As promised, here is a specific scenario illustrating how Chandler can help to reduce and simplify the information in your life.

Use Case: Setting up and Following-thru on a Meeting.

Edit, Evolve, Send and Re-Send the same item of information as your task to schedule a meeting turns into an invitation turns into a scheduled meeting on your calendar turns into an agenda list turns into meeting notes.

A simple meeting can often generate a dozen or more separate bits of information for everyone involved; bits of information that each person then needs to manage independently.

• You create a task item to schedule a meeting;
• Send out a separate email message to invite others to the meeting;
• Follow-up with a whole thread to work out the meeting agenda;
• And add the meeting to your calendar.

• As the meeting shifts around and the agenda changes (all information that arrives via more email messages), you update the event on your calendar.

• During the meeting, you write up notes and send them out in yet another email; which in turn
• Prompts responses as others amend your meeting notes in follow-up emails

When you go back to look for the definitive record of what was discussed and decided at that meeting, where do you start? There are so many bits to collate and reconcile into a “single source of truth”.

By contrast, in Chandler you have 1 item that you edit and amend over time with changes and new information.

Your task to schedule a meeting can be sent out as an invitation email and then put on your calendar once everyone has agreed to a suitable time. In parallel, you can pull together a meeting agenda on that same meeting event item. During the meeting, you can take meetings notes, again in the same meeting event item. All the while, you can send and resend the same task/event item to notify people who aren’t sharing through Chandler.

1. Collecting Agenda Items for a Meeting in a “Task List” View

2. Reviewing Meeting Notes from the Calendar

3. Sending an Update to the Event with Notes from the Meeting

More importantly, all of this use and re-use is plausible because you can access the same information item from different contexts (the calendar and the list view, multiple collections) and there is built-in support for “losing” and “finding” information. Otherwise, recycling and evolving notes and events would quickly turn into an onerous workflow you would not bother with.

In Chandler:

• Meetings on your calendar can be managed like tasks in a list view; and vice versa,
• Tasks can be tracked from the list view *and* put on the calendar to mark important deadlines and milestone dates;

• The LATER “Triage Status” allows you to “disappear” stuff you can’t deal with right now without losing it forever;
• Tickler alarms and event dates automatically re-focus your attention on things you need to follow-up on

This Recycling Workflow works for maintaining lists (shopping lists, lists of questions, thank you notes, etc) and working on drafts as well. Really, it applies to anything that evolves and changes over time.