Forums

Discuss all things Remember The Milk.

menu

Sort by time estimate

bdturner says:
Suprised no-one has asked about this before, but would it be possible to sort by time estimate ?

Would be nice to look at my carefully crafted smart list of tasks and be able to scan the quick and slow tasks quickly, without running the cursor over each task.

Equally, can the time estimate be shown on the task (like tags optionally can be) ?
Posted at 6:19pm on November 19, 2007
Launched
emily (Remember The Milk) says:
This sorting option (and more!) are available in the new Remember The Milk. Thanks for everyone's feedback on this!
Posted 8 years ago
mclazarus says:
This sat here for a while without generating any interest. But the way I use RTM I would find this quite useful too.

I have set up smart lists called 15, 30, 60 that give me things that are 15 or less, 30 or less, 60 or less. So based on available time I can choose tasks wisely, but rather than setting up more smart lists with ranges it would be nice to have them sorted in those lists so if I have an hour available, I can look at one list and chose to knock out 5 or 6 little tasks, or get done one big task.
Posted 16 years ago
raymond.bergmark Power Poster says:
A nice search keyword would be sortBy: where you could add for example timeEstimate, priority, dueDate, tag (difficult as a task can have many tags), etc.

Would make the smart lists even smarter!
Posted 16 years ago
ranbarton Power Poster says:
Implementing sort as part of SmartList has a lot of potential. I would hope that when power-sorting finally appears in RTM (when, not if, he says hopefully), that it will support specifying multiple criteria for the sorting [sort by due date, then priority, then by time estimate (ascending)] for example.
Posted 16 years ago
gyarra says:
+1 to sort by time estimate on all lists.

This seems like a useful, standard feature and reasonable request. It's a little unlikely to expect the average user to create a smart list just to be able to sort by estimate.

I'd also request that there be an option to display time estimate directly on a task w/o having to mouse over the task.
Posted 15 years ago
skip.knox says:
Another vote for sorting by time estimate. And a total. That way I can see if my tasks for a given day are exceeding the number of hours in the day!
This is actually important, as then I know that I need to start moving tasks around.
Posted 15 years ago
(closed account) says:
i agree sorting by time estimate would be a nice feature.

+1
Posted 15 years ago
ranbarton Power Poster says:
For all sorts of links to years' of great sorting suggestions and ideas, see this thread:
http://www.rememberthemilk.com/forums/ideas/6289/
Posted 15 years ago
susan.luke says:
+1 would love to see the time estimate in the task list.

It's satisfying to see the sum of all the time estimates against each list and (sometimes!) get it to slowly decrease. The only problem is you have to remember to assign a time estimate to every task, and it's hard work to check if there are any tasks without associated times, as you have to hover over every single one.
Posted 15 years ago
andy.raffle says:
Susan,

I have a smart list ("fix") with this query:

isTagged:false OR (NOT timeEstimate:"> 0")

It shows any tasks which have no tag or no time estimate. You can easily expand it to show tasks with no location or due date if those are also important to you.
Posted 15 years ago
susan.luke says:
Thanks, that gets round things. Now I've got a smart list has search criteria:

list:Work AND NOT timeEstimate:"> 0"

Posted 15 years ago
jsimonellileo says:
this doesnt necessarily sort them, but from here I add tags to the results

due:today (timeEstimate:"> 0") AND (timeEstimate:"< 10min")
due:today AND (timeEstimate:"> 10min") AND (timeEstimate:"< 20min")
due:today (timeEstimate:"> 25min") AND (timeEstimate:"< 45min")
due:today (timeEstimate:"> 45min") AND (timeEstimate:"< 1hr")
due:today (timeEstimate:"> 1hr") AND (timeEstimate:"< 2hr")
due:today (timeEstimate:"> 2hr") AND (timeEstimate:"< 3hr")
due:today (timeEstimate:"> 3hr") AND (timeEstimate:"< 4hr")
due:today (timeEstimate:"> 4hr") AND (timeEstimate:"< 5hr")


Since when I am at work it may vary if I have 5 minutes, 10, 30, 45 minutes free to do something, or things may change I use this to make it work as a makeshift smart list

