Ability to tag contexts

[SpiralOcean]

Instead of only setting one context for an item, how about tagging contexts. That way I could have a task that has the context of:
work, calls, vendorA, projectA

When looking at the task list, I could filter by work, or calls, or vendorA, or (calls & vendorA) or (vendorA & projectA)

[pomares]

Yes, yes, yes

[samaparicio]

If I understand GTD correctly, one of its central themes is that you need to look at your tasks according to what's actionable, and actionable can be defined by many things. I can totally see how a call from a high priority customer may make all the tasks related to them higher priority.

In that sense, tags allow you to classify tasks according to your own hierarchy.

I think this would be a great feature

[SpiralOcean]

Some other filters besides contexts are date due (by today up to whatever time frame, one week, two weeks.)

[tacartwright]

Instead of only setting one context for an item, how about tagging contexts. That way I could have a task that has the context of:
work, calls, vendorA, projectA

When looking at the task list, I could filter by work, or calls, or vendorA, or (calls & vendorA) or (vendorA & projectA)

I second (or whatever number we’re on) this motion.

In fact, I was going to start a separate thread for a related request, but SpiralOcean’s post is a good launching point instead.

In addition to multiple contexts per task, I’d really like to be able to define which contexts (PLURAL!) I’m in right now. And then I want those settings to stick until I declare otherwise.

I think this is fairly basic GTD. When I scan through my next-actions list, I want to see all and only those tasks that I can do right now. But realistically, I will often be in more than one context at a time. When I’m in my office, I’m in my Computer, Office, and Phone Call contexts all at the same time. On the flip side, I don’t want to see contexts that don’t apply right now. One of my peeves with KGTD is that it doesn’t remember when I collapse a context. And really, I simply don’t want to see my Home context at all when I’m in my Office context.

There are some subtleties to deal with if OmniFocus had both multiple contexts per tasks and multiple contexts active. I’ll save that for another post, perhaps.

[michelle]

What do you think about hierarchical contexts? Ex: Office>Calls>Fred

Michelle
The Omni Group

[tacartwright]

What do you think about hierarchical contexts? Ex: Office>Calls>Fred

Hm, I’m not sure. I’ll give some first impressions now, and then think about it some more.

So, Office>Calls would be just calls that can be done in the Office context? Does this mean I need a Home>Calls, Car>Calls, and Doctor’s Office>Calls too? Because I might make calls from any of those places. If so, how do I know which context to associate with my task of “Call Fred to negotiate quotes”?

I guess I see my contexts as having both mutually exclusive and independent aspects. Home and Office are mutually exclusive (for me), but either one can be active at the same time as my Calls context. And what’s worse, the Calls context can be active when neither Home nor Office are (e.g., I’m behaving badly and making calls while driving). Argh, what a mess!

And yet… when I create a task like “Call Fred to negotiate quotes”, I know right away that it should be tagged with the Calls context (but neither Home nor Office).

Back to hierarchical. Perhaps this would work IF there is no single root to the hierarchy. Bear with me while I work this out…

At the top level, I can imagine a “Place” context hierarchy that looks like this:

Place
Place:Home
Place:Office
Place:Out
Place:Out:Library
Place:Out:Bank
Place:Out:Grocery Store

This is a mutually exclusive set of place contexts. I have to be able to select both leaves and non-leaves. Place:Home is for tasks that must be done at home. Place:Out is for tasks that cannot be done at home or in the office, but I’m not saying anything beyond that. I like this hierarchy.

But at the top level, I think we still need independent contexts: Place, Computer, Calls, People/Agendas, etc.

And then we get back to SpiralOcean’s original idea, right? I can activate one or more top-level contexts and exactly one node within each context hierarchy:

Calls
Place:Office + Calls
Place:Office + Calls + Agendas:Fred

Yeah, that might work. :) SpiralOcean? pomares? samaparicio?

Again, I’m open to phone calls or whatever to hash out ideas.

— Tim

[SpiralOcean]

What do you think about hierarchical contexts? Ex: Office>Calls>Fred

Michelle
The Omni Group

Interesting...

Let me start with the problem I have with a flat list...
1. I want to keep my work and personal projects seperate. It's a GTD no-no. But when I'm at work, I don't want to see anything that isn't work related. I don't want to see all my home calls with my work calls, or home computer items with work computer items. I want to be at work, and see what I have to do there. Work is a context, a supercontext if you will. In my work context, I have all the same contexts as my home context, calls, computer, agendas, etc.

This creates a bunch of duplicate contexts.
home-calls
home-computer
home-errands

and
work-calls
work-computer
work-errands

If items could be tagged, then i could have...
home
work
calls
computer
errands

2. Agendas
I don't want to have an agenda list that is 20 items long with different peoples names on the items. Because when I talk to someone, I have to scan the items to see if there are any there. With tagging, I could have peoples names and tag with agendas.

3. Projects
If we could have a project tag, then when a huge project is due and I need to focus only on that project, I could filter by
project-calls
project-computer

And be assured that I can trust the system to help me meet my deadline, instead of mentally filtering out tasks... thinking, is this part of this project?

That's just a few of how the tagged contexts could be used.

Now back to heirarchy...

1. used in task list
it would be nice in the task list, to see all the tags that i could further filter down into from my current tag.

If I have items tagged
calls-george
calls-jim

and in my task list I select the calls filter
underneath I could see what other further filtering I could do.
calls
george•jim

This would allow me to drill down into a fine and focused amount of items.
Amazon.com does a great job of this when searching for items.

2. Used in outline
Instead of a heirarchy of contexts, how about the ability to tag... the tags?

I've use memo leaf and a problem is always how do you manage your tags?

When I'm at work... I only want to see tags associated with work. This relates to your heirarchy...
work-calls-apple
work-calls-omni

if the user was able to tell omnifocus, that the work tag has these tags under it:
calls

and the calls tag has these tags under it
apple omni

and a computer tag has an apple tag under it

but the overall list was still a flat list. It would also allow people to get as crazy with tags or as simple as they want.

This would help the user when tagging contexts.
I create a task item, and tag it work
I then see all the contexts under work tag it calls
I see all the contexts under calls and tag it apple

If I wanted to drill back up I could tag the same task home
errands

the task would have the tags
work-calls-apple home-errands

then, when i am driving in the car, i can click on the errands context and see the call to make. when i need to see phone calls to make, i can click on the calls context, see all the home & work calls, click on the work context and see all the work calls.

The heirarchy would be helpful for allowing users to see how their tags are related, but if it's too heirarcical, then it becomes tied to the heirarchy. The heirarchy should be there, but able to be broken at any time and rearanged.

One other thing... please allow contexts to be assigned by keyboard. Some easy keyboard interface to assign contexts. Even allowing quicksilver or launchbar to assign contexts would be helpful. Not tying down contexts to specific kestrokes, but allowing to be search upon like QS or LB allows and then assigned.

And it would be nice to allow my task list context to be assigned by the keyboard as well.

command+spacebar brings up the task list
c brings up calls
enter
and I'm looking at calls.

I'll put this in another post... ;-)

[michelle]

Ok . . . I didn't give a great example. I should have put calls at the top of the hierarchy (Calls>Office>Fred). But it shouldn't matter because contexts will be completely customizable to fit your workflow. I just wanted to throw the idea of hierarchies out there. We are considering doing tags as well, but I'm not sure it will make it into 1.0.

Michelle
The Omni Group

[JasonI]

Michelle,

If you are referring to how Aperture has it set up with the hierarchal lists, I am all for it- this is one key element that I have been looking for for quite awhile now. I can not convey how important it is to allow for multiple contexts, and I do not think most people will understand it until they see it.

OmniFocus is shaping up to be what I have been looking for from OmniOutliner (from all of the little pieces I can gather, anyway)- see post #12, and #22- http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=1673&page=2

Jason

[tacartwright]

Ok . . . I didn't give a great example. I should have put calls at the top of the hierarchy (Calls>Office>Fred). But it shouldn't matter because contexts will be completely customizable to fit your workflow.

(I apologize if I reply twice to this posting — I think that I didn’t save my first reply.)

Both your examples are just fine and both display the same issue that SpiralOcean and I are getting at. In a nutshell, contexts overlap in the real world.

If you have Calls>Office>Fred (instead of Office>Calls>Fred), then there’s an implied need for Calls>Home>Fred and Calls>Car>Fred and Calls>Elsewhere>Fred. The result is a huge and unmaintainable context hierarchy.

Tags, on the other hand, automatically allow overlapping contexts with far less maintenance. I can tag something with just Calls if I don’t care where I make the call from, or Calls AND Home if I see it in my Calls context, my Home context, and a Calls + Home context, should I be feeling so particular.

So, if I had to pick, I would pick context tags instead of hierarchies.

— Tim

[Tim Wood]

The way the app is shaping up, you should be able to get away with 'Calls' in most cases. We have another axis on which to focus your action list so that you can avoid the whole A>B vs B>A problem. I don't think we are talking about that bit publically yet :)

Hopefully most people will have a fairly small set of contexts that express requirements for actionability rather some area of responsibility.

Still, there are cases where tagging or multiple contexts, etc. would be useful (say, if you sometimes have meetings with action items for Bob and sometimes with Jane, but you also might have some items require both of them to be present to be actionable).

There are a couple main problems with tagging; UI and taxonomy fiddling. We can obviously deal with some of the UI problems, but if we add tagging, how many people are going to spend hours developing and modifying complex tagging systems, endlessly agonizing over the taxonomy to apply to each and every task?

It's certainly possible to use tagging responsibly, but it seems far easier for it to become a productivity black hole.

[tacartwright]

I agree with Tim Wood that tagging (i.e., multiple contexts per task) is not necessary. It might be nice someday, once the semantics and UI are clearer.

By far, it is most important to me to be able to declare the contexts I’m in right now, to have that setting stick until changed, and to see no tasks outside my current contexts (see my first post in this thread).

— Tim

[JasonI]

This is something that I had to speak out on- I firmly believe that multiple contexts needs to allowed. Multiple contexts and not allowing sub-projects are what hinders some of the new GTD apps that are now popping up all over.

Whatever system is implemented by Omni doesn't have to be overly complex, but it does need to be flexible enough to allow for multiple contexts for any one item. For instance, I have a list of projects (with the individual items already marked with their specific contexts- call, email, etc.) and I want to go through and mark which projects to focus on for my next meeting. I would like to go through those projects and tag them as "for next meeting". This would be a temporary context and would not affect the existing contexts. I would think that this could probably be accomplished with a flat context list. A hierarchal list could have some nice applications but might not be necessary (I personally would like to see it implemented though).

