Contexts or Folders? Ah! The dilema!

[JustRed]

Still working on wrapping my head around OF as opposed to Things.

Contexts = tags, right?
Folders is just a means of organization, correct?

How do you keep it simple? It seems to me that too many folders and too many contexts just seems... busy for busy sake? At least to me and I'm looking for suggestions.

i believe in keeping it simple. I currently have two folders: Work, Home. I used to have a couple more: Finance, Tech, Personal. But then I found I rarely had many tasks/projects in Finance, so I moved those items into Home. Same with Personal. Then Tech.

I thought I'd just use Contexts, but that's getting out of control.

Again, what's your method of organization? Suggestions for keeping it simple?

Thanks so much in advance!

[DrJJWMac]

Your analogy contexts <- tags and folders <- organization is reasonable.

I have top level folders for Areas of Responsibility, for example ...

Sales
Marketing
Career
...
Surroundings
Well-Being
Family
...

I have sub-folders in these areas to further refine them. After this level, I put projects (folders or projects themselves). So, most of my projects are two levels deep. The one exception is the single-action groups that serve to hold the CHORES for the given area. An example ...

Surroundings (area folder)
- Chores @ Surroundings (single-action project)
- House (folder for projects)
-- Roof Repair (project)
-- Landscaping (project folder)
--- Landscaping Company (project to choose landscaper)
--- Yard Layout (project to define yard layout)
--- Landscape (project to complete landscaping work)

My contexts are either locations (work, home, errands, desk, ...), tools (computer, iPod, phone, ...), state-of-action (bills, reviewing, planning, ...), or personnel (spouse, daughter, colleague X, someone, ...).

The beauty of OF (vs Things) is the ability to nest projects in organization and to set projects as single-action, parallel, or sequential. Some folks argue, the ugly of OF (vs Things) is the inability to set multiple contexts (tags).

Hope this helps.

--
JJW

[anguswa]

I've been following TRO which is a GTD-like practice. All I can say is please please please add tags to OF. They add an extra dimension that keeps the overall organization and view of things simple, and allows you to focus very quickly on items.

Folders, Subfolders etc is an old paradigm and gets very confusing very fast. In addition to this over complication, reorganizing your lists becomes a chore and almost a 'lock in' that prevent your mind from expanding your lists rather than enriching them.

Tags free the mind very quickly.

I don't like Things for a variety of reasons. I love OF and have tried to use it but the complexity of what I am doing very quickly overruns the product.

There are some web-based tools that provide what I need but I cannot use these in my office environment for security reasons. OF is so close.

To some extent this is why I believe OS's are breaking away from the File/Folder structure into Metadata (read: tags). It's why OS X is so powerful and also why Spotlight works so well.

[Brian]

Anguswa, we don't have any plans to add tags to OmniFocus in the foreseeable future. We do have some ideas on how to address the general underlying need (more flexible list creation/organization) that tags are an attempt to address. Our current plan is to tackle that work sometime after we ship OmniFocus 2.

I know that's probably not the answer you'd prefer, but I figured accurate information now was better than keeping you hoping indefinitely for something we're unlikely to do. Hope that helps at least a little bit.

Of course, we'd be happy to help with any organizational issues you may be running into, either here on the forums or via support mail...

[whpalmer4]

So, is that a statement that OF 2.0 will not include the long-awaited metadata column?

[Greg Jones]

Brian, for one I would appreciate an general overview of what concepts we can expect to see in OmniFocus 2.0, and a progress report if it will ship late 2012/early 2013 as was previously projected.

I hate to sound like I am complaining, but when I look at my wish list for OmniOutliner 4.0, OmniOutliner Mac/iOS document syncing, some form of OmniPlan/OmniFocus sharing/integration, OmniFocus 2.0 (with or without user-defined metadata), I see a long list of promised products and features that I have been waiting on for years now.

[Brian]

So, is that a statement that OF 2.0 will not include the long-awaited metadata column?

