posts:

   1. ResultsManager In-trays
   2. Daily Actions Plus
   3. "So how are things going…?" : Setting the agenda for an effective 1 on 1 Meeting
   ]]> http://www.activityowner.com/2006/09/19/its-10-oclock-do-you-know-where-your-in-trays-are/feed/ 0 http://www.activityowner.com/2006/09/14/creating-a-resultsmanager-dashboard-template/ http://www.activityowner.com/2006/09/14/creating-a-resultsmanager-dashboard-template/#comments Thu, 14 Sep 2006 11:16:03 +0000 ActivityOwner http://www.activityowner.com/2006/09/14/creating-a-resultsmanager-dashboard-template/
7. Building a Custom ResultsManager Dashboard
8. Generating a 1:1 meeting dashboard template with GyroQ
9. Committed Projects and Next Actions

The preinstalled "Review" dashboard, among other things, provides a branch that enumerates committed projects by area and their underlying sub-projects. It is often useful to take that one step further and be able to view the "Next Actions" associated with each project. This can be achieved by downloading a custom "Committed Projects and next Actions" dashboard.
Place this in your "My Dashboards" folder (underneath "My Maps"), open it in MindManager, and then select "Tools", "Install ResultsManager Template". You should now have a new dashboard template option called "Committed Projects and Next Actions".

This dashboard isn't configured to filter by person, so it will list all the projects visible to your map central, regardless of who owns them.

Example:

Given this sample map central:

The template generates the dashboard below:

The actual series of filters used to generate the dashboard looks like this:

Give it a try and let us know how it works for you. Note that this template generates large dashboards that consume quite a bit of time and memory to produce an tax the MindManager software. Launch the dashboard generation and take a break. You should upgrade to the latest versions of MindManager and ResultsManager before using as earlier versions have stability issues with large dashboards.

Related posts:

1. Creating a ResultsManager Dashboard Template
2. Daily Actions Plus
3. What's next for your team?