Posted 15 years ago
chia.chen says:
I concur. But I think it would be immensely useful to take it a little further and have RTM provide "optimized" suggestions for how to spend a user-specified block of time. For example, if I tell RTM I've got 30 minutes, it should give me a 2 or 3 options for how to use that time (e.g., 10 minute tasks or 1 30 minute task) based on criteria like: priority, elapsed time since todo entered and possibly number of times postponed.
Posted 15 years ago
mildfuzz says:
I'd dig this feature!!
Posted 15 years ago
krissy says:
Thanks for the suggestion! I'll check and see if it's on the list already - if not, I will add it now.
Posted 15 years ago
bamiller says:
I would love to have the time estimate shown in the list and be able to sort by time. Not having the time estimate is one of the reasons I'm still looking for for different task management options.
Posted 15 years ago
bdturner says:
I'm looking at this again - 1 year into my GTD implementation and I notice a lot of my tasks are getting buried because I don't have any graphical way of displaying or sorting on the time estimates.

Estimated time seems still very much a second (or perhaps even third) class citizen in RTM - is anything planned to promote it forward ? Even something as simple as when I select multiple tasks, it shows me the total time estimates of them (helping me plan which tasks I am going to focus on that day / hour / evening).

I see various hot topics on swimlanes, time taken and other reporting metrics, but these all seem unlikely to happen with time estimate as it is.
Posted 15 years ago
lukewarming says:
One more vote to get sorting by time and sum of total time going!
Posted 15 years ago
ranbarton Power Poster says:
Sorting, as it exists, was not originally part of RTM. It was added on 8/1/07, and those three sort options (priority, date, alphabetical) are much better than nothing, but...

These boards are littered with threads by people suggesting different sorting schemes. A very non-comprehensive list follows, including several that ask for just what you desire...

http://www.rememberthemilk.com/forums/ideas/279/
http://www.rememberthemilk.com/forums/ideas/552/
http://www.rememberthemilk.com/forums/ideas/783/
http://www.rememberthemilk.com/forums/ideas/1448/
http://www.rememberthemilk.com/forums/ideas/1547/
http://www.rememberthemilk.com/forums/ideas/1891/
http://www.rememberthemilk.com/forums/ideas/1910/
http://www.rememberthemilk.com/forums/ideas/2243/
http://www.rememberthemilk.com/forums/ideas/2514/
http://www.rememberthemilk.com/forums/ideas/2854/
http://www.rememberthemilk.com/forums/ideas/2856/
http://www.rememberthemilk.com/forums/ideas/2879/
http://www.rememberthemilk.com/forums/ideas/3145/
http://www.rememberthemilk.com/forums/ideas/3158/
http://www.rememberthemilk.com/forums/ideas/3206/
http://www.rememberthemilk.com/forums/ideas/3233/
http://www.rememberthemilk.com/forums/ideas/3742/
http://www.rememberthemilk.com/forums/ideas/3835/
http://www.rememberthemilk.com/forums/ideas/3989/
http://www.rememberthemilk.com/forums/help/4043/
http://www.rememberthemilk.com/forums/ideas/4472/
http://www.rememberthemilk.com/forums/ideas/5062/
http://www.rememberthemilk.com/forums/ideas/6289/
http://www.rememberthemilk.com/forums/ideas/6368/
http://www.rememberthemilk.com/forums/ideas/7226/

So when you hear cranky ol' timers lament that the UI of the RTM site has lain dormant while other things have been attended to - GMail, iPhone, &c. - this is exactly the sort of thing we're talking about. I really hope some basic things, like per-list, multi-variate, customizable sorting, are addressed before Bob turns his attention to Outlook syncing, for example.

* The idea that smartlists have access to an operator that would specify sorting is one of the many great ideas found in the threads above. I think that would help make RTM's best feature even better.
Posted 15 years ago
buckbrody says:
sortBy would be a great addition to smart lists
Posted 15 years ago
bebob says:
Another vote for sorting by time estimate and displaying it next to the task.
Posted 15 years ago
trinagr says:
Oddly enough, when I put "sort by time estimate" in the search field, I got no results. I only found this thread by looking for sort.

Another vote for wanting to more easily sort by time estimate!
Posted 15 years ago
hjuan99 says:
+1 for displaying time estimates next to tasks and for sorting by time estimates
Posted 15 years ago
cspost says:
I would like to see power-sorting and or sorting by time too.
Posted 14 years ago
(closed account) says:
+1 for sorting!!! PLEASE add!
Posted 14 years ago
patch says:
+1
Posted 14 years ago
(closed account) says:
I ALSO WOULD LOVE SORTING BY TIME ESTIMATE, OR EVEN SMARTLIST WITH SORTING CRITERIA.

