Life Balance's To Do list starts out by showing you all tasks available in all places. You can choose to change this view to show only those tasks from a certain place, or only tasks that you can complete anywhere. Figure D shows the Palm version of the To Do list, using a graphic from the Advice Book.

FIGURE D


The To Do list, showing tasks from all places. Roll over picture for a larger image.

When you've completed a task, you check it off. To avoid constantly re-creating the To Do list, the Palm version doesn't remove the task from the list until you press Update.

Some tasks won't appear on your To Do list. Obviously, tasks that aren't in the currently displayed place won't show up. Tasks whose importance has been set to None won't appear (which gives you a great way to put a task on hold), and neither will tasks with subtasks (although the subtasks will appear).

A task that has subtasks will appear once all of the subtasks have been checked off. This gives you an opportunity to make sure that you really have finished everything that needs to be done for that particular task.

For example, if you have a task of Plan vacation, when you've finished all of its subtasks (Research resorts, Get travel insurance) you'll get one last chance to make sure you've finished all needed things (Get passport?) before checking off the Vacation task.

Getting credit for your hard work
As you merrily complete and check off tasks, Life Balance keeps track of them all. On the Balance screen, you can see how you're doing on each of your top-level tasks.

The screen shows two pie graphs. The one on the left shows the current desired weighting of your top-level tasks (which you can change by dragging the pie slices), the one on the right shows you what progress you've actually made toward each of those top-level tasks.

In Figure E, the blue Listen to myself slice on the Actual graph is much larger than on the left-hand Desired one.

FIGURE E


Your Desired task weighting doesn't match your Actual completed tasks. Roll over picture for a larger image.

This means I've been putting more time and effort into this task than I said I wanted to.

At this point, there are two choices. I can either put more effort into tasks in other areas of my goals, or I can adjust the Desired graph. I would do this if my priorities had changed and the Listen to myself goal had become much more important.

Life Balance notices when your Desired and Actual graphs are not in sync, and it'll push tasks up and down your To Do list to encourage you to do more in those areas that haven't received enough of your attention. The Preferences section will let you set how much of this adjustment Life Balance will do, as well as how long you continue to get credit for completed tasks.

Under the two graphs is a list of your accomplishments. On a day when you feel nothing is getting done, it can be very comforting to see how much you really have completed. When all you've accomplished is Relax!, it's either been a bad day at work, or a good day on vacation!

It's good to be in balance
Overall, Life Balance is excellent software. I did have to consult Llamagraphics for support on one occasion (caused directly by my not reading the Advice Book) and they were very helpful, with no hint of "well, if you'd read the manual..." in their response (which I would have richly deserved!).