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Sorting

jsteehl says:
Tasks are by default sorted by 1)Priority (highest to lowest), 2) Due Date (upcoming first), 3) Task Name (alphabetically).

Sometime you want to view task by priority... let me see all my P1s.

Sometimes you want to see by due date... let me see what is due today first.

Sometimes you want to see alpha... I start my tasks with a outline numbering system 1, 2, 3, 3.1, 4. The cool thing is that I can insert a task between 2 and 3 by creating a "2.1 do this" task. So it supports numbering. I always know my next step. Cool!
Posted at 6:07pm on November 4, 2005
Launched
emily (Remember The Milk) says:
We've introduced sorting; please see our blog post.
Posted 16 years ago
ranbarton Power Poster says:
Toggling between date and priority would be great
Posted 18 years ago
emily (Remember The Milk) says:
Thanks for the suggestion - we'll be looking at making the sorting more flexible in the future.

Does anyone else have different ways that they'd like to be able to sort their lists? We'd love to hear feedback on this.
Posted 18 years ago
hi.mary says:
Being able to sort them like this would be awesome:
http://tool-man.org/examples/sorting.html
Posted 18 years ago
ranbarton Power Poster says:
Sorting by number of times postponed and sorting by creation date are two other useful ideas that come right to mind.

Of course, it'd be great to perform these sorts either within one category/list, or across all of them.

Ran
Posted 18 years ago
tony.steward says:
It would be good to be able to sort by the estimated time for each task. That way you could get an idea of what short tasks you can do versus the bigger projects you have through your day/week.
Posted 18 years ago
rachelnunson says:
I would LOVE to be able to only see the tasks that I have due for today, or today and tomorrow, for each list.
Posted 18 years ago
steve.thomas says:
Sorting is good, but I would also like to be able to specify the order. For example having a reorder (ie: User specific sort) link that refreshes the list with little arrows nect to each task. The arrows would allow you to:
- Move up one
- Move down one
- Move to Top of list
- Move to Bottom of list

Practical uses for this would be if you have a series of steps to complete for a particular list item, they can be ordered. I would also like to see sub-tasks that could be ordered but thats for a separate post. This goes to what jsteele commented on about knowing what his next task is.

Regarding thoughts on sorting I have read so far, there are any number of ways to do this from clickable column headers to views to ??? I would prefer views as each person probably has there own unique ways of wanting to look at thier lists and views would support that. That said clickable column headers are simpler and more intuitive. I wish you much luck and clear thinking in your design decisions.

Thanks for a great product!!!
Posted 18 years ago
ryangwu82 says:
I'd really like to have tasks sorted by due date first, then priority. I have a lot of high-priority tasks which aren't relevant for a year or more. But since everyone uses the system differently, configurable sorting would probably be the best approach.
Posted 18 years ago
luc0zade says:
Yes, an simple option to toggle between sorting 'dates before priority' and the existing 'priority before dates' view would be a first step. Although one advantage of the current system is that you're discouraged from having too many '1' priority tasks, so it does make you think carefully about whether really a task really is of the highest priority.
Posted 18 years ago
rakesh says:
Personally, I prefer tasks being ordered first by date and then priority. In line with this, I do not allocate priority to my tasks as it makes my task lists pretty chaotic to look at.

I like to think along the lines of: 1 have ten tasks today and from those ten the 1st two are top priority, followed by 3 of medium priority and lastly 2 of low priority.

For me the -|task>
Posted 18 years ago
rakesh says:
Edit: task>
Posted 18 years ago
rakesh says:
Edit: task-date axis is important

At last! P H E W!
Posted 18 years ago
neilgriffin says:
Additional options for ordering I would like to see;
- order tasks manually
- last task added goes to bottom
Posted 18 years ago
ranbarton Power Poster says:
I am reluctant to chime in on this again, as the tags and smart lists make it clear how hard you have been working, but as I migrate to one unified list that relies on tags for my sub-lists, the utility of variable sorting becomes clearer and clearer. By my count, in the RTM Ideas Forums alone, there are 11 threads on this issue. I am posting in this thread as it is the most active of them all.

You'll be glad to realize that the new features have accomplished several of the requests that appear on this page, but others (e.g., sort by date, then priority) are still very tricky to accomplish.
Posted 18 years ago
emily (Remember The Milk) says:
Ran, we have some features in mind to address more of the requests on the forum. We're taking things one step at a time, but plan to get there eventually :)
Posted 18 years ago
msg35 says:
Emily, thanks a lot for all the hard work you, Omar and Bob T. put on this. I have advertised this website to everybody around campus because I thin it is one of the best web 2.0 apps around.
As other people in this thread, I would love to have the ability to sort tasks in other ways. For me, the possibility of dragging and dropping tasks as in http://tool-man.org/examples/sorting.html would be wonderful and so would the possibility of sorting tasks by date then priority and having them shown this way in the weekly planner and the overview section. I also thought it'd be a nice feature (though not essential) if we could include in the due date more or less generic terms for periods of the day (monday morning, tomorrow evening, tuesday early afternoon wednesday late night). Well, hope this helps. Thanks a gain.
Posted 18 years ago
msg35 says:
ps: when I say sorting by due date, I really mean due date/hour...
Posted 18 years ago
emily (Remember The Milk) says:
msg35, thanks for the suggestions! Thanks for telling people about us too :)

