Groups

Creating a new task in a group with no owner

Use the following syntax to create a new task in a group, "up for grabs"

summary [group: GROUPNAME] [owner: nobody]

Tags

Merging two tags

1. Go to your todo list
2. Click the tag you want to merge FROM (the tag you want to get rid of) in the tag cloud on the top left
3. Click Bulk Update (it's by Search)
4. Click "All" in the paging widget so you see all tasks with this tag
5. Add the tag you want to merge TO (the tag you want to keep)
6. Remove the tag you're merging FROM
7. Click Save Changes

Life Hacks

Slidecast - Effective procrastination using HiveMinder

Paul Fenwick has a 15 minute slidecast on how to procrastinate effectively using HiveMinder. It can be found on slideshare.

Turning emails into tasks

How many times a day do you get someone emailing you to make changes to a document, pick up milk on your way home, or any other kind of task? The problem is: These kinds of urgent tasks often get buried in your inbox. This simple tip will help you to keep track of the demands made on you by email.

You can send tasks (todo items) to your Hiveminder account via email. To do this, you have to set up an email address in Hiveminder to which you will send your tasks. When you have logged in to your Hiveminder account, in the top menu bar, click on Preferences, and in the preference pane, select Tasks by email. If you are logged in already, click here to go to that preference pane.

Read the directions on that page, and click the button that says "Add a new address now!"

Copy the resulting address that Hiveminder generates for you by selecting it in the browser window and typing Ctrl-C on Windows or Apple-C on Mac.

Next, open your email program. Every email program is different, but most share this in common: You can open an address book where you can store email addresses and names of people you email often. In most cases, once you have entered a record for someone, you can simply type their name into the "To" field of your email, and their email address will be automatically filled in before the message is sent. Figure out how to add a new record to your address book in your email program, and paste (Ctrl-V on Windows, Apple-V on Mac) the email address that Hiveminder generated into the email field. In the Name field (or nickname or short name), simply type: todo. Save the record.

Now, whenever someone sends you a task via email, simply hit the 'forward' button in your mail program and type 'todo' in the To field. Hit send, and your email task has now become a Hiveminder task. The subject line of your forward becomes the task name in Hiveminder.

Note: Certain email programs like Mozilla Thunderbird will enclose your forwarded subject lines in [square brackets]. Because square brackets are used to send directives to Hiveminder, make sure the task name portion of your subject line isn't surrounded by square brackets, or it will not show up as a task name in Hiveminder.

The best part is that the body of the email is available from within Hiveminder (just view the task's details), along with any attachments that were sent! This means that changes you need to make to a document, images you need to add to a website, or whatever else, is included in your task details! No need to go hunting through your inbox to find the file attachments.

If you are on good terms with your email sysadmin, you can ask it to set up forwarding addresses, which are easier to remember such as yourname-todo@yourdomain.com. That way you can give out that email to people who you want to tell you what to do, and they can do it easily, without you having to change your name to vydpuhifri.

Enjoy!

Getting your Hiveminder tasks onto a Palm OS Device via Ximian Evolution under Linux

Note: These instructions tell you how to get your Hiveminder tasks onto yourLinux box and Palm, not the other way around. As yet, there is no bidirectional functionality available. I am also assuming you have a working Ximian Evolution installation, which you can already sync with your palm pilot.

From your main Hiveminder screen in your browser, right click the calendar icon to and 'copy link location' into your cliboard.

Download this ical file to your computer somewhere you'll remember it.

Open Evolution and go to the 'tasks' tab.

You can then use the 'import' function. When given the choices, 'import single file', then select the file you've downloaded, and select 'iCalendar files - ics.' file type. Then click the 'Tasks' radio button in the next menu, and select your 'Personal' task list, or whichever list you've set up to sync with your ipod. Import!

That should be it - your tasks should be imported, and next time you sync, they'll be transferred to your ipod.

If you have set up categories on your ipod, and use corresponding tags for your tasks on hiveminder (NB: and use only one tag per item in hiveminder!) then the task will sync into the correct category on your palm.

Getting your Hiveminder tasks onto a Palm OS Device in Mac OS 10.4 (and above).

Note: These instructions tell you how to get your Hiveminder tasks onto your Palm, not the other way around. As yet, there is no bidirectional functionality available.

From your main Hiveminder screen in your browser, click the calendar icon to subscribe to Hiveminder through iCal.

You will notice that your Hiveminder task list appears in your iCal ToDo list (if you don't see the list once you've subscribed, in iCal, click on the View menu and select Show ToDos).

This, in and of itself, is very cool. However, take the coolness one step further by installing Palm Desktop 4 (or above) for your Palm OS device. Synchronize your device for the first time. (If you've already been using your Palm OS device with your Mac, then you will have already done this long ago).

Next you'll need iSync (in your Applications folder).

The following steps are from the iSync help file:

1. Make sure you've installed Palm Desktop 4.0 or later for Mac OS X, and have synced your Palm and computer at least once using HotSync Manager. iSync requires HotSync 3.0, which is installed along with the Palm Desktop 4.0 software. For more information about Palm Desktop software, visit www.palmone.com/us/Macintosh.

2. In iSync, choose Devices > Enable Palm OS HotSync, and follow the instructions that appear. By enabling iSync Palm syncing, you will be able to synchronize the Address Book, Date Book, and To Do information on your Palm OS device with the information in Mac OS X Address Book and iCal on your computer. (Notes on your Palm will continue to sync with the Palm Desktop.)

3. After Palm syncing is enabled in iSync, open HotSync Manager. By default, HotSync Manager is located in the Palm folder in your Applications folder.

4. In HotSync Manager, choose HotSync > Conduit Settings.

5. In the Conduit Settings window, double-click the iSync Conduit, then select "Enable iSync for this Palm device." This allows the Address Book, Date Book, and To Do information on your Palm OS device to be synchronized with your Mac OS X Address Book and iCal using iSync.

6. If you're using a Palm device that's localized for use with Japanese, select "This is a Japanese Device." IMPORTANT: If this is a Japanese Palm OS device and you do not select this checkbox, your information may become corrupted.

7. Click OK.

Your Palm OS device appears in the iSync window.

Select your new device in the iSync window and change any settings that you would like. Just make sure your Hiveminder calendar is among the selected calendars to sync.

Now you just have to make sure your Palm device is hooked up to your computer (through its USB cord, cradle or your preferred method), and click Sync Devices in the iSync window.

This will put iSync into a waiting state - it just needs you to press the Hotsync button on your cradle or on your device in order to begin the synchronization.

Don't be surprised if synchronizing takes some time. However, the result is that your Hiveminder tasks will appear in your Palm OS Tasks application.

Remember: Changing or checking off tasks on your Palm OS device or in iCal will NOT update your Hiveminder account. Bidirectional functionality is not yet available.

Storing Generic Data into Hiveminder

There is another product in the GTD/Todo group which makes it easy to store arbitrary data about things, for recall later. I wanted to see how i could do that with Hiveminder. Here is what i've come up with. Please note that my examples are done as if they are being entered via the IM interface.

1. create a new item: "c KromerRadio [store info]"

2. Add a comment with relevant info: "comment this 420 Bathurst St. 416 920-6700 Mon - Thu 8:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m. Fri 8:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m. Sat 9:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m."

3. Mark as won't complete: "won't complete this"

Now, you can do a 'search kromer' and get the record back, then a 'history this' to get the comment. This seems pretty good - it would be nice to get the comments back via a single command, rather then needing to use two separate calls.