Without seeing the UI for this it is hard to say whether or not a work around is possible in its current state. I am all for keeping it simple, but not at the price of losing functionality that I need in certain situations.

From all of the little bits I am able to gather, OmniFocus is shaping up to be my "DreamApp". I just hope that it comes before my current system blows up on me.

Jason

[imdat]

What do you think about hierarchical contexts? Ex: Office>Calls>Fred

Michelle
The Omni Group

I think this would make it really more complicated. The beauty of GTD lies in it's simplicity. Having this as an option for some users might be ok, but not in a way that it makes working with OmniFocus more difficult.

Imdat

[SpiralOcean]

What about having a simple flat lists for contexts, and in the task list, allow more than one context to be selected for filtering?

That's all this really amounts to.

For people who don't want to use multiple contexts, they won't be affected.

For people who do want to use multiple contexts, they'll be crying for joy.

Here's another example where this would come in handy.

At work I have my list of projects. Sometimes we get interns in and they need simple things to do.

It would be great if I could plan out my projects, but give tasks the additional context of Intern.

If we get an intern in, I can view tasks by intern, and see the tasks that I could tell an intern to do.

Otherwise, I'm stuck with scanning 200 items for something that an intern could do.

All this concept is, is allowing multiple contexts to be assigned and filtered on.

[vanderwal]

Well laid out. This is a much better approach than heirarchy as much of this is not heirarchy based.

If I need to make a "call" it most likely will not be location context based, but in a few occasions it may be.

Heirarchy would seem to get in the way, but having facets would be a better approach as facets do not require irrelevant order. A facet would be location. So, "Location: office, Location: home, Location: travel, etc.". If I select my location as office I will get all calls for "Location: office" as well as ones with out any location selected. Location is also based on devices one has within reach, like a laptop, notbook, presentation, file cabinet, etc. so the facets could have a device needed element, "Device: laptop, Device: policy binder, etc.".

The heirarchy approach works well for physical space but since this is a digital tool facets are a much more flexible approach as well as using just plain flat tags.

[LizPf]

What about having a simple flat lists for contexts, and in the task list, allow more than one context to be selected for filtering?


Excellent!

I always wonder about those people who have Work:Calls and Home:Calls ... when do they call the dentist? You know, they guy whose office staff seem to start work at 10 a.m., take a 3 hour lunch, and quit work at 4 p.m.

I don't have a set of Work contexts (my home is my work). I do see that sometimes we need to shut out things that we can't do at a certain time -- but there are times when we need to see everything, regardless of where we are.

Multiple context filters would solve this neatly ... eventually, we could even set up times for OmniFocus v9.5:) to let us know the dentist's staff is in, so call now.

[tacartwright]

What about having a simple flat lists for contexts, and in the task list, allow more than one context to be selected for filtering?

I think this sounds good, but I’m unclear about one thing. What does it mean to filter contexts by more than one context? Does it mean that ALL selected contexts must be on the task or ANY?

And do you have any interface thoughts for context selection? My big thing is that I want to see multiple contexts at once — all of the ones that apply now. Mine tend to overlap a lot. I’m not sure how multiple contexts and contexts tags would work together. What do you think?

— Tim

[michelle]

I think this sounds good, but I’m unclear about one thing. What does it mean to filter contexts by more than one context? Does it mean that ALL selected contexts must be on the task or ANY?
— Tim

What if you had a flat list of contexts, could select more than one context and any task assigned ANY of the contexts gets listed? Example: Select contexts "Home" and "Hobbies" and see all tasks assigned to either context. Would this eliminate the need to assign multiple contexts to the same task?

I'm not saying this is how it will be. Nothing is set in stone yet. We're just trying to figure out what will meet people's needs.

[SpiralOcean]

I think this sounds good, but I’m unclear about one thing. What does it mean to filter contexts by more than one context? Does it mean that ALL selected contexts must be on the task or ANY?

And do you have any interface thoughts for context selection? My big thing is that I want to see multiple contexts at once — all of the ones that apply now. Mine tend to overlap a lot. I’m not sure how multiple contexts and contexts tags would work together. What do you think?

— Tim

I was unclear with the filtering contexts by more than one context.
The simplist application of this is... filtering tasks by more than one context. The filtering contexts by contexts I'll explain at the end of this post.

Example:
projectA
-relable router: @work, @intern

projectB
-ship video server: @work

projectC
-call client: @work, @calls

projectD
-call friend: @home, @calls

If I am at work, in the task list I select the @work context
@work
relable router
ship video server
call client

If I am at a phone and want to focus on work calls I select the @work & @ calls context
@work, @calls
call client

If I am at a phone and want to focus on all calls.
@calls
call client
call friend

If a new intern is thrown at me and I need to give them something to do:
@intern
relable router

As far as seeing the multiple contexts at once...
If you have a @work context, and all tasks have that context, you'll see everything that you have @work.

If you have a @all context, and everything has an all context, then you'll see everything.

Although, I'm not sure why you would want to see everything at once. Except maybe to scan through and pick what you want to start working on. Everything in GTD principle is context based.

As for interface,
my first thought is to have a dropdown box up at the top of the task list. You select the first context.
A second drop down box appears next to it,
listing only those contexts that can be chosen with the first context.

Using the same example:
The user selects @work for the first context.
Another dropdown appears to the right of @work and has these selections:
@calls
@intern

The user selects @calls. The top of the task list shows...
@work @calls

If the user is finnished with @calls, they click on a small x to the left of the calls (like a safari tab) and the context disappears.

Now the user is seeing all @work items.

As a context is selected, the contexts that can be selected are filtered down to only what the two share.

The interface is just an idea, I'm sure Omnipeople will be able to come up with a beautiful and super efficiant interface for choosing contexts.

[SpiralOcean]

What if you had a flat list of contexts, could select more than one context and any task assigned ANY of the contexts gets listed? Example: Select contexts "Home" and "Hobbies" and see all tasks assigned to either context. Would this eliminate the need to assign multiple contexts to the same task?

I'm not saying this is how it will be. Nothing is set in stone yet. We're just trying to figure out what will meet people's needs.

This is a good idea, and if you want to see an example of this check out Life Balance.

While this can be nice, I find the problem with GTD is not showing more, it's showing less. It's filtering so a person doesn't have to scan their tasks.

There are certain nice reasons why you would want to have inclusion. If you want to get really fancy, how about creating a "link" button on the top of the task list for each context. If you click on the link, then two contexts are linked and in programming terms, an Or operator is used instead of And.

This would be really cool. And doesn't have to clutter up the task list, just a little link button on top that would show the user is filtering based on,

(@work or @errands) and @calls

Although, If I had to choose between inclusion and exclusion, I'd choose exclusion. I would get so much more out of the tool by being able to narrow down and focus, than see both @work & @errands.

Once you have 200 projects you are tracking, it becomes critical that you can narrow down to see only what you need to see at the time and do it, instead of narrowing down to 50 tasks, and then scanning them to think, hmm... can I do this now, nope, because frank isn't here, what's the next one.

Time is another context that no GTD application has filtered by yet. But there are times when I have 15 min free and it would be cool to see the tasks on the computer that i can complete in 15 min.

[tacartwright]

What if you had a flat list of contexts, could select more than one context and any task assigned ANY of the contexts gets listed? Example: Select contexts "Home" and "Hobbies" and see all tasks assigned to either context. Would this eliminate the need to assign multiple contexts to the same task?

Ah, this is good — I think my questions from yesterday elicited exactly the conflicting responses I was hoping for! Let me see if I can spell out the proposals.


There is a flat list of contexts. In the “Projects” view, each task is assigned no context or exactly one context. In the “Next Action” view, the user can select 1 context. A task is displayed iff (a) it is the project’s next action, and (b) it is assigned the selected context.
There is a flat list of contexts. In the “Projects” view, each task is assigned no context or exactly one context. In the “Next Action” view, the user can select 1 or more contexts. A task is displayed iff (a) it is the project’s next action, and (b) it is assigned ANY of the selected contexts. (I think that this option corresponds to kGTD now, because you can expand/collapse contexts in the Next Action view to show any number of contexts.)
There is a flat list of contexts. In the “Projects” view, each task is assigned 0 or more contexts. In the “Next Action” view, the user can select 1 or more contexts. A task is displayed iff (a) it is the project’s next action, and (b) it is assigned ALL of the selected contexts. (I think that this corresponds to SpiralOcean’s basic request, yes?)
There is a flat list of contexts. In the “Projects” view, each task is assigned 0 or more contexts. In the “Next Action” view, the user can enter a Boolean expression of contexts. A task is displayed iff (a) it is the project’s next action, and (b) it matches the Boolean context expression. (Is this SpiralOcean’s more complicated example?)
There is a hierarchical tree of contexts. However, I simply don’t understand what the rest of this option would look like, so I’ll stop here.


I don’t know that I see anyone asking for Option 1, perhaps in part because it is a trivial subcase of Option 2. I was asking for Option 2. I think SpiralOcean is asking for Option 3 or 4. Option 5 seems to have died a quiet death in this thread.

While I understand SpiralOcean’s need to limit the number of next actions visible, I do not care for Options 3 and 4 myself. In general, my context list is such that I am in more than one context at a time. Right now, I am in my Office, Computer, Phone, and Agendas contexts. To limit my view to a single one of those would give me a completely false view of what I can do now.

Further, I think Option 4 is simply too complicated for a typical consumer application.

So, here’s a proposal for a hybrid option: There is a flat list of contexts. In the “Projects” view, each task is assigned 0 or more contexts. In the “Next Action” view, the user can select 1 or more contexts AND select whether the contexts are inclusive or exclusive. A task is displayed iff (a) it is the project’s next action, and either (b1) the inclusive option is set and the task is assigned ANY of the selected contexts or (b2) the exclusive option is set and the task is assigned ALL of the selected contexts.

Now, Option 1 is the same as assigning only 1 context per task, picking either inclusive or exclusive, and selecting 1 context. Option 2 is assigning only 1 context per task, picking inclusive, and selecting 1 or more contexts. Option 3 is assigning 1 or more contexts per task, pick exclusive, and selecting 1 or more contexts. Option 4 and 5 are not supported.

Comments?

— Tim

[SpiralOcean]

I see where you are coming from now.

