Tuesday, January 8, 2013

The not so smart phone/ Task orientation



I keep thinking about different things while messing with my phone.  I have a Motorola DroidX for work, and it feels somehow incomplete.  It's kind of like the framework has been built for what I want, but what I want out of the device just isn't there.  But it could be.  I keep thinking of the smart phone as a life management tool, not just a phone.

The parts are all there, but it's a disparate system where nothing matches up and tells me anything I want to know.  For example... there's a GPS in there, and I want to know where I've been all day.  Did I just wander to the office and stay there or was I out hitting dozens of stores?

I want a task list.  I do something like this with Outlook and GMail calendar, but that's not quite what I want.  I can't necessarily dictate what I want to do at every moment in the day, but I want to know what I need to do.  Let's say I have four tasks: T1, T2, T3, and T4.  These are things that need to be accomplished, but there isn't anything relating the tasks.  There may be a T1.1 in there, but T1 doesn't have to be completed to work on T4.  So I drive around and finish T1, and mark it off my list.  But then I have broken stuff to work on, and I end up just a few feet from where I need to do T4.  So I complete that task.   Now, T1 and T4 are complete. 

With gmail calendar and Outlook, if I finish the tasks out of order, I still get notifications about needing to go do T4 at 2PM.  I also have to go back at the end of the day and mark tasks as complete or incomplete.  I guess gmail and Outlook are more time oriented than task oriented.  But in my job I need task orientation and something that works towards task orientation. 

And if I create something that's task oriented, why can't I make something that has multiple subtasks for each individual task?  Example: T1 now has T1.1, T1.2, and T1.3.  These are all dependent on each other, and T1.1 has to be complete before I can complete T1.2, and T1.2 has to be complete before I start T1.3.  Now, if I finish T1.1 with the system I'm using now, I have to head back to the office, look through my task list table, and add T1.2 into my calendar.  That's not very efficient.

What if I add GPS capabilities into the device, and map a task to the GPS location?  So I need to buy milk, and I decide I want to buy it from Wal-Mart.  Next time I drive within a few miles of Wal-Mart, my phone yells at me and says "hey buddy, go to Wal-Mart and complete task T1, 'buy milk'".  Now that would be a smart phone.

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