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.

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!

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.

+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.

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.

i agree sorting by time estimate would be a nice feature.

+1

For all sorts of links to years' of great sorting suggestions and ideas, see this thread:
http://www.rememberthemilk.com/forums/ideas/6289/

+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.

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.

Thanks, that gets round things. Now I've got a smart list has search criteria:

list:Work AND NOT timeEstimate:"> 0"

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

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.

I'd dig this feature!!

Thanks for the suggestion! I'll check and see if it's on the list already - if not, I will add it now.

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.

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.

One more vote to get sorting by time and sum of total time going!

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.

sortBy would be a great addition to smart lists

Another vote for sorting by time estimate and displaying it next to the task.

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!

+1 for displaying time estimates next to tasks and for sorting by time estimates

I would like to see power-sorting and or sorting by time too.

+1 for sorting!!! PLEASE add!

+1

I ALSO WOULD LOVE SORTING BY TIME ESTIMATE, OR EVEN SMARTLIST WITH SORTING CRITERIA.

1+

+5

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).

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...

+1

+1

+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.

+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.

+1 for sorting by time estimate.

I would really appreciate that feature.

I would love to see a total time estimate for tasks due today to prevent overscheduling.

+1

This might be a make or break feature for me upgrading to pro.

+1 for sorting by time estimate.

I searched for this feature just to do a +1. Smartlist sorting criteria was something I didn't think about but would love.

Three years going strong for sorting. +1. Never lose hope.

Looking forward to this feature!

+1!!

+1

+1

+1

+1

Easy to implement, so why the wait?

+1

+1

+1

I want this +1!

+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.

+1

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.