Although I would like to play Devil's Advocate.

You are coming from the perspective of, what are the things I can do now, very GTD. And it's true... you can do all those things at your desk. But in reality, you can only do one thing at a time. It could be argued, that a person can be talking on the phone and also answering emails, but from a GTD perspective, one thing at a time.

When you are in a context that can have multiple contexts, you could switch to computer, and just work from your computer. If you want to clear out calls, switch to calls, and make calls. The context becomes more than what is available to me, it becomes, what do I want to do now.

If you can see all your contexts at once, then I believe a person looses some focus. You talk to John about project A, then You make one call to jill about project C. Then answer an email about project D. Then call joan about project F. Then go find john again about project E. Instead of...
calling jill about project C
calling joan about project F
answer emails about project D.
talking to john about project A & project E.

Contexts are meant to be worked through, not cherry picked.

Here's another example:
When running errands you can also be making calls on the phone. You would say that both calls & errands should be in the errands context. I would argue, if you want to make calls while running errands, switch to the calls place to make calls.

You may want to check out LifeBalance if you haven't already. They do this type of place inclusion.

Here's a mock up of how the linking of contexts could look. Although it's hard for me to see why a person would want to combine contexts instead of separate. ;-)

http://www.mandarinpictures.com/misc/OmniFocusMock.png

[SpiralOcean]

Just thought of another reason for tagging contexts...

Let's say I have projects that involve showing john a project proposal A and also calling him to ask a question about project B.

projectA
-show john proposal: @work, @agendas, @john

projectB
-call John about moving forward: @work, @john, @calls

Now let's say I have a meeting with John. If the system were on a pda, I could select
@john

for my context

and see
-show john proposal
-call john about moving forward

In a system where one tasks only has one context. I would switch to
@agendas
and see
-Ask Jane about projectC
-talk with george about why ac isn't working
-show john proposal:

notice I have to scan to find the task. With three items this is fine. But with 20 items, trying to find everything that relates to john becomes tedious. And john doesn't want to sit there waiting, while I'm scanning through my tasks looking for those pertaining to him.

My other alternative in a system where one task has only one context, I could do this.
@agendas-Jane
@agendas-John
@agendas-george

But that is extremely inefficient, and soon my contexts are overwhelming.

[Hoff]

What if you had a flat list of contexts, could select more than one context and any task assigned ANY of the contexts gets listed? .

If I had to choose between ANY and ALL (or and and operations) I would choose the ALL. It seems more useful to drill down and exclude items from view than to expand. I would use that more when I'm trying to be productive, and it would help me focus.

This applies only if a choice has to be made between the operations. It would be nice to have both options. The best (in terms of accurate filtering) would be to have an advanced feature to use multiple logic operations in combination ((A or B) and C). But I think it would be tough not to clutter the UI, and I see the risk of it being more of a fiddling distraction than useful aid for most people.

Perhaps a middle ground would work: you can choose multiple contexts, and at the top of the list is a toggle for ANY/ALL. I imagine that would scratch the itch for the majority of users and not be excessively fiddle-risky.

[tacartwright]

Contexts are meant to be worked through, not cherry picked.

Clearly, we disagree on this point, and that’s why I recommend a easily toggled setting. Then we can both get what we want!

And realistically, I could see myself wanting different options at different times — I really can imagine using the exclusive option now and then. And in those cases, multiple contexts per task make sense.

Also, I see Hoff had the same basic recommendation — an ANY/ALL (inclusive/exclusive) toggle.

OmniGroup: What sayest thou? Is a toggle OK? Are multiple contexts per task OK?

— Tim

[michelle]

This is great feedback and we are in the process of figuring out how to implement it. You brought up some scenarios we hadn't thought of and we are trying to figure out if our current approach will work. I'm excited about it and I think you will be pleased, but as someone mentioned, you really need to see it to understand it. When we go into beta you'll all have a chance to try it out and give us additional feedback. We really are listening!

. . . and unfortunately, no, I can't tell you when the beta will be released :)

[tacartwright]

This is great feedback and we are in the process of figuring out how to implement it. You brought up some scenarios we hadn't thought of and we are trying to figure out if our current approach will work.

Thanks to all of you at Omni for listening to us hash out our ideas!

— Tim

[yucca]

I've debated posting as SpiralOcean has pretty much made the points about being able to tag NAs, but I've decided that more posts is better so Omni doesn't conclude that tagging only matters to a few people. I believe tagging matters alot to people who want the feature; and, at least on the basis of the frequency with which it comes up in the 43 folders forums, there are more than just a few people who need this feature. For the latest thread on this see: http://board.43folders.com/showthread.php?t=1414

As tacartwright says, thanks for listening. :)

[steve]

For me, tags are very useful, especially, if I can access the tags via spotlight.

I might have a NA: call Mike re: give update on permit process
and I might tag this &mike &call and &permit

If Mike happened to call me, I could search for &mike and find all the related tasks.

[SpiralOcean]

I have projects where I need to get equipment ready for the project. I keep a task list/check list of all the things I need to make sure I have before the project. My problem is when I am going through one of the check lists (about 50 items) I need to only focus on those items. I can't be filtering out with my head, items that aren't relavent.

I also will have more than one project of the same type happening, each project in a different state.

If I were able to tag items, it would create less contexts for me to deal with, and allow me to focus on what I need to be doing.

Let me know if you would like an example. It may be easier for me to email you an kGTD file than spend the time typing it out here.

[SpiralOcean]

Another reason for tags...

Let's say I'm working with a vendor, and have reported 5 different problems we are having through email. I have those emails in a waiting for response list.

Suddenly, the vendor shows up to talk about the issues. Of course they don't have a list of the issues with them and I need to see all things related to that vendor... those emails I sent with those issues, and a couple other things that have popped up which I haven't reported to the vendor yet.

If tagging were available, I could choose the vendor name, and see all actions I need to do in relation to that vendor.

¢¢

[realtyler]

My problem is when I am going through one of the check lists (about 50 items) I need to only focus on those items. I can't be filtering out with my head, items that aren't relevant.

Exactly. Just to add more here, the example I would use is this:

My kGTD file has all of the things I know I need to do. I use the Start and End dates sometimes, but what I REALLY want to be able to do is to create a "Today's Priorities" list, without removing the contexts.

Every morning I go through my kGTD file and create this list separately, on paper, which I carry around with me during the day. It would be great to be able to go through my list of actions and tag them as "Today" or "Hot" or whatever works, but without taking them out of context or project.

[TommyW]

It would be great to be able to go through my list of actions and tag them as "Today" or "Hot" or whatever works, but without taking them out of context or project.

Ah, the user defined Next Actions list re-emerges...

I'd requested this as part of Kinkless ages ago. There was some discussion about whether it was 'true' GTD. But given that OF will have a wider focus, maybe you guys will consider it. And maybe tagging is the technique to do it. If tagging is part of OF, then people who want to do it, will, I guess.

[jonmcauliffe]

I visited this forum to make a suggestion about tag support, only to find that tags are much on people's minds. Great news -- I hope it's an Omni priority.

This is a long thread; I'll briefly weigh in on some of the issues I see:

(1) Tags, not hierarchies: there's no reason to expect the pattern of context tags people associate with their actions to reconcile into a tree structure. Trees suck for organizing just about everything: observe that, five minutes after anyone re-implements the tree to organize his stuff, he re-invents the symlink. In the end, people want to filter actions according to set operations on contexts, which activity strictly generalizes the activity of "browsing" a tree. Speaking of which...

(2) Set ops on contexts: if I "select" four contexts, should the result be the union or the intersection? As some have noted, the answer is "yes." I'm seeing a radio button in the context selection panel...

(3) Project tags, not just action tags: people want "sub-projects," i.e., they want to associate multiple semantic categories with an atomic GTD project. But they don't really want a hierarchy, for the reasons laid out in (1). Just let us tag projects in exactly the same way we tag actions (except project tags are not GTD "contexts"). Then, when we're in GTD planning/reviewing mode, we use tag filtering to control project display; when were in GTD doing mode, we use tag filtering to control action display (via contexts).

A reminder to the GTD initiates: David says "flat organizational paradigm (= tags) YES, any other more complicated paradigm (= trees) NO."

I'll pay twice the price for an OmniFocus with action tags AND project tags...

[Bob Nahasapeemapetilon]

Perhaps I got completely lost, so please bear with me.

Are some of the requests (e.g. Tagging) based on experiences with Kinkless GTD?

The reason I ask this is because I have not used kGTD for a while, and after trying numerous GTD programs I’m able to face some of the scenarios that have been mentioned. At least I think I do.

While I’m looking forward to OmniFocus and initially loved kGTD, my choice for a GTD program has been ThinkingRock.
While I agree that multiple contexts may occur simultaneously (e.g., @Work + @Calls) I think users can be ‘creative’ with the software. I’m not sure how this would apply to OmniFocus, but with ThinkingRock, for example, here’s a scenario:

1. I have an Action Topic, which I use in the traditional sense of a Project. For example, I would define an Action Topic as “Research European Market” or “Purchase 10 laptops” or “Do valuation for company XYZ.” Those would be my BIG projects (made up for this example). In addition, I also define people I interact with as Action Topics. This would be similar to tagging and having multiple contexts (as we’ll see), but since the software does not offer that choice I found a way to make it work for me.

2. I have Action Context, which is the traditional context (e.g., @Home, @Work, @Phone, @Computer, etc.). I also define people I interact with as Action Contexts. If I’m understanding things correctly, in essence now I’m able to use multiple contexts, or more specifically 2 contexts. In this case, my multiple context relates to people. Let’s say that Joe is in charge of everything related to administrative issues. Let’s also say that I need to meet with him and the accountant, Pete. I can select Joe as my Action Topic and @Pete as my Action Context. In the same manner I could have an Action Topic “Home” and combine that with my Action Contexts @Phone, @Email, etc.

For now let’s say that I need to meet with the expert in European Markets, and he’s SpiralOcean. My Action Context would be “@SpiralOcean”, and my Action Topic would be “Research European Market.” The specific action I need to take is “Meet with expert.”
In ThinkingRock I can simply choose from a pull-down menu “Context” and from a pull-down menu “Topic”, and I will only see the specific items that meet the criteria (i.e., Action items that deal with SpiralOcean and Research European Market).
This filtering only works for Context and Topic, and the only choices are one item or all.
There is also additional filtering available (e.g., done, inactive, delegated, scheduled, etc.).