1+
Posted 14 years ago
mufftin says:
+5
Posted 14 years ago
folke1883 says:
I agree that time estimates should be:
1) visible in the list
2) available as a sorting parameter.

As for its visibility I would appreciate an option to display it not as a number but as a graphic - for example, 8 different shades of gray in a bar on the right (similar to the colored priority indication on the left) . This would make it much easier to see the overall picture quickly while still being accurate enough, at least for my needs. My own time estimates are usually not very exact anyway, so there is no need to get lost in the exact numbers, especially if they blur the picture.

Actually, in my opinion, it would be better and simpler if not just the display mechanism, but also the very entry of time estimates, was available as a (hot-keyable?) "time class" in say, 8 levels. Then it would be possible for me (each user) to to have my (his) own definition, say, "time requerement: 3".

The only thing in RTM that is more important to me than this would be to have more priority levels available - 4 is not enough for my needs. Either simply have more levels (like 1-8 or 1-16, all with differnt colors etc, or, probably much better, something like an a, b (,c,d) sublevel grading of each priority level, with uniform grapical markers of the sublevel (say, a bullet of different sizes in the colored priority bar).
Posted 14 years ago
cindybertaut says:
I sure would love to have the time estimate more viewable (like tags). Right now it still takes some effort to see if I've overscheduled my tasks for the day or not. And it would also be helpful to see how much time I actually did spend on a task vs. my estimate...
Posted 14 years ago
krondek says:
+1
Posted 14 years ago
gordon.bazeley says:
+1
Posted 14 years ago
benoit.maisonny says:
+1 to enable sorting by estimated duration.

Also, multi-criteria search is essential to accommodate the needs of many users. The current single-criteria sorting feature is severely limited, in my opinion.
Posted 14 years ago
jlam says:
+1 for sorting by time estimate . What order though? hmmmm......

I'd start with smallest estimate at the top, followed by progressively longer tasks, then those with no estimate set.
Posted 13 years ago
mcgumbel says:
+1 for sorting by time estimate.

I would really appreciate that feature.
Posted 13 years ago
mburchrtm says:
I would love to see a total time estimate for tasks due today to prevent overscheduling.
Posted 13 years ago
dbenamy says:
+1

This might be a make or break feature for me upgrading to pro.
Posted 13 years ago
majoc says:
+1 for sorting by time estimate.
Posted 13 years ago
syk3 says:
I searched for this feature just to do a +1. Smartlist sorting criteria was something I didn't think about but would love.
Posted 13 years ago
pfandtasse says:
Three years going strong for sorting. +1. Never lose hope.
Posted 13 years ago
(closed account) says:
Looking forward to this feature!
Posted 13 years ago
kmoss11 says:
+1!!
Posted 13 years ago
madparker says:
+1
Posted 12 years ago
nina.grigoriev says:
+1
Posted 12 years ago
tamra says:
+1
Posted 12 years ago
chasprebil says:
+1
Posted 12 years ago
bbuknight says:
Easy to implement, so why the wait?
Posted 12 years ago
jerzy.paprocki says:
+1
Posted 11 years ago
andrey.klimov says:
+1
Posted 11 years ago
meagan.nichols says:
+1
Posted 11 years ago
mwld says:
I want this +1!
Posted 11 years ago
(closed account) says:
+1 - I want this !

And i also want to see the sum of the time estimates, instead of , when i multi-select several tasks at the same time.

The user story is this one:

- I am at work and i have 1h30 ahead of me to work on a subject.
- I go to the list i want and sort or multi select the tasks to find out which i can complete, and which should be postponed to another time.
Posted 11 years ago
villardo says:
+1
Posted 11 years ago
(closed account) says:
At first, I thought that this would be necessary. Now I think is not because the goal I have is to find tasks short enough to be completed when I have a small gap of time to fill with something easy and fast. Therefore, a simple search for "fast" tasks (say timeEstimate:"< 10 min") lets me decide what to do with these few minutes I have left sometimes. I can then add other filters like tag, place… That said, I believe that multi-sorting would be a very significant improvement.
Posted 11 years ago
You cannot comment on this idea as it is locked.