How to Replicate "Today" list in OF

[gdevore]

I bounce back and forth between Things and OF mainly because of Things' Today feature. It is just so nice to be able to quickly go through my lists and decided "These are things I would like to get done today," and then be able to sort them in the order I want to get them done. Has anyone found a decent workflow for recreating this functionality in OF?

I don't want to set due dates (these aren't things that are actually due today, just things I want to get done to day).

How are people accomplishing this? Do you use flags? Start dates?

Thanks

[CatOne]

Using "Due or Flagged" works well for this. Then flag tasks you want to put there manually, and due/overdue will show up automatically. You can then group by whatever you want: Context, project, due date, etc.

[Toadling]

The only thing you can't currently do is sort them manually in context mode. However, you do have some control over this by the order the actions appear in project/planning mode.

Personally, I don't find the lack of manual sort to be an issue since I usually sort and execute by context or project. But I can see how someone might want a manual sort capability. There's been discussion of this before and I'm sure Omni has a feature request open on it. If you're interested, you should send them feedback to "vote up" the feature.

-Dennis

[gdevore]

The "due or flagged" comes close but isn't quite there. First off, it isn't available in Projects mode (seems odd). Second, there is no way to filter out actions that have a start date in the future. So, if I flag an action but set a start date for tomorrow, I don't want it to show up in the list until tomorrow.

If I filter by Start Date then the actions I have deferred at least move to the bottom, but I really want to see these actions grouped by project. Any ways around this?

[Toadling]

Second, there is no way to filter out actions that have a start date in the future. ... Any ways around this?

Have you tried you setting the status filter to only display "Available" actions in context mode?

-Dennis

[gdevore]

That's the problem. "Due or Flagged" is a status filter setting. So you either have "Due or Flagged" or "Available" where what I want is "Due or Flagged AND Available".

[Toadling]

That's the problem. "Due or Flagged" is a status filter setting. So you either have "Due or Flagged" or "Available" where what I want is "Due or Flagged AND Available".

Oh, I see. You must not be using the 1.8 sneaky peek build. That beta version moved "Due or Flagged" out of the Status filter. IIRC, it's now under the Flagged filter (not in front of my Mac to check).

So if you don't want to try the sneaky peek (which, incidentally, has been very stable for me), you can at least take solace in knowing that the feature is coming soon.

-Dennis

[CatOne]

That's the problem. "Due or Flagged" is a status filter setting. So you either have "Due or Flagged" or "Available" where what I want is "Due or Flagged AND Available".

In 1.8 you definitely have this.

[watchit]

OF is streets ahead of Things in functionality and configurability but so many users still come back to this problem... the list of what they want to do Today. The problem is that OF is fantastic at Getting Ready To Get Things Done, but not so great during the What Am I Doing Now stage. Without a complete GUI revamp (hoped for in version 2?), the simplest way around this problem in version 1.9 would be to add further customisation to the Availability Filter to include "Started or Due"
I gather that many of us are using Start dates to determine what to do now or soon and Due dates of tasks with specific deadlines. The problem with the current filtering options is... if I want a list of Actions that have a start date on or before Now, my options are limited to Grouping or Sorting by Start and then ignoring (closing) the Group called "Start any time". It means I cannot have a list or Perspective grouped or sorted by other parameters.
I would suggest a "Started" filter that includes only items that have any Start date or a Start date that is now or past but not future. Also an Availability Filter called "Started or Due".
It does get complicated when you add Available, Remaining and/or Next Action to the mix but I don't mind a lot more Available Filter options with each possibility - or having each one configurable by Prefs. It would be better than the current situation.
This should not apply to Projects because they may have been started but that doesn't mean you want to do the Actions within them now or today.

The other "Today" and "Started" functionality required is whether people want Actions with started dates prior to today to roll over... ie, to have them automatically update to today's date at midnight. This was available in Now Up-to-Date's to do list and it came in handy. It might offend some purists but it could be optional by configuration through an off/on default in Prefs and individual control through Action Inspector.

And to complete the Today/Started elements so attractive to Things users, there should be a menu command, keyboard shortcut and toolbar icon called "Do Today" or whatever that sets or changes a selected Action's - or, more importantly a selected number of Actions' Start Date to today's date and now time. It is really cumbersome to have to go to the Action Inspector and click on the Start date field and write Today or Now all the time.