If I had to meet with both michelle and SpiralOcean this approach would not work, but there are still some options.

3. I can view notes for my specific actions. I could write a note saying “Include michelle in the meeting with SpiralOcean” for instance. Or if I delegated the task to someone else, I would see that information as well.

4. There’s also the use of color. I can easily identify some tasks based on the color I picked for the Project. If I deal with someone only for a particular project I could “color” them with the same color as the project.

One benefit has already been mentioned. I’m able to look at less information, with the advantage that I can select the relevant information for the task at hand. If I have a meeting with michelle I can print or view only the specific items that involve her. If the meeting is regarding a particular project, I can select those items related to the project and to michelle. If the meeting is not exclusively with michelle, I can select the whole project and it will include items I need to address with michelle, SpiralOcean, and so on.

And one of the great advantages, IMO, is that although I rambled on and on and should be sleeping instead, setting this up within the program is very easy and requires little work. After the initial setup of Contexts and Projects a lot of the work is minimized and accomplished by mere clicks of the mouse.

My guess is that with OmniFocus things could be even easier/faster. Ideally I want to minimize the time I spend with the GTD software, and maximize the time I spend actually getting things done :)

As a side note, I doubt I would use tagging in a serious manner, as it may involve spending more time setting up my tasks. Perhaps replicating -a la DevonThink- a task to a different context or contexts?

[gbrandt@thetcsgroup.com]

Just thought of another reason for tagging contexts...

Let's say I have projects that involve showing john a project proposal A and also calling him to ask a question about project B.

projectA
-show john proposal: @work, @agendas, @john

projectB
-call John about moving forward: @work, @john, @calls

Now let's say I have a meeting with John. If the system were on a pda, I could select
@john

for my context

and see
-show john proposal
-call john about moving forward


This is the most concise and useful depiction of the value of multiple contexts per task. I am completely in favor of OF employing this scheme. The beauty of it is that anyone who insists on 1 context per task is completely free to do so without altering the app at all, including choosing an option or preference. Simply stop assigning contexts after the first one.

-gb

[gbrandt@thetcsgroup.com]

A reminder to the GTD initiates: David says "flat organizational paradigm (= tags) YES, any other more complicated paradigm (= trees) NO."


+1 Forget GTD, trees are just too inelegant and tip the scales towards planning your life and away from doing your life...

[gbrandt@thetcsgroup.com]

Perhaps I got completely lost, so please bear with me.

Are some of the requests (e.g. Tagging) based on experiences with Kinkless GTD?

The reason I ask this is because I have not used kGTD for a while, and after trying numerous GTD programs I’m able to face some of the scenarios that have been mentioned. At least I think I do.

While I’m looking forward to OmniFocus and initially loved kGTD, my choice for a GTD program has been ThinkingRock.
While I agree that multiple contexts may occur simultaneously (e.g., @Work + @Calls) I think users can be ‘creative’ with the software. I’m not sure how this would apply to OmniFocus, but with ThinkingRock, for example, here’s a scenario:

1. I have an Action Topic, which I use in the traditional sense of a Project. For example, I would define an Action Topic as “Research European Market” or “Purchase 10 laptops” or “Do valuation for company XYZ.” Those would be my BIG projects (made up for this example). In addition, I also define people I interact with as Action Topics. This would be similar to tagging and having multiple contexts (as we’ll see), but since the software does not offer that choice I found a way to make it work for me.

2. I have Action Context, which is the traditional context (e.g., @Home, @Work, @Phone, @Computer, etc.). I also define people I interact with as Action Contexts. If I’m understanding things correctly, in essence now I’m able to use multiple contexts, or more specifically 2 contexts. In this case, my multiple context relates to people. Let’s say that Joe is in charge of everything related to administrative issues. Let’s also say that I need to meet with him and the accountant, Pete. I can select Joe as my Action Topic and @Pete as my Action Context. In the same manner I could have an Action Topic “Home” and combine that with my Action Contexts @Phone, @Email, etc.

For now let’s say that I need to meet with the expert in European Markets, and he’s SpiralOcean. My Action Context would be “@SpiralOcean”, and my Action Topic would be “Research European Market.” The specific action I need to take is “Meet with expert.”
In ThinkingRock I can simply choose from a pull-down menu “Context” and from a pull-down menu “Topic”, and I will only see the specific items that meet the criteria (i.e., Action items that deal with SpiralOcean and Research European Market).
This filtering only works for Context and Topic, and the only choices are one item or all.
There is also additional filtering available (e.g., done, inactive, delegated, scheduled, etc.).

If I had to meet with both michelle and SpiralOcean this approach would not work, but there are still some options.

3. I can view notes for my specific actions. I could write a note saying “Include michelle in the meeting with SpiralOcean” for instance. Or if I delegated the task to someone else, I would see that information as well.

4. There’s also the use of color. I can easily identify some tasks based on the color I picked for the Project. If I deal with someone only for a particular project I could “color” them with the same color as the project.

One benefit has already been mentioned. I’m able to look at less information, with the advantage that I can select the relevant information for the task at hand. If I have a meeting with michelle I can print or view only the specific items that involve her. If the meeting is regarding a particular project, I can select those items related to the project and to michelle. If the meeting is not exclusively with michelle, I can select the whole project and it will include items I need to address with michelle, SpiralOcean, and so on.

And one of the great advantages, IMO, is that although I rambled on and on and should be sleeping instead, setting this up within the program is very easy and requires little work. After the initial setup of Contexts and Projects a lot of the work is minimized and accomplished by mere clicks of the mouse.

My guess is that with OmniFocus things could be even easier/faster. Ideally I want to minimize the time I spend with the GTD software, and maximize the time I spend actually getting things done :)

As a side note, I doubt I would use tagging in a serious manner, as it may involve spending more time setting up my tasks. Perhaps replicating -a la DevonThink- a task to a different context or contexts?

What's interesting about this scenario is that in an app that allows multiple contexts per task, one can simply stop entering more than one context and use the software as Bob would, leaving the rest of us multiple contexters fat and happy.

On the other hand, if OF stopped at one context, EVERYONE would be FORCED to use the program the same way Bob is using ThinkingRock above.

My humble opinion only of course (and no offense to Bob, just using his example)

-gb

[vocaro]

I just discovered a new app called iGTD (http://www.tuaw.com/2007/03/31/igtd-gtd-quicksilver-powerful-app/), which happens to have the ability to tag contexts, as shown in these screenshots (http://bargiel.home.pl/iGTD/).

[geoff]

I just discovered a new app called iGTD (http://www.tuaw.com/2007/03/31/igtd-gtd-quicksilver-powerful-app/), which happens to have the ability to tag contexts, as shown in these screenshots (http://bargiel.home.pl/iGTD/).


Interesting app. Looks like it covers most of the bases. I particularly like the toolbar icon. The ability to drag url's is interesting too.

-gb

[Bob Nahasapeemapetilon]

What's interesting about this scenario is that in an app that allows multiple contexts per task, one can simply stop entering more than one context and use the software as Bob would, leaving the rest of us multiple contexters fat and happy.

On the other hand, if OF stopped at one context, EVERYONE would be FORCED to use the program the same way Bob is using ThinkingRock above.

My humble opinion only of course (and no offense to Bob, just using his example)

-gb

No offense taken :)
For me one big concern is spending as little time as possible with a GTD program, and more time working. In spite of my long post, the whole process is fast and easy. It seems that version 2 will pack more features, but I’m not sure whether multiple tags is one of them.
If OF allows multiple tags, that will be great (although I don’t think I’ll use this feature that much). If the feature is not included, I’m sure someone will come up with creative workarounds :)


Interesting app. Looks like it covers most of the bases. I particularly like the toolbar icon. The ability to drag url's is interesting too.

-gb

And the author is very responsive. It may develop into a good GTD app, but for now it’s a bit limited.

[BwanaZulia]

Yet another reason to release OmniFocus as all these other apps are popping up left and right. iGTD looks closest to the mark so far.

I hope OmniGuys are taking note of that AddressBook integration.

BZ

[Bob Nahasapeemapetilon]

Yet another reason to release OmniFocus as all these other apps are popping up left and right. iGTD looks closest to the mark so far.

I hope OmniGuys are taking note of that AddressBook integration.

BZ

GTD apps have been popping up for a while now. The most recent ones that I know of are Inbox, Actiontastic, and iGTD. I would not use either of them for my GTD needs. In fact, they seem to have been released before they were ready for prime time. In their defense, Actiontastic is not even at version 1, and iGTD’s author has released numerous fixes and improvements in a very short period.
One approach that’s quite different comes from Ready-Set-Do! It’s not a solution I would choose, but the approach is refreshing.

I certainly hope that by the time OF is released it has a certain level of maturity. I don’t mind if it takes a bit longer.

[TommyW]

Essentially a context is a tag.

Multiple tags sounds good to me.

I can definitely see applications for it.

Buy Fred a gift in either Dublin OR New York
Discuss birthday with Fred AND Calls

Definitely...

[JasonI]

So, will we be able to tag or have multiple contexts in OF 1.0?- I haven't heard anything about it in quite awhile and didn't see anything in the video.

This is a very big deal for me personally and I think there are many applications for these features for everyone (along with a strong smart folder integration).

[johnjj]

Hello all,

I think Steve brought it to the point with the scenario "Mike is calling".

But I will give you another case - the weekly review.
You can seperate the tasks you have pretty easy then (runway to 30.000 ft.)

And furthermore the efforts to create and take care of the tasks through tags are lesser than
to find the right subsubsubsub...context. (And as far as I understood Merlin, he meant not to play around with the software all day long.
"Time to do some shit on your list." )

In my opinion tags are an absolute must. They are pretty flexible as the example above show and they will get more and more I think.

So, OMNI's please think twice about the tags.
thanks in advance

And by the way, I hope there will be a good search function. Because I see the trouble that you remember a certain tasks and do not know where to find it. So therefor the path of the task should be shown in the results.

Udo

[JasonI]

Just in case there was some ambiguity on how I feel about this subject- tagging (or multiple contexts) are a must for me too.

An example from my daily work: I work for many different companies doing multiple product design projects. The way I currently have our stuff organized is by company and then by project- so far so good. One problem that comes up all of the time is that we will have overlap of projects and tasks where they need to be in multiple "buckets" at the same time. An example of that is we work on royalty projects. What I would like to do is go through and tag each project that is a royalty project. Each company might have a couple of royalty projects and might also have a couple of projects we need to prepare for our next meeting- some will be both royalty and for next meeting. It appears that OF will not allow me to "tag" these individual items with multiple contexts (nearly every other thing I saw in the video had me reaching for my wallet).

