[Sapphie]

Has anyone moved from using Life Balance as their 'to do list or GTD generator' to Bonsai?
If so, could you share the reasons and experiences?

I am a long-time LB user but am curious about Bonsai, especially with the recent
edition of the Next Action filter. Bonsai filters are more powerful but are the products
really aimed at the same target?

Thanks
Lee

[logan]

Hello Lee,

I just moved from Life Balance (LB) to Bonsai. I have a GTD list now that contains all my ToDos.

The reason why...
After reading again David Allens GTD book, I thought about simplifications of my current planning setup. I didn't like that there is no progress in LB development anymore and I wanted to gain more control about what I do. LB became more and more a swamp of important todos, maybe/someday things, project lists (that were not really there for me) and things that were to be discussed with certain people. I still like LB and I think Bonsai should go on providing more functionality in this direction.
1. A item could not be linked to a person
2. There is still some kind of mystical thing around the list of tasks in LB
3. With Bonsai, I can decide to have different lists (if required). E.g. for Shopping lists which is for me no GTD topic.
4. Full flexibility with filters in Bonsai
5. Icon support
6. Keywords allow me to create my own problem/solution space
7. Back2Bonsai integration with e.g. my Agendus datebook
8. With Version 4 of Bonsai I got the "next action" option for a project (with more flexibility than in LB via Filter)
9. A more modern UI in Bonsai
10. A strategic relation to Daynotez. Daynotez is very well supported by LB, too. But I expect that the degree of interoperability between Daynotez and Bonsai will grow.
11. I really like the filter option to see all results in a flat list and not in the hierarchy.
12. Colors for items are cool. E.g. they allow me to see what is recently inboxed and not processed stuff.
13. I can see the progress of a project in its task bar. In LB you are forced to define the steps of a project, but I am forced to do this too and can see the progress by just having a look at the projects task bar in the project list.

I switched to Bonsai last weekend. There are still some "open topics" for me to solve which are more methodological questions:
1. How will I deal with "things to talk about with <person X>"
2. What will I do with the finished projects/tasks?
3. How many filters will I need/will I really use. For this I could imagine having some filters for all day use and some filters for reviews at the weekend. I assume I'd like to have at least two reviews in a week. I think I prefer at least two due to the environment and constellations I am involved in my job in the office.
4. (How) Will I keep office and private things separated. Will I use different filters?
5. I intend to create todos for items that I really want to do after a review. Having all of my Next Actions on my todo list would be too much and too frustrating (no light at the end of the tunnel).
6. Today, I have a simple structure with single items and projects which have sets of items. I do not use a structure deeper than 2 levels to keep things simple.
7. How will I use the quite promising concept of views in Bonsai.
8. Not one of my todos has a priority. I leave this still up to the current situation. The reviews will get this straight if requried.
9. I am able to link to another outline if required. Currently, I have no place in my to be built methodology for this, but I'll find one.

So... Lee, this is all that I can tell you right now. My plan for this week is to go on with my methodology to optimize it. For this, I am still developing use cases for testing and verification.

Best wishes form Germany,
Logan

[jliddil]

As a current LB user I to have begun towonder about it's lack of development. Have come across any major issues that Bonsai can't handle. I see that Bonsai can't do repeating to dos'. I used Datebk6 so I can work around this due to the enhancements DB6 now has. Any other insights you can provide?

[logan]

Hello Lee,

Sorry for not responding to you earlier. But I hope what I've written below will actually give you something.

I have found some answers to my open topics:

1. How will I deal with "things to talk about with <person X>"
>> There are two kinds of items that are interesting in the setup I described previously. "Next Action" items and "waiting for" items. "Waiting for" items in my case are always related to a contact (a person). In my work environment I always have waiting fors that are waiting for people. There are also some Next Action items that I can not do or finish without a certain person. But it is up to me to initiate or start with this kind of items. In Bonsai, you can use a filter to display items (next action OR waiting for) which have a contact (*). The items get ordered by the filter "by contact". With this, I can easily see what I have to do with what person. If e.g. there is a phone call with a certain person, I just enable the filter and look for items related to that person. That's it. By this, I always know what things I have to bring to someone elses attention. (Feel free to ask if you require the filter settings)

2. What will I do with the finished projects/tasks?
>> By now I am just happy when they are finished. In my setup I use colors to mark completed items in grey color. I used a color which still allows me to read the text, but does not get too much attention when I have a look at the unfiltered list. Recently, I read a book about how to be successful... that mentioned to create a success diary. Probably I cut/paste the finished projects in a separate Bonsai document. This document can serve as a project diary, too. At the end of the year you can show this to your boss if he/she askes what you've done during the year.