I know a lot of people rely on Flagged for this sort of thing but that should be reserved for special items that demand special attention. What I want to do now or today is about whether I want to start that Action. Until OF has some kind of differentiation between Actions that have started but not finished (ie are in progress) as opposed to a tick box that is either completed or not, then I think Start Date is the best option we've got.

Your thoughts?

[Arild]

Without a complete GUI revamp (hoped for in version 2?), the simplest way around this problem in version 1.9 would be to add further customisation to the Availability Filter to include "Started or Due"


"Started or due" would be nice, but I might prefer "Started and due". On very busy days, I have "evening tasks" starting in the afternoon that I don't need to see yet. I do agree, though, that there is certainly room for a lot in the availability filter - i.e. both of these.

[curt.clifton]

It is really cumbersome to have to go to the Action Inspector and click on the Start date field and write Today or Now all the time.



I don't have much to add to the larger proposal—the current filtering options work fine for me—but wanted to make sure you were aware that you can add a start date column to any perspective. No need then to use the inspector to change start dates. (I don't intend to discount your proposal, which may be useful to many. I just wanted to make sure you know about all the features that are currently available.)

[whpalmer4]

And in the same spirit as Curt's comment, if you are using the inspector, you can do a large number of actions at once by building up the selection in the usual Mac OS X fashion, opening the inspector and typing in the (new) date.

I'm curious about the usefulness of auto-rollover of start dates. To me, it's pretty much a binary condition -- started, or not started. If I could start on something yesterday, but didn't, why would I need to change the start date to today? It's still going to be on my list of available tasks. How would adjusting the start date (automatically or manually) benefit me, besides possibly disguising the fact that I don't always get to work on something as soon as it is first possible to do so?

[watchit]

Thanks curt & whpalmer4.
Yes, I use the Start column most of the time but I was mainly referring to applying a Start Date to several Activities at once, hence the mention of the Activity Inspector Start field.
My reason for highlighting the need for an extension of the Availability Filter to include "Started" and "Started or Due", etc, is... like a lot of people, I use Start Dates to determine what I'm going to do today, so I don't want to see Actions that don't have start dates and that's not possible with many views. OF currently limits that possibility to Grouping by Start and then closing the "Start any time" group. Any other view is littered with Actions that have no start date. For me, that's a visual mess and limits the Perspectives that I can use. One of the salient points of Allen's GTD theory is to think about things once, during Processing, and then not think about it again until Review, so I don't want to have to turn Flags off and on... that's a clumsy solution.
whpalmer4, regarding the usefulness of auto-rollover of Action start dates, I don't see this as important as the need for more options in the Availability Filter. In fact, it's another possible work-around to solve the same problem. I agree, it's a binary condition... I want to see things as either started or not, but to view Actions with start dates I must Group by Start Date, and I end up with lots of groups with different sets of start dates... again a visual mess.
I want to be able to see just those items with current Start Dates in a variety of Perspectives. I think a lot of other people who are not power users might like that as well.

[gdevore]

Dennis-
Thanks so much for pointing this out to me. I can finally manage my "Today" list in OF! Being able to reorder things would be nice but isn't crucial. I didn't use flags at all before so now I am pretty much using flags to mark things for today. If I want to defer something I just set the start date out to the date I need. It works great. Thanks so much.

I should say, this would really stink for a new user. The amount of customization required to get a simple today list seems like too much work. Hopefully something they will address in 2.0.

[reallyseth]

I've got a solution (albeit semi-manual) to custom order my tasks.

Here's the setup: I've got a "Today" perspective that shows Due or Flagged items and I sort the perspective by task name. At the beginning of the day I add letter's and numbers in brackets at the beginning of each task (e.g. [A1], [A2], [B1], [B2], etc.). This sorts my tasks in the order I want. The letters correspond loosely to the Franklin-Covey Quadrants. A being urgent and important, B being urgent not important, and C being important but not urgent. The numbers correspond to the order I am planning to accomplish them in. Then the next day if I have left over tasks that I didn't get to, I do a find and replace using this regular expression "\[[ABC][1-9]+\]" to remove yesterdays priorities, and start fresh.

This solves the order and priority issue (at least for the Today perspective). Hypothetically you could use any naming convention you want to specify priority and order.

It's not as easy as drag and drop, but it works, and isn't that difficult.