One question (that has already been brought up) is whether or not tags and contexts are one in the same. I think in many ways they are and it might be the best way to simplify the system. It would be very interesting to have a primary context (to Call, Home, etc.) and secondary contexts (royalty project, issue to deal with, for next meeting, etc.) associated with the individual projects and tasks.

So, how do you visually organize them? What I have seen that I thought works really well is the HUD in Aperture or the keyword plugin by BullStorm.

This whole idea doesn't need to be overly complex, it just needs to have the flexibility of allowing projects and tasks to be in multiple places at the same time (without duplicating or cloning). I want something to where I can tag the items throughout my project and task list and then have the ability to pull the collected results with smart folders (or something similar).

I hope this makes sense and you see the need for having a feature like this.

[yucca]

Yeah. Hierarchical tagging is not really the answer I was looking for. It does enforce an ordered view of your NAs (at a cost . . . since it may not always reflect reality).

Maybe an independent user defined field would be a compromise that we taggers could live with.

[Ken Case]

We do plan to let you place arbitrary metadata on projects, tasks, and contexts, so yes, you could use a metadata field to add your own tags to things.

[curt.clifton]

We do plan to let you place arbitrary metadata on projects, tasks, and contexts, so yes, you could use a metadata field to add your own tags to things.

Will there be a way to display the metadata in the interface?

I use the conduit setting domains in OmniOutliner for metadata in my OO scripts, but the user interface doesn't (automatically) reflect the metadata values.

It would be great if there was a way in OF to adjust which metadata fields were displayed for each task and project. I'm imagining something like a row inspector that includes a list of the metadata fields with checkboxes to toggle their display. Also useful would be conditional styles predicated on the presence of particular metadata, e.g., "mytags contains 'billable'" or "delegee is not empty".

Those might not be 1.0 features, but I hope the architecture would support their future addition.

[Ken Case]

That's definitely the direction we're headed with metadata, though I'm not sure how much of that will make it into 1.0.

I don't know if you've seen how we handle metadata in OmniPlan, but there we expose the metadata both in the inspectors and through additional columns (you can add custom columns based on your custom metadata keys).

I should mention a complication, though: OmniPlan has the luxury of having a unified model for every row, while OmniFocus actually has several different models mixed in the same outline—with inbox items, tasks, projects, and folders all having different sets of columns (e.g. inbox items have a project column). This makes column customization somewhat more complicated...

But we hope to at least expose the metadata through the inspectors.

[jelmore]

Ok . . . I didn't give a great example. I should have put calls at the top of the hierarchy (Calls>Office>Fred). But it shouldn't matter because contexts will be completely customizable to fit your workflow. I just wanted to throw the idea of hierarchies out there. We are considering doing tags as well, but I'm not sure it will make it into 1.0.

I assume that you mean we can have nested contexts, and be able to "focus" on Calls and see everything in every sub-context below it. If I understand correctly, this would be great; I'm trying to use iGTD, and this is a huge stumbling block for me.

I can see some use for tags as well. Even though OmniFocus is aimed at being a GTD application, some people might find tagging more useful than hierarcial contexts. (And in the end, it's about being productive, not slavishly adhering to a single methodology, right?)

[Blatchara]

In response to those who want to look at tasks from multiple contexts, why not command-click on the contexts to select more than one (non-contiguous selection)? It works for me, and I get a list that can be further grouped and sorted as usual by the filter bar. I had remembered noticing this earlier as one of those beautiful touches that you don't always expect to be implemented at this stage.
There's a much more complicated question in this thread also, but I think this answers the multiple context issue.

[brab]

In response to those who want to look at tasks from multiple contexts, why not command-click on the contexts to select more than one (non-contiguous selection)? It works for me, and I get a list that can be further grouped and sorted as usual by the filter bar. I had remembered noticing this earlier as one of those beautiful touches that you don't always expect to be implemented at this stage.
There's a much more complicated question in this thread also, but I think this answers the multiple context issue.
This is exactly how I deal with this. I used to have a "computer" context, with three sub-contexts corresponding to the names of my three computers. I then realized that this would not work as tasks would flow upward and not downward: clicking on a specific computer would give me only those tasks for this computer (and not the ones not related to a specific computer), and clicking on "computer" would give me every computer tasks, even those requiring a specific machine.

I now have a flat approach, and when I'm at a computer I command select the generic "computer" context as well as the specific machine I'm at.

[johnrover]

I've two more real life scenarios I've been running into using OmniFocus

I need to pickup a big outdoor trash can. I can do that at home depot or at target. The "@HomeDepot" and "@Target" contexts are both nexted in my "@errands" context, but they are on opposite ends of town.

I need to pickup RJ45 connectors and a USB hub. I can do that when "@shopping online", which is nested in my "@weekend –> @laptop" context, or at the computer store on the corner. "@Mikey's Computer" is nexted in the "@erands" context.

I need this task to show up in both contexts. Life is crazy unpredictable, and I don't know where I'll be first.

[brooce]

When in doubt, stick to GTD principles.

By invoking "I'm in multiple contexts", one discards GTD in favor of a simple todo list.

That's not GTD, and it doesn't belong in OmniFocus.

[kmarkley]

By invoking "I'm in multiple contexts", one discards GTD in favor of a simple todo list.

I think johnrover isn't saying "I'm in multiple contexts" so much as saying "This task could be completed in multiple contexts".

I don't know if that's any more/less GTD, but it is different.

[LizPf]

I need to pickup a big outdoor trash can. I can do that at home depot or at target. The "@HomeDepot" and "@Target" contexts are both nexted in my "@errands" context, but they are on opposite ends of town.

I have a lot of things like this -- exactly like this.

I use the nested projects for stores, instead of contexts.
At the moment, my Shopping folder has:
- a group of unrelated items I need to buy, mostly online
- an ongoing list for IKEA, an hour to the south
- an ongoing list for LL Bean, several hours to the north

My contexts are also a nest. Topmost is Errands, then the 5 different directions with stores I go to. [Yes, five. In New England, the roads use alternate dimensions.] If an item needs to be bought on a northwest run, say, I assign the Northwest context. If I can get it in several directions (south for Home Despot, northeast for Tar-jay), it just gets the Errands context.

Eventually, when I print my errands list on a 3x5 card, I'll have directional items broken out, plus the general ones at the bottom. I'll print Ikea and Bean separately, if at all.

--Liz

[Seoism]

Hi! I've read all of the posts in this thread now and it shifted from being about having multiple contexts to meta-tags which is not the same.

I'm pro multiple context and I think it is absolutely in the spirit of GTD to have them if that makes the choices of what you physically can do be less.

The thing with GTD is that there is as I understand it more than one type of contexts but we treat them as the same category to simplify things.

There are:
Physical place contexts like: @home @work @kitchen
Physical tools needed contexts like: @computer @phone @online
Mental strengh needed context like: @high energy @can be done in my sleep
Time constraints contexts like: @takes <15 min @takes <60 min

Which leads some of us to have contexts that looks like this:
@work - with high energy - time to complete less than 15 min
(no the names are less lengthy for real, but I want you to be able to follow how I see it)

I'm an alpha-tester for OF and I do love it and I do use the hierarchical structure for contexts now. But it would be the best out there if I could assign multiple contexts instead of making long combined ones.

It made sense to have just one category of context when there wasn't a database-tool for handling GTD but now I think it is ok to have combined contexts.


/tomas

[SpiralOcean]

There is a way to work with notes & tagging right now.

Example:
I need a tag for interns.

In the notes field, I create my tag...
•Intern

Then in the search box, I enter •Intern

All tasks with the •Intern tag will show up!

The bullet point, •, is a convention used to make the word unique. You can use any symbol you want to, or even no symbol.

It would be better to have a field/column for tags that auto-completed and still use the search field, and I haven't tested using And/Or with the search box so you may only be able to search out one tag, but this is more than I have ever had!

Nice work OmniFocusians.

[markbrown00]

There is a way to work with notes & tagging right now.

Example:
I need a tag for interns.

In the notes field, I create my tag...
•Intern

Then in the search box, I enter •Intern

All tasks with the •Intern tag will show up!

The bullet point, •, is a convention used to make the word unique. You can use any symbol you want to, or even no symbol.

It would be better to have a field/column for tags that auto-completed and still use the search field, and I haven't tested using And/Or with the search box so you may only be able to search out one tag, but this is more than I have ever had!

Nice work OmniFocusians.

Perhaps combine this with textexpander or typeitforme...for fast tagging

[whalt]

LifeBalance solved this whole problem rather elegantly in that each context that was created also had check list of other contexts that were inclusive in it. This was not a rigid hierarchy mind you but more like defining overlapping sets. So say you had these contexts.

Work
Home
Car
Phone
Laptop
Email
Internet
Library

You could place Phone inside of Work, Home and Car. You could place Laptop inside of Work and Home. You could place Internet inside of Laptop and Library. That way when you just wanted to concentrate on phone calls you could click on it and just see phone calls but if you were at Work, Home, or in the Car you would also see phone calls in your availability list because Phone was included in all of them. Same way for Laptop except it would only show up at Home or Work and when you selected it you would still see those things in Internet and Email. When you were doing research at the Library you would also have access to the Internet so your Email items would also show up there.

Granted this arrangement made more sense when used with their Palm app since this type of overlap might be difficult to duplicate with OF's iCal based PDA syncing but it still seems like the right metaphor compared to the rigid slice and dice hierarchy imposed by OF's current context scheme.

Here's a screen capture of the relevant LifeBalance interface.
http://homepage.mac.com/whalt/LB_Places.png

[SpiralOcean]

Life balance did not solve this problem.
You could still only have one context per item.
OF allows you to have nested or inclusive contexts as well.
If you have a Home > Calls context
and you select Home
You will see all items in Home, Calls and in Home > Computer

The heart of the problem is a person will need more than one context for certain items.

One example is creating a list of things I need to do, but also have them available for an intern at the drop of a hat, without keeping duplicate tasks.

Another example is creating a list of things I need to purchase, but want to research first before purchasing, at the same time I need to be able to present a list of equipment needed at the drop of a hat.

There are other examples listed in this thread that would be a good use of tagging.

