Habits: Current Action Widget

Idea behind the widget is pretty simple. Though they say it is important to be able to multitask, there're many who say that you're much more productive if you single-task. Because you concentrate fully on one task at a time, you're more effective in doing it. And that feels pretty natural - since you do one thing, all your time and thoughts are dedicated fully to it. If you do several things at a time, you spend some time and energy on switching between the tasks. Some (trainers, authors) say that this switching in fact takes a lot of time.

So, we introduced a Current Action widget on the Home screen. The function of the widget is to identify the task you're working on now. Whenever you look on the screen, you'll see it written there, thus reminding you not to distract:

If you click on the Action name or Action details - it will lead you to the corresponding page with the Action loaded.

If you have an Action added to your Home screen, you can set another Action as your Current:
1. You can do it on FTF or Actions page: choose more > Current
2. You can do it on Action page: choose menu > Current.

Note: doing steps above will update the widget, if it has already been added. If not, it won't do anything.

Some updates

We haven't posted for quite some time, have been quite busy last weeks. So, it's time to share some news.

1. First, going back to implementation of the FirstThingsFirst shortcut - as you already know, the first version we added actually did add the second shortcut to the app list. But, at same time, it made it impossible to start the app from the android market. This lead to a noticeable number of uninstalls, and the first negative review on the app. We removed that version and added two new: real android OS supported "shortcut" to the FTF and a shortcut widget - both will the work and lead to the First Things section of the app.
2. Returning to the Habits: we started evolution to make the app simpler, the so-called KISS approach. To do so, we started to remove abundant and redundant UI items. UI looks even nicer and will improve furthermore.
3. Two other new cool functions added: Current Action Widget and Goal Priority Sorting drag'n'drop. We'll dedicate separate posts to these two, giving some screens.

The Habits: First Things First shortcut

With the recent update to the app, we added second shortcut to the application, the one to start the First Things  First page. Some users requested to have ability to change start page, to point to FTF page. So, now you'll find 2 "My Effectiveness Habits" shortcuts on your phone, one openning the main dashboard page, the other leading straight to the FTF page.

After a bit of thinking and using, we come to conclusion that this may confuse users. So, with the next update we will probably remove the second shortcut, the FTF one. Instead, we will add a widget shortcut, with the same functionality: to open FTF page directly from the desktop.

Update: second shortcut made it impossible to start the app from the market, so we removed it. For going directly to FTF, we'll add a widget-shortcut.

Setting a Goal to an Action

When you enter the First Things First page, you can add an Action directly from there. That Action won't have any goal and role set. Now you can connect this Action to a Goal (consequently, to a Role). To do so, you need to long-click on the (goal) text or use Menu > Set Goal:

Note: You can set a Goal of a Single Action only - if an Action has a parent, changing its Goal would lead to a situation, when two actions, Parent and Child, have different goals. Same applies to Actions having sub-actions - can't change their goal.