The only problem with doing more generic terms for due dates/times is that we wouldn't know when to remind you of tasks that are due 'Monday morning' etc. To some people, 'Monday morning' might mean 8am, but to others it might mean 11am.
Posted 18 years ago
msg35 says:
i can see your point about reminders for generic terms. i havent used the reminders functions very much, but i'll check how it works and think a bit about this.
Posted 18 years ago
norei says:
Also, for the Weekly Planner, it'd be nice if they were grouped by list. E.g. Tomorrow I need to 1. go to the grocery store(errands list), 2. email a friend(computer list) 3. return something at the grocery store(errands list), 4. go to the post office(errands list), 5. do my laundry(home list). It'd be nice if the Weekly planner grouped them by list so I'd know that when I go to the grocery store I need to buy groceries AND return that item. Thanks~ I really like RTM.
Posted 18 years ago
pthistleton says:
I love using remember the milk but I am not a fan of setting priorities on my tasks. To reiterate Steve's suggestions I would like the ability to manually sort the list. I review my list twice daily and rearrange tasks against my schedule. A simple saved sort with move tasks up/down and top of list/bottom of list is all I am looking for.
Posted 17 years ago
ccaine says:
As I see my list getting longer with a lot of items that don't have due dates, being able to view the list sorted by create date would allow me to get a handle on what has been languishing on my list for a long time.

I've posted a bunch of comments to this forum over the last few days and just want to let the RTM folks know that it is because I like RTM so much!
Posted 17 years ago
emily (Remember The Milk) says:
ccaine, just wanted to say thanks for your feedback here. We don't get the chance to respond to every suggestion (as I'm sure that people would much rather we were working on new features instead of discussing them :) but we do promise that we read and consider all suggestions.
Posted 17 years ago
gmonty says:
I also think drag and drop option would be great.
Posted 17 years ago
bpatters7 says:
yeah internally tracked 'move up and down' order is the only significant thing lacking for me. thanks for the great tool!
Posted 17 years ago
bpatters7 says:
if you had an issue tracker like JIRA people could vote on features and you could prioritize features that way for this great tool. It would be free to your project. If that interests you let me know.
Posted 17 years ago
bkudria says:
I think it would also be nice for Emily and/or Omar to make their lists public...that way, we know just what they are working on!
Posted 17 years ago
bradb says:
I would like an easy way to adjust the sort order precedence.

Sometimes I want 1) pri, 2) due date

and other times I want 1) due date and 2) pri

and I would like a quick easy way to switch back and forth between different sort orders.

Thanks!
Posted 17 years ago
shark says:
I just want to say that having the ability to have my list in any order, and being able to reorder it on the fly (via drag 'n drop would be a cool manner in which to do so) would make this the perfect site for me.

As it stands now, the manner in which I want to create my lists is completely impossible on this site, which is unfortunate.For example, I want a to-do list for remodeling my bathroom.

Choose new wall color
Choose new faucet
Choose new mirror

Buy new wall paint
Buy new faucet
Buy new mirror

Remove old shelves
Remove old sink
Remove old mirror

Prime walls
Paint walls

Etc...

So the issue is, 1) I can't sort by priority as there are not enough, 2) I can't sort by date because I'm not going to assign a date, some of these just get done when they get done, and 3) Alphabetizing this list is just wrong ('Choose' would come before 'Buy', 'Paint' would come before ‘Prime', etc).

So until I can order these items the way I want, RTM is just not usable for me :/
Posted 17 years ago
bradb says:
I second shark's comments re: "the ability to have my list in any order, and being able to reorder it on the fly (via drag 'n drop would be a cool manner in which to do so) would make this the perfect site"
Posted 17 years ago
shk says:
If shark's idea would be implemented (organizing lists freely using drag n' drop), I think separators would help too.
Posted 17 years ago
trcb says:
Drag and drop would be the way to go. Thank you for your hard work.
Posted 17 years ago
nsahoo says:
I posted some thoughts in a separate thread that might be relevant to the discussion in this thread.

http://www.rememberthemilk.com/forums/ideas/1152/

Posted 17 years ago
biz says:
I'm new to RTM. After reading this thread, I think I'll apply the Franklin Planner system to RTM, meaning I'll hold off prioritize Tasks until my "Planning & Solitude" time to focus on the day ahead. (Some people do P&S each evening, for the next day. I prefer to do P&S first thing each morning, for the current day.) That way, today's Tasks will sort highest, followed by Tasks due tomorrow, the next day, and thereafter.

By the way, in the Franklin Planner system, P&S is a daily top-priority Task!
Posted 17 years ago
deichkind says:
Just to add my two cents here: I'd like to have the possibility to order by 1) date and 2) priority because this would normaly be the order I like to complete my tasks.
Posted 17 years ago
1jerry says:
@shark: the original poster shows you the solution, prefix your descriptions with a sortable number (IE 1.1, 1.2)

@ccane: I usually put the date I add the task before the description (in mmdd format) so they all sort by the date I entered them (IE '0902 buy pears', '1001 pay bills').

You could combine these by starting with the sort order, and placing the date somewhere in the title. (2.2 Buy new mirror 1006). Low tech, but it works.
Posted 17 years ago
vicentginer says:
About the question "Does anyone else have different ways that they'd like to be able to sort their lists? We'd love to hear feedback on this." that Emily asked nearly one year ago, I have to say:

- For the list view, it would be great to have a geneal "sort" feature (ie, more fields/columns shown in the list, and when you click on "due", for exemple, you sort the items by due day, etc.), and also that feature suggested by "steve.thomas" (some kind of "up" and "down" arrows), so that you have a full control over the order you want your tasks to be shown.

- For the special case of a Smart List, created by means of an Advanced Search, I suggest to include a "ORDER BY" command operator (I already told you in another thread).
Posted 17 years ago
diskostu says:
I second customizable sort criterias.
For me, the current sort critera "priority->due date->due time->name" is kind of annoying, as I'd rather like to have "due date->due time->priority->name".
Posted 17 years ago
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