OF shows me the results of a search, in effect providing me with another filter that I can use for tags such as the ones mentioned above.

LifeBalance does not have this ability.

[whalt]

Life balance did not solve this problem.
You could still only have one context per item.
OF allows you to have nested or inclusive contexts as well.
If you have a Home > Calls context
and you select Home
You will see all items in Home, Calls and in Home > Computer

The heart of the problem is a person will need more than one context for certain items.

One example is creating a list of things I need to do, but also have them available for an intern at the drop of a hat, without keeping duplicate tasks.

Another example is creating a list of things I need to purchase, but want to research first before purchasing, at the same time I need to be able to present a list of equipment needed at the drop of a hat.

There are other examples listed in this thread that would be a good use of tagging.

OF shows me the results of a search, in effect providing me with another filter that I can use for tags such as the ones mentioned above.

LifeBalance does not have this ability.
Well maybe Lifebalance doesn't solve the problem for you the way you would like it to but I think my point is still valid that the inclusive contexts ability of LifeBalance was far different than the hierarchical contexts of OF. In OF you have to make weird subdomains like Work>Computer, Home>Computer and then figure out which one your task should go in where as in the LifeBalance solution you would just put it in Computer and it would show up in both places. Yes, you could make Computer>Work, and Computer>Home instead but then everything you do at home is seen as some variation on Computer and what if you want to set up similar relationships for say, Phone. My point was that LifeBalance could handle that complexity and OF can't.

I still think that the examples you give could be handled by just such a scheme since in theory you should be able to reproduce any tagging system with this sort of categorical multiple inheritance by simply creating a new context that also includes the other disparate contexts within it. LifeBalance contexts can contain other contexts and context hierarchies in a non exclusive manner which OF can not do. In other words each new context has the potential to become a new perspective on the already existing contexts. It's taking your many-to-one relationship and simply inverting into a one-to-many to achieve the same result although granted this may take more organizational gymnastics than a straight tagging system.

Tagging is fine by me as long as I can see those relationships graphically and it doesn't just turn into a tag soup. I'm not arguing to bring back LifeBalance just that OF might pick up a few tricks from previous apps. I think we both agree that the current implementation of contexts in OF leaves a bit to be desired.

[SpiralOcean]

In OF you have to make weird subdomains like Work>Computer, Home>Computer and then figure out which one your task should go in where as in the LifeBalance solution you would just put it in Computer and it would show up in both places.

I don't understand your point here.

In Life Balance, I would also put a task in Work>Computer & Home>Computer, because I do not want to see my work items at home, and do not want to see my home items at work.

The problem with life balance is there is not hierarchy... and before every context at work, I had to type out work-computer, work-calls. At least in OF, I can just type calls and it is magically separate under work.

In LB, if I wanted to see all Computer items, I could create another Computer context and include my Work>computer and my Home>Computer, but I would never do this. I don't want to be using my own time to work on work items. And I don't want to be distracted at work and see my personal items. They aren't paying me for working on my personal items.

The LB inclusion... was an idea... but I found there weren't many instances where it was really useful.

The only time I used inclusion was for Errands. Because I was out and about driving around, I could see my Home>Errands & my Work>Errands at the same time if I wanted to.


Yes, you could make Computer>Work, and Computer>Home instead but then everything you do at home is seen as some variation on Computer and what if you want to set up similar relationships for say, Phone. My point was that LifeBalance could handle that complexity and OF can't.


I don't even know why anyone would ever have a category called Computer>Work and Computer>Home. How would that work for the rest of the contexts?

How long have you used Life Balance?


Tagging is fine by me as long as I can see those relationships graphically and it doesn't just turn into a tag soup. I'm not arguing to bring back LifeBalance just that OF might pick up a few tricks from previous apps. I think we both agree that the current implementation of contexts in OF leaves a bit to be desired.

Okay... now that is something we both agree on. I don't want the tag soup either.

But with your assessment of LB vs OF, I respectfully do not agree with.

The difference between LB inclusion and OF hierarchical is minor.

Let me preface to say, I've been using LB for about 5 years, and have done things with it that are only dreamt of in your philosophy.

I have run into the edge of the ocean with place inclusion, and far off in the distance could see the shimmering promise of what tagging could do.

All I can say is... an entire world opens up when tagging is allowed. But it has to be a structured tagging, otherwise, it can get messy.

Whether or not you ever hit that wall may depend on the type of job you have and how you are working with other people. Tagging allows the flexibility you need to quickly bring up lists of things for other people, or if the environment changes rapidly you can adapt with it.

Some of the examples are... having lists of things to do for interns while still having the items on a list for me to do, without duplication.

Having a list of equipment for me to purchase that I can show my boss at any time, while I am still researching equipment to purchase, without duplication.

Having a list of tasks for a vendor when they show up to fix their equipment, but that are also assigned to me to work on, without duplication.

The OF search function, that shows you all results, is the closest I have ever had to solving those aforementioned issues. And it does a great job, I just have to remember my tags.

If the contexts were more tag oriented... I wouldn't have any duplication of contexts. Right now I have duplicates of all my contexts at work and at home. If I could tag contexts, I wouldn't need those duplicates.

If I could tag contexts, then I could attach peoples names to things... that way I could have tasks for when I see someone in person, or at a meeting or if I am sending emails.

[Ken Case]

First off, thanks everyone for your discussion on this, and especially for providing some concrete examples of what you're trying to do!

Some of the examples are... having lists of things to do for interns while still having the items on a list for me to do, without duplication.

Having a list of equipment for me to purchase that I can show my boss at any time, while I am still researching equipment to purchase, without duplication.

Having a list of tasks for a vendor when they show up to fix their equipment, but that are also assigned to me to work on, without duplication.

These all sound like great use cases for tagging actions, though I don't really think that's directly related to contexts. (None of those sound like contexts to me, just different tags.)

Right now I have duplicates of all my contexts at work and at home.

Rather than duplicating all your contexts for work and home, have you thought about using folders in your project list and focusing on one folder or the other? That's how I have my projects organized (into top-level folders like Omni, Family, and Personal), and I find this a lot more convenient than duplicating contexts.

In addition focusing on folders, you can also create perspectives which group arbitrary collections of projects or contexts. Between the two, you have a lot of flexibility in how you group your actions. (Maybe perspectives should also save the current search, which would help you remember which tags you've used for what given your current approach of putting tags in your notes?)

If I could tag contexts, then I could attach peoples names to things... that way I could have tasks for when I see someone in person, or at a meeting or if I am sending emails.

I've been putting all these in my "Agenda:Person" contexts, because my needs are relatively simple: I don't need to track whether my contact is on the phone or in person or whatever. (I just do a little mental filtering when I look at those agenda items, i.e. skipping past a compensation discussion unless I'm in a one-on-one meeting.) What other contexts are you using for actions associated with a person?

(Please note that I'm not trying to dictate that you should do things my way, I'm just trying to show you some of the patterns I'm using that you might not have found yet, and to make sure I understand the things you're trying to do that I might not have considered yet.)

Thanks again, everyone, for your great feedback in this thread!

[SpiralOcean]

Rather than duplicating all your contexts for work and home, have you thought about using folders in your project list and focusing on one folder or the other? That's how I have my projects organized (into top-level folders like Omni, Family, and Personal), and I find this a lot more convenient than duplicating contexts.


Interesting... I do have my projects grouped into folders for work & home, but didn't think about using that to filter out my tasks and get rid of all my duplicate contexts. I'll look into that. Thanks for the suggestion.


In addition focusing on folders, you can also create perspectives which group arbitrary collections of projects or contexts. Between the two, you have a lot of flexibility in how you group your actions. (Maybe perspectives should also save the current search, which would help you remember which tags you've used for what given your current approach of putting tags in your notes?)


I haven't fooled around with the perspectives that much. Sounds like a solution for memorizing searches... or in my case, tags. Hopefully there will be a way to name the perspective at some point?


I've been putting all these in my "Agenda:Person" contexts, because my needs are relatively simple: I don't need to track whether my contact is on the phone or in person or whatever. (I just do a little mental filtering when I look at those agenda items, i.e. skipping past a compensation discussion unless I'm in a one-on-one meeting.) What other contexts are you using for actions associated with a person?


It's the mental filtering I want to get away from. If I am constantly mental filtering, I go numb to the entire list. I went numb to my list with the last application I was using because it was so much work to try and make it work GTD style. Too much mental work & filtering. The point of the filters & GTD is... do the thinking before hand, then crank on action items.

I don't track if someone is on the phone or not. But if I have a need to talk to a vendor about their product. I have it in a calls context. They show up on a surprise visit. I'm not going to think... hmm... I'll go to calls to see if there is anything to talk about. I might think... is there anything to talk to this vendor about, and go to the vendor tag I have set up, that would show me things I need to email, call about, problems I'm having with their product, and talk about in person. But if they don't show up for a surprise visit, when I am going through my calls context, I'll call them about that item.

The preceding item is an extremely simple example to show a point. If a person is in a job, where there are 10 vendors for 20 different products you are supporting, and that's just working with the vendors. Then there are coworkers. Using one Agendas context for everything becomes more work than it is worth.

I haven't been using agendas because with agendas I would need my list mobile to make good use of it. Currently, I can't take my OF list into most meetings, because it is on my desktop computer. If someday the iPhone has OF on it, then Agendas would become useful because the list would become mobile.

I use contexts as what I am going to do. Tags, I use to become flexible. When the situation changes drastically, I can't sit there for 10 min and tell the person in front of me, hold on let me check my agendas, no that's not where it is, let me check my emails, no... hmm... no where is that task item.... ahh here it is... but I know there was another one somewhere... hang on.

Instead of,

Rob, I'm glad your here, there are a couple things we need to talk about... give me a second, okay, first... blah blah blah...

[SpiralOcean]

Rather than duplicating all your contexts for work and home, have you thought about using folders in your project list and focusing on one folder or the other? That's how I have my projects organized (into top-level folders like Omni, Family, and Personal), and I find this a lot more convenient than duplicating contexts.


Just moved the data around (beautiful that I can select multiple items in a context and just drop it over to it's new context. Oddly enough, I've never been able to assign a context to multiple items in a previous application.)

The focus is working beautifully. Thanks for the suggestion. I was able to get rid of half of my contexts.

[Ken Case]

Hopefully there will be a way to name the perspective at some point?

Yes, definitely.

It's the mental filtering I want to get away from. If I am constantly mental filtering, I go numb to the entire list.

