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Achieve Planner Training >
Getting
Started Tutorials > Tutorial # 1
Tutorial # 1 - Capturing Projects in
the Master Outline
Overview
Projects and tasks replace the
traditional “to-do” list used in other time management
systems. They are a central concept in Achieve Planner.
A project represents a high-level
outcome or result in your to-do list that you are
tracking or actively working on.
It could be a complex
multi-step project like developing a product, organizing
an event, or preparing a presentation, but it could also
be something simple like paying a bill, responding to an
email, or checking out a website.
In general, any to-do item that is not
part of something larger should be stored as a project.
Doing this will help you think and plan your time in
terms of outcomes rather than just actions, which is an
important step in becoming more results oriented.
You can keep track of your projects in
the Outline & Projects tabs, where you can create
hierarchical (multi-level) lists of your projects using
as many levels as you need.
Achieve Planner separates the concepts
of projects and tasks allowing you to view and track
your high-level outcomes (projects) independently from
your low-level actions (tasks.)
Your projects list will be shorter,
easier to manage, and it will give you an overview of
all the outcomes you are working on. You can store all
the details as tasks and have easy access to them when
you need them.
A task is something that you need to
do as part of a project. All your to-do’s should either
be projects or tasks of a project. It is quite common
for simple projects not to have any tasks, and for
complex projects to have tens, or even hundreds, of
tasks.
You can keep track of the tasks for
each project in the Tasks tab, where you can create
hierarchical (multi-level) task lists using as many
levels as you need.
If you need to, you can easily convert
tasks into projects (promote), or convert projects into
tasks (demote). We'll show you how to do this in another
tutorial.
The Outline tab gives you a great
overview of your entire Outline including result areas,
projects, tasks, and goals.
Video
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Q & A
Q: Why do parent items (items that
contain sub-items) have a bold font?
The main reason is to remain consistent
with the Microsoft Project user interface design, which
also highlights items with sub-items by making their
font bold. If you'd rather not
have parent items displayed with a bold font, you can
always change this setting in the Options dialog.
1) Tools -> Options menu item to display
the Options dialog 2) Under the
Grids tab, uncheck the "Bolden items with children" menu
option Q: What is a "Result Area"?
Result areas are identified in the master
outline (Outline tab) using a green checkmark icon. They
represent life dimensions or roles.
Result areas are at the top of the
outline hierarchy and cannot be converted into projects,
goals, or tasks. You can have
sub-result areas by adding them as children of existing
result areas. Q: Why use projects like Acme
Routers, Inc. and Irish Mail, Inc. instead of just
having all projects at the top level?
We could have just defined all our
projects at the top level like this:
* Irish Mail User Manual
* Irish Mail Help File
* Acme Routers Brochure
and so on.
However, many Achieve Planner users prefer using
top-level projects representing clients, customers, etc.
to group related projects together.
Some advantages of these 'grouping
projects' include:
- Organizing related projects
together in the hierarchy
- You can collapse the groups you
are not interested in
- You can 'zoom in' on a particular
client or group (see zooming tutorial)
- You can change the priority of a
customer or group as a whole
There's nothing wrong with having
all your projects at the top level. It comes down to
your personal preference and the way you like to
organize your projects.
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Tutorial
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