3. How many filters will I need/will I really use. For this I could imagine having some filters for all day use and some filters for reviews at the weekend. I assume I'd like to have at least two reviews in a week. I think I prefer at least two due to the environment and constellations I am involved in my job in the office.
>> Currently, I actively use the following ones:
- Next Actions
- Project List
- Maybe/Someday
- Things to Talk about

4. (How) Will I keep office and private things separated. Will I use different filters?
>> By now I actively use Bonsai for office things. I have the vague idea to use Life Balance for higher level private planning. On the other hand, I don't really want to work with two different systems. I HAVE HEARD THAT bosses and my business environments can force someone to switch to the most flexible Bonsai solution instead of Life Balance. Life Balance told me to do the right things in the right order. Unfortunately, I do not have the power nor the position to decide about importance vs. urgency. I HAVE HEARD THAT some bosses still are not able to make out the difference between importance and urgency and are not using any structured planning at all. There is so much to do...

5. I intend to create todos for items that I really want to do after a review. Having all of my Next Actions on my todo list would be too much and too frustrating (no light at the end of the tunnel).
>> I dropped using my palm to do list. Everything I do is within one Bonsai outline. Maybe when I have reached the next level of independency and profefssionaliy I will be able to use this approach again.

6. Today, I have a simple structure with single items and projects which have sets of items. I do not use a structure deeper than 2 levels to keep things simple.
>> I have already made exceptions by creaing checklists below items in case there is a very difficult and highly sensitive item to solve. Then I created a Task item with sub-To Dos. But all the items below the 2nd level did not become a project. In most cases they were Next Actions.

7. How will I use the quite promising concept of views in Bonsai.
>> I have no answer to this yet. Haven't taken some time to investigate this, yet. Would like to include the font size in a saved view. But this is document specific not view specific. Pity.

8. Not one of my todos has a priority. I leave this still up to the current situation. The reviews will get this straight if requried.
>> Funny, I have never required the usage of priorities, yet. I should take some time to investigate the impact on my current behaviour on long term goals.

9. I am able to link to another outline if required. Currently, I have no place in my to be built methodology for this, but I'll find one.
>> No use for this yet. Outlines are too important things in my mind. Still there is no place for this. You could use this for the checklists I mentioned in topic 6. Maybe this would simplify things. I haven't required this too often, yet.


Best whishes,
Logan

PS: Maybe there are things that you have in mind or methodological topics/problems that could be interesting for me, too. Please tell me about them.

[Sapphie]

Hello Logan

Thank you for your very useful comments and please accept my apologies for the
delay in response.

I did purchase Bonsai as I was still 'experimenting' when the eval period ran out!

I like a lot about Bonsai - filtering, use of colour, seperate outlines, export capabilities etc but I decided
to go back to LB. And guess what? I am still dithering! Probably just a technique for
Avoiding Getting Things Done (AGTD)!

What I find really useful in LB is the way it handle recurring dates and its 'Happens routinely'.
Admittedly I do use these mostly for home things rather than work but it is useful
to have 'check car oil' happens once per month and all I have to do is tick it off and wait for
next time.

Similarly, birthdays and anniversaries: 'Buy present 10 days before birthday on such a date,
and can be made to promptt annually in combination with the datebook'.

This is also useful though for 'have team meeting every month'

I can find no way to do this in Bonsai easily - it is difficult, you need to tick it off, manually change
next date, reset completed etc.

Maybe the solution is to treat the above as Hard Landscape stuff and just use the calendar
to jolt one's memory. I suppose if I reviewed up and coming calendar stuff sufficiently
in advance, nothing would fall through the cracks.

I quite like LB's 'link from datebook'option where you can import your meetings etc
and have them in your LB outline ... though admittedly this is often just too much
effort to keep up to date. I did try just adding the next 2 weeks up and coming meetings
into Bonsai manually - just so I could create a filter that just listed up and coming meeting
dates. I guess that's no more effort than using the LB method.

BTW, one thing about Bonsai that makes me cross is that you cannot 'undo' a sort, at least
not on the Palm ...

So, hmn, quandary ... I may revisit Bonsai and try again.

Best wishes
Lee