My agenda contexts are pretty small, usually just a few items, so I guess I haven't experienced this problem. (Maybe I will later!)

I don't track if someone is on the phone or not. But if I have a need to talk to a vendor about their product. I have it in a calls context. They show up on a surprise visit. I'm not going to think... hmm... I'll go to calls to see if there is anything to talk about. I might think... is there anything to talk to this vendor about, and go to the vendor tag I have set up, that would show me things I need to email, call about, problems I'm having with their product, and talk about in person. But if they don't show up for a surprise visit, when I am going through my calls context, I'll call them about that item.

I wouldn't want to look in more than one place either, and that's one reason I try to keep my context list as simple as possible. For one-off contacts related to a single action (like "Make an appointment with the dentist"), I use a generic Phone or Email context. But for items related to a relationship where I might encounter the person in multiple contexts, I always use a separate agenda context for that person (like Agenda:Jane or Agenda:Bob). When I talk with someone (whatever the physical context), I can get at everything I need to talk to them about by selecting their agenda context.

The preceding item is an extremely simple example to show a point. If a person is in a job, where there are 10 vendors for 20 different products you are supporting, and that's just working with the vendors. Then there are coworkers. Using one Agendas context for everything becomes more work than it is worth.

Are you saying it's a lot of work to create separate agendas for each person (too much work during planning time), or a lot of work to put all their items in a single agenda context and then have to sort through it later (too much work when acting on those actions)?

I haven't been using agendas because with agendas I would need my list mobile to make good use of it. Currently, I can't take my OF list into most meetings, because it is on my desktop computer. If someday the iPhone has OF on it, then Agendas would become useful because the list would become mobile.

Most of my agenda items aren't related to meetings, they're just things I need to talk with someone about (often in email, sometimes on the phone or IM or in person). But when I do want to take my agendas to a meeting (without taking my laptop), I find printing them to work pretty well.

When the situation changes drastically, I can't sit there for 10 min and tell the person in front of me, hold on let me check my agendas, no that's not where it is, let me check my emails, no... hmm... no where is that task item.... ahh here it is... but I know there was another one somewhere... hang on.

Right, that's exactly why I put all those actions into an agenda context for that person, and don't list them in other contexts. When I act in other contexts (like email), I also scan my agenda items. But just because that's working for me (at least at the moment) doesn't mean that it will work for everyone.

[Ken Case]

The focus is working beautifully. Thanks for the suggestion. I was able to get rid of half of my contexts.

Excellent! I'm glad that's working for you.

[SpiralOcean]

Are you saying it's a lot of work to create separate agendas for each person (too much work during planning time), or a lot of work to put all their items in a single agenda context and then have to sort through it later (too much work when acting on those actions)?


It is a lot of work to put all their items in a single agenda context and then sort through it later. Too much work when acting on those actions is what I am saying.

Putting all the items in a single agenda item breaks the reason why we use contexts.

If I have 20 individual agenda contexts (10 Vendors, 3 for bosses, 7 for co-workers), then every day I need to scan them to see who I need to talk to for the day. It's not using contexts for what contexts are intended for...

When breaking apart tasks that all deal with one person, but fall into different ways of contacting them I separate out into contexts.

My preferred method of contacting a person is email. So anything I can send in an email I will put into an email context.
For items where talking to a person is more appropriate, I place them in the calls context.
For items that need that face to face contact, I put them in Agendas.

My daily routine is going through the contexts and processing. Processing all calls, processing emails, processing computer...

If I am waiting in an airport, and have a cell phone with me, I want to see the tasks I can complete with the cell phone. If all of my tasks for contacting a person are in agendas, then it takes a lot of mental effort and time to go through my agendas, and for each item think...
can I can do this on the phone or does in need to be an email or in person.

It's very akin to working from the inbox.
We don't do it.
It's inefficient.
And a person ends up skipping items to do because they are in the wrong context.

I can't email this item because I don't have an internet.
so you skip down to the next item.
I can't complete this item because I really need to talk to this person face to face.
so you skip down to the next item.

The next day, what happens...
the same process, start at the top and skip over things that can't really be done right now. A person ends up touching every task more than once.

When we process the inbox, we put items in the correct context as an actionable item so that when we process the context we don't have to think the thought...
is this something I can do right now.

The goal of GTD is to do the thinking first, then crank through the contexts of actionable items without thinking the thoughts...
can I do this now,
do I have the correct tools,
is the person around.

That thinking was done during the weekly review or processing of the inbox. All I should have to do when I look at my calls context is make calls...
Hey Jill... I'm calling about blah blah...
Hey Jack... do you have the blah blah...

The tagging comes into play when I need to break the contexts.

Tagging allows the list to become flexible and gives me the ability to change my direction instantly.

When I processed my inbox, i wrote the things that need to happen with Bob in my emails, calls and agendas. Suddenly, Bob is in front of me... I can break the contexts and see everything that I need to talk to Bob about. This saves me time and helps me crank through my items.

When I did my weekly review, I wrote all the things that I need to be working on, but some of them are simple enough for an intern to do, so I tag those items as intern.

On Monday, the secretary comes up to me and says... I have a community service worker here for the day, is there anything you have for him to do?

I can filter by my intern tag and give them a list of things to do. I've just saved myself time and our volunteer felt like we had something for them to do instead of making up some menial task to keep them busy.

[SpiralOcean]

I wouldn't want to look in more than one place either, and that's one reason I try to keep my context list as simple as possible. For one-off contacts related to a single action (like "Make an appointment with the dentist"), I use a generic Phone or Email context. But for items related to a relationship where I might encounter the person in multiple contexts, I always use a separate agenda context for that person (like Agenda:Jane or Agenda:Bob). When I talk with someone (whatever the physical context), I can get at everything I need to talk to them about by selecting their agenda context.


I agree with keeping a context list as simple as possible. If you are processing items in a context, and you get to a task and think... I can't really do that now... then you probably need another context.

This is why some people have an Internet & Computer context. There are times when you may have a computer available, but unable to connect to the internet. Flying on an airplane is a good example. When you use a context, you don't want to see things that you have no chance of accomplishing because you don't have the correct tool, person or time available at your disposal.

[kmarkley]

Rather than duplicating all your contexts for work and home, have you thought about using folders in your project list and focusing on one folder or the other? That's how I have my projects organized (into top-level folders like Omni, Family, and Personal), and I find this a lot more convenient than duplicating contexts.

In addition focusing on folders, you can also create perspectives which group arbitrary collections of projects or contexts. Between the two, you have a lot of flexibility in how you group your actions. (Maybe perspectives should also save the current search, which would help you remember which tags you've used for what given your current approach of putting tags in your notes?)

(Maybe perspectives should also save the current search, which would help you remember which tags you've used for what given your current approach of putting tags in your notes?)

I love this method, which to me seems to be the big way the OF distinguishes itself from the competition (and, I assume, the reason for the name). I had an impassioned exchange with a ninja last week when it was suggested that this functionality might go away.

The big problem is that focusing on folders is not yet remembered in perspectives (but I understand it will in the future). Once you can quickly call up both an arbitrary list of contexts and an arbitrary list of projects/folders, then it will be really killer.

I would love it if Perpectives also saved the search field. I made a feature request to that effect a few days ago.

[kmarkley]

I've been putting all these in my "Agenda:Person" contexts, because my needs are relatively simple: I don't need to track whether my contact is on the phone or in person or whatever. (I just do a little mental filtering when I look at those agenda items, i.e. skipping past a compensation discussion unless I'm in a one-on-one meeting.) What other contexts are you using for actions associated with a person?
I agree with keeping a context list as simple as possible. If you are processing items in a context, and you get to a task and think... I can't really do that now... then you probably need another context.

This is why some people have an Internet & Computer context. There are times when you may have a computer available, but unable to connect to the internet. Flying on an airplane is a good example. When you use a context, you don't want to see things that you have no chance of accomplishing because you don't have the correct tool, person or time available at your disposal.

The thing is, relationships with people are a lot messier than just whether or not they are 'available at you disposal'. There are things you delegate to other people and things that are delegated to you. Sometimes you have to speak in person, but sometimes not. You can email someone in the middle of the night, but not call. So if you put an email you need to write into an @agenda category, then it doesn't appear when you are at you computer at 2am. But on the other hand if you put the same task in an @Internet context, then you have to hunt for it if the person calls you. If you try to break out every possible combination of person and mode of communication, then you are back down the road of byzantine hierarchical contexts. You can search across contexts for the person provided you put the same and unique name in the note field of every action. (Bob, B. Smith, Bob S., etc. won't cut it.)

It seems to me that interaction with other people is an important aspect that is largely independent of either context or projects. This is why I think it would really great to have a dedicated 'contacts' field for each item that links to the AddressBook. Because there are many projects and actions that do not involve others, there would be no cause to clutter up the UI -- just access to the field via a new inspector and maybe a small flag indicating that it is non-empty.

This would be obviously useful w/r/t/ Mail hooks, but would also be great in other ways. For instance using a cmd-keystroke to open the contact in AddressBook would obviate the need to do a manual lookup for every action in your @Phone list. This field could also serve as the basis for building a delegation workflow, either baked into OF or one you rolled yourself via AppleScript. Connection to the AddressBook would eliminate the problem of consistent naming and free one up from worrying about formatting the note field 'just right' to accommodate a custom AppleScript. It would be especially cool if this field had the same sort of inheritance as default contexts or flags. You could, for instance, assign team members to a project. Then when you had an action "Update team on project progress", you'd be a keystroke away from creating an email to all team members.

I am generally opposed to weighing OF down with a lot of features (such as the OF->Mail->Mail->OF delegation feature requested elsewhere). I really like how lean and spare it is now. But this seems to me a small addition that would make a big difference.

I am sending this in as an 'official' feature request. If you like the idea, please do so as well.

[curt.clifton]

Contacts are a good idea.

I would also like (non-displayed) fields for URLs, Mail message IDs, arbitrary deep links into OmniOutliner documents, and probably a bunch of other things that I haven't thought of. Others will think of other things. I'm hoping that arbitrary meta-data will solve this. That is, for any OF item, I'd like to be able to associate a "label-data pair. Examples include: (Contact, Fred), (URL, http://www.omnigroup.com), (Mail, obscurecodingformessageidhere), and (Priority, 4). This gives a huge amount of power for developing OF extensions, because scripts can associate arbitrary data with OF items. Even without scripting this would be incredibly powerful. The inspectors could include a little two-column table for editing this sort of data, and searches could be tuned to just search on a particular piece of meta-data. For example, I could create a search that says "show my all available actions where the contact is 'Fred'".

