How can we improve DGT GTD?

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reorder tasks in a project

It would be great if I could reorder the tasks in a project by dragging and dropping or assigning a sequence number or picking from a list of precedents and indicating that this task goes before or after. When you have a project, you need to identify the next action. Putting tasks in order of execution and including precedents when necessary lets you quickly see what needs to be done next.

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    Tim shared this idea  ·   ·  Admin →

    23 comments

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      • JTB commented  · 

        I need to be able to specify complex dependencies that are not tied to dates, without having to resort to prefixing titles of projects with numbers.
        I'm working without external deadlines, just standards that have to be met, but I want to specify what tasks depend on which other subprojects being completed. I need to be able to order them by dragging, otherwise it's hard for me to keep track of all the tasks. The tasks are really project-level complexity, not just checklists. Is there any way this can be done?
        On the other hand, sooner is better than later for the appearance of the beta version. It doesn't have to be perfect.

      • JTB commented  · 

        Thank you for adding this to the beta! I am often in Daniel's position.

      • Daniel commented  · 

        disagree with Dave, the point of a GTD next action is that you can get it done ASAP within context. If it's that meticulous a project that you should define specific dates for every action, you should be using something like MS Project - or your calendar. Very few of my personal projects need this level of detail, however sequencing is inherent in any chain of events ... eg DA's classic get tyres example, you make a call to a friend for the tyre place number then call the tyre place to get the price, then arrange time to go ... none of these necessarily need to be done on at or by specific times (unless your tyres are really shot, of course) ... but they can't be done out of *order* ...

        I could of course just set the next action flag and go from there, but in the weekly review I don't want to have to think "so which action was next?" if I'm working through the "clear & current" phase...

      • Admindgtale (Admin, DGT GTD) commented  · 

        I agree with Dave.
        Anyway in the beta version you will find the "manual" sort order (the wording may change when the beta will be released).

      • Dave H. commented  · 

        In my humble opinion if you need this feature, you're doing it wrong.
        In GTD, it's about seeing first what you can work on right now. The solution is to set due dates for the tasks in the project in whatever order you want to tackle the. This has multiple positive consequences:
        * The app already allows to sort according to due date, giving you what you want
        * You make commitments to single, atomic parts of your project, so you don't have tree issue where the parent project lands in the hotlist and gets noticed too late to be able to complete all subtasks, because they didn't have a due date and thus were never hotlisted.

        As of now, I find it works perfectly. Project planning is SUPPOSED to force you into setting dates for parts of the projects which get done OVER TIME.
        If you want to list items for just one session of work ( no due dates for each part) use a checklist!

      • martin commented  · 

        Very important for me too!
        I would like a fine-grained ordering of the task like Jira Greenhopper.
        If possible not only in Projects but everywhere (Coming form agile I would like 1 Backlog ;)

        Love it on the cecklist - so hoping for this functionality to appear everywhere :)

      • Heechee commented  · 

        Ahhh reminds me of programming in BASIC on the C64. ;-)

      • BK commented  · 

        here's a way i solved this problem......i use numbers order my tasks in order for

        example

        010 Pay Phone Bill
        020 Buy the Stuff
        030 Build the ark
        040 Check on Ann
        050 Play the Pipe

        Since DTG does order your tasks based on ur titles this does work. and i bet most of u are asking how do i reorder this task if something does change or if i want to add something in the middle. Look at the following example.

        Lets say i want to add something in between 10 and 20

        010 Pay Phone Bill

        015 Plan Trip

        020 Buy the Stuff
        030 Build the ark
        040 Check on Ann
        050 Play the Pipe

        Just add a number between em and bam DTG Places em between em.
        and if you wan to reorder your tasks just change the number of the task you want to reorder to the number between the task you want it to be

        so if you want to change 30 Build arks order

        010 Pay Phone Bill
        020 Buy the Stuff
        040 Check on Ann

        047 Build Ark
        050 Play the Pipe

        and so on...... Hope this Helps

        Still think DTG is the Best GTD app so far......Keep up the good work.

      • Dream commented  · 

        Drag and dropping is a very important feature. Apps without this just seem more rigid and less user friendly. Being able to change the order using drag and drop in Checklists but not in Projects seems unintuitive.

      • Volker commented  · 

        Manual reordering would be great, using drag and drop.

      • Simon Huggins commented  · 

        The drag-and-drop idea is the one that works the best. I used to do this on my old Windows Smartphone about 8 years ago, but sadly the OS has been dropped now. Behind the scenes each item has an ID number, and the dragging & dropping changes the number on each item. In terms of syncing I don't know how this would work though. Maybe the title could have a 0 padded number prefix followed by a dash or colon, which then gets 'stripped' and loaded into the 'order' field when syncing back.
        Anyhow, yes I used to use the reordering thing a lot to priotitize work for the following day so I knew the sequence of events I would be doing, even if I didn't know exactly how long they would take.

      • Mir commented  · 

        It would be good if I could define sorting rules: Sorting by first priority or by first status or by first...

      • Cindyg0802 commented  · 

        Any way to set the order tasks appear would be great. At the very least could you explain the default ordering system so we can work with it.

      • Ros. Riha commented  · 

        as projects are constantly moving up and down the list according to priorities and due dates of subtasks, at least an option to keep at least projects in fixed order is needed...

      • Javier commented  · 

        Hi. I proposed something very similar in march last year, and it is planned.
        Look for "Automatic Next Action".
        I agree with you that it would be very helpful.

      • Geo Mealer commented  · 

        Toodledo allows manually ordering subtasks, which would be the normal way to do "tasks in a project."

      • Lev Shchit commented  · 

        +1!!! It`s very-very useful! Especially with paul`s comment. And I think it will be better, if tasks will be grouped by project in widjet list too.

      • Dave commented  · 

        If I'm not mistaken, Toodledo doesn't support manually ordering tasks, making this less useful for those who use DGT as a front end for it.

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