[SpiralOcean]

The thing is, relationships with people are a lot messier than just whether or not they are 'available at you disposal'.

Such a negative statement... I absolutely agree, but I also put a lot of resistance to associating GTD or OF with making people 'available at your disposal'. Although I understand the meaning behind the statement, I would like to make clear that having a list of things to talk about with someone is no way abusive, it's just smart.


It seems to me that interaction with other people is an important aspect that is largely independent of either context or projects. This is why I think it would really great to have a dedicated 'contacts' field for each item that links to the AddressBook.


A hard link to the address book is a terrific idea.

I wonder what Leopards todo application is going to look like? It appears to be accessible from Mail.

OF may be waiting to see how that plays out, or may already have a developer copy and just can't say anything about anything that has anything to do with Leopard.

...but would also be great in other ways. For instance using a cmd-keystroke to open the contact in AddressBook would obviate the need to do a manual lookup for every action in your @Phone list.


Not to mention once OF is on the iPhone... and you need to call or email someone, you could do it by tapping a button on the phone and it calls the person associated with the task.

Maybe this is why mail's todo list with leopard is in mail... because eMail is on the iPhone.

[kmarkley]

Contacts are a good idea.

I would also like (non-displayed) fields for URLs, Mail message IDs, arbitrary deep links into OmniOutliner documents, and probably a bunch of other things that I haven't thought of. Others will think of other things. I'm hoping that arbitrary meta-data will solve this. That is, for any OF item, I'd like to be able to associate a "label-data pair. Examples include: (Contact, Fred), (URL, http://www.omnigroup.com), (Mail, obscurecodingformessageidhere), and (Priority, 4). This gives a huge amount of power for developing OF extensions, because scripts can associate arbitrary data with OF items. Even without scripting this would be incredibly powerful. The inspectors could include a little two-column table for editing this sort of data, and searches could be tuned to just search on a particular piece of meta-data. For example, I could create a search that says "show my all available actions where the contact is 'Fred'".
That does sound quite powerful. I only suggest that maybe the contacts meta-data not be part of this arbitrary system (although perhaps built onto it).

I want to type "Fred" and have the field auto-complete to "Fred Smythe" and create a link to the Address book just like Mail's 'To:' field. Your suggestion of an arbitrary meta-data of (Contact, Fred) sounds like I would have to teach it to find and link up to the AddressBook entry myself. Which I'd rather not.

[curt.clifton]

I only suggest that maybe the contacts meta-data not be part of this arbitrary system (although perhaps built onto it).

I want to type "Fred" and have the field auto-complete to "Fred Smythe" and create a link to the Address book just like Mail's 'To:' field. Your suggestion of an arbitrary meta-data of (Contact, Fred) sounds like I would have to teach it to find and link up to the AddressBook entry myself. Which I'd rather not.

That makes sense to me. Certain metadata pairs could be built-in. Contacts is a likely one. Perhaps URLs would be another.

[pjb]

Being able to access the address book database directly, similar to Mail, would be sweet. I'm not sure I have to have it as an element of every action as an iCal event has attendees or in a column as in several of my custom OO files (where I still have to drag the card out of AB. OO already recognizes URLs and address cards as specific item types based on content and finding that item amongst all your databases (OW history, etc) as you start typing and placing it in the meta-data would be the next advance (like having LaunchBar inside your app).

In the future, Arbitrary meta-data will be most useful once we also have smart items.

In the meantime, if I have a name in OF I use LaunchBar to find it in Address Book (highlight name, OF:Services/Send to LB, navigate per LB to either display or dial or whatever). I suppose QS could do the same thing.

[whalt]

I don't understand your point here.
In LB, if I wanted to see all Computer items, I could create another Computer context and include my Work>computer and my Home>Computer, but I would never do this. I don't want to be using my own time to work on work items. And I don't want to be distracted at work and see my personal items. They aren't paying me for working on my personal items.

Although I will admit that my work/personal boundaries may be looser than yours that's not really the point. I was just trying to give a hypothetical scenario. I think you're getting too hung up on the particulars of my example. Perhaps I should have used X, Y and Z.


I don't even know why anyone would ever have a category called Computer>Work and Computer>Home.

Um, you wouldn't. That was my point.


How long have you used Life Balance?
...

The difference between LB inclusion and OF hierarchical is minor.

Let me preface to say, I've been using LB for about 5 years, and have done things with it that are only dreamt of in your philosophy.


I have used LB off and on for several years including the Palm edition but fine I will be happy to bow to your superior knowledge of the product EXCEPT for this one issue of Places/Contexts. If you can't see how the LB multiple inheritance model, for better or worse, is fundamentally different from the straight hierarchy of OF contexts then I'm not sure you've thought about it very much.

Whatever the case may be, apparently it didn't work conceptually for you and getting into an academic discussion about set theory and how any tagging model can be recreated using LB's Places model is probably not really going to help anyone but I assure you that if you give me any arbitrarily complex tagging scheme I could recreate it as a set of LB Places which is something that OF contexts simply cannot do.


Okay... now that is something we both agree on. I don't want the tag soup either.

Common ground at last.


All I can say is... an entire world opens up when tagging is allowed. But it has to be a structured tagging, otherwise, it can get messy.

Whether or not you ever hit that wall may depend on the type of job you have and how you are working with other people. Tagging allows the flexibility you need to quickly bring up lists of things for other people, or if the environment changes rapidly you can adapt with it.

Yes, I agree with all that but in other tagging apps I've used, that functionality is outweighed by having to type in a long string of keywords/tags and separators with every item. I want to still have the auto-complete as well as the ability to drag tasks into contexts that I have now. That's why I suggested the LB model as a point of departure because it provided some of the flexibility of tagging (whether you believe me or not) along with concrete items that could be pointed to.


Some of the examples are... having lists of things to do for interns while still having the items on a list for me to do, without duplication.


Ok, this is an easy one so I can't resist. The same logic holds for your other two examples so I'll leave those for you to work out yourself.

Contexts:
Either
Me (includes Either)
Intern (includes Either)

So you have three items, one that only you could do, one that your intern needs to do, and one that either one of you could do. You place each item into the most appropriate context above.

Context Either contains only the one item that both of you can do. Context Me includes two items, the one only you could do and the one inherited from Either. Context Intern contains two items, the one only the intern can do and the one inherited from Either.

There it is with no duplication. Now explain to me how OF contexts would accomplish this?

Of course you can do the same thing with tagging and maybe that's a conceptual cleaner way to handle it as long as the interface still maintains the sense of a context and not just a set of amorphous keywords.

I will say that I still prefer the ability to just assign one context as in Either above and have it show up in multiple contexts rather than having to assign multiple tags like Me and Intern to every item that can be both.


If the contexts were more tag oriented... I wouldn't have any duplication of contexts. Right now I have duplicates of all my contexts at work and at home. If I could tag contexts, I wouldn't need those duplicates.

Wait, wasn't that my point? I thought you said that there was no overlap between your work and home lives so why would this be a problem for you?

Oh well. I'm really not trying to start/continue an argument. I think we probably agree more on how we might want an ultimate solution to look like than we disagree. The fact that we are both passionate about the future direction of the product I think speaks well of what Omni has accomplished so far but they do have a long way to go and therein lie the pitfalls.

[whalt]

First off, thanks everyone for your discussion on this, and especially for providing some concrete examples of what you're trying to do!

It's really encouraging to know that you guys are making note of this stuff because I think it is an important area that needs some improvement.

Since you are looking for concrete examples of how the current context hierarchy is less than useful sometimes I'll share one of my current head scratchers.

I have a very loose work schedule. I do work for a company and not myself but I pretty much set my own hours. The company has different shifts and the building is accessible by me 24 hours a day. I find that some things are best taken care of during the regular business day such as discussing an expense report with someone in the accounting department. Other tasks are better left for the evening when many people have gone home such as performing maintenance on the accounting department computers. Many tasks can of course be handled anytime I'm at the office.

So if I break these into contexts I get Work Day, Work Night, and Work General. Now what I would love to be able to do is click on one context and see everything that is currently available in that location. For instance, if I'm at the office and the sun is shining I'd like to be able to click on Work Day and see all of my available actions for being at work during the day. Unfortunately, right now that takes a multiple selection of contexts.

So what I'm looking for is contexts that include other contexts within them. That sounds like what is available with OF's nested context feature. Looking offhand at my three contexts above you might assume that the following hierarchy would make sense.

Work
--->Day
--->Night

But that provides for exactly the opposite of the functionality I'm looking for and in fact provides less functionality than the separate contexts themselves. If I select Day, I still only see what's available under Day and see none of the generally available Work items. If I now do a multiple selection of Work and Day as I did above, I see everything including Night tasks which I'm specifically trying to avoid.

I can regain some of the functionality I'm looking for if I reverse the hierarchy for one of my shifts.

Day
--->Work
Work Night

Now by clicking Day I get one of the inclusive views I'm looking for but now the Night items are left out in the cold and even worse, all general Work items now are visually categorized under a false taxonomy of Day items.

That is what I was getting at with my recommendation to take a look at the LifeBalance context inheritance model for which this kind of classification is easy. I guess you could solve this with Perspectives as well if they now respect both context and project selections, the last time I tried them they didn't yet, but it still seems less intuitive then just clicking on one context to see what's up. Maybe once Perspectives get a better UI (i.e. named and not just living in the menu bar) the differences may be moot.

[curt.clifton]

Why not:

Work
- Anytime
- Day
- Night

Then you select both Anytime and Day if you're there during the day. Once perspectives are fully implemented you would just open the Work Day perspective to get this selection.

I used LifeBalance for awhile and really liked their "places", which provided groups of contexts. But it seems like perspectives is exactly that. Am I missing something (or forgetting it)?

[whalt]

Why not:

Work
- Anytime
- Day
- Night

Then you select both Anytime and Day if you're there during the day. Once perspectives are fully implemented you would just open the Work Day perspective to get this selection.

I used LifeBalance for awhile and really liked their "places", which provided groups of contexts. But it seems like perspectives is exactly that. Am I missing something (or forgetting it)?

Well your solution is pretty much the same as what I had before putting them into a hierarchy. You still have to make a multiple context selection which is