It is not. Neither is it a statement that it will be included. Knowledge of some things about a subject does not imply knowledge of all things about that subject. ;-)

[Brian]

I see a long list of promised products and features that I have been waiting on for years now.

This is why it's so hard to talk about things you haven't built yet. The only honest answer we can give is "we don't know yet, but when we do, we'll say". That's not a particularly satisfying answer, so folks understandably want some conjecture beyond that.

No matter how many caveats you put around that conjecture, though, what folks remember later is a promise. No blame here - it's human psychology. Once we know for sure, we'll say. If we haven't said, it's because we don't know yet. We're working on it. We know we'll get there, but everything beyond that is just a guess (http://www.quora.com/Engineering-Management/Why-are-software-development-task-estimations-regularly-off-by-a-factor-of-2-3).

(Heads-up: there is some mild profanity on the page that link goes to, but it's in service to some of the best writing about this subject I've seen. Apologies nonetheless.)

[danlandrum]

Brian,

Thanks for responding to this thread. I've purchased almost every product you folks make, so obviously I support and appreciate your work.

I consider it a bummer to know there aren't any plans to incorporate some sort of tagging structure in the future OmniFocus. The GTD system, as designed by D.A., was a logical improvement over the previous king of organizers, The Franklin Planner. GTD caught on because it fit a new paradigm of how we work. I think that paradigm has shifted again, and a single context just doesn't cut it for the way I work and the number of responsibilities and resulting multi-contexts I have. I could offer many examples, but I suspect you've seen enough by now that you know where I would go already. Please reconsider? Perhaps I did not understand your post correctly?

[Brian]

I don't think you misunderstood - a previous post (http://forums.omnigroup.com/showpost.php?p=76740&postcount=12) sums up what we see as the downside of introducing tagging. Specifically, it takes your "I can do this" lists and turns them into "I might be able to do this" lists.

Fundamentally, we view "showing things you can't actually do" as undesirable, so we don't want to introduce that tradeoff into the app. We do feel like we have a good understanding of people's desire for more flexibility in organizing their tasks, and we plan to service that underlying desire in the future.

In the meantime, even with a single-context approach, we haven't encountered any situations that OmniFocus truly can't handle with existing features. (Hierarchical contexts, due dates, and so forth.) My posts on this page (http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=17016&page=6) may be helpful, and if there are areas of your workflow you're struggling with in OmniFocus, we're happy to help.

Of course, reasonable people can disagree about any of the above - my goal here isn't to persuade you that our way of thinking is correct. Just to offer information and/or help.

[danlandrum]

My concern isn't with the planning process, or "I can do this" lists, though I do see your point there. My work presents itself naturally, even when I seem to have an unnatural amount!. (I definitely appreciate the Forecast View in OmniFocus iPad and long for it on my MacBook Pro.) The problem lies in actually finding information while doing things, for example:

A call comes in from a person who is associated with multiple projects. They want to touch base on multiple fronts, as do I. I would like to find, instantly, via a search in OmniFocus, all items I have captured pertaining to this contact, across all projects and all contexts. I'd also like to add here that I've read Kourosh Dini's book, Creating Flow with OmniFocus, and I've tried to overcome this by using an Agenda context, but that precludes using contexts in every other useful way. It also assumes there's only one useful contact for a task.

I think simply having a contact field, to which we could add more than one contact, and preferably referencing Apple's Address Book, would solve the majority of these real-time usage issues. Perhaps this is being considered?

This is why I was bummed to learn that tags are not in the pipeline. I had planned to solve the problem myself by simply creating tags that answered the "who" question.

[DrJJWMac]

I weigh in firmly against development of multiple tags as an additional front-end processing tool in OF. As one who finds falls readily in to the trap of playing too much with a tool rather than just doing what is needed with it ... multiple-tags would end up as a clear distraction. Also, looking back ... having multiple tags in Things really did not help me get further ahead in my work. Indeed, even the use of single contexts in OF is less of a help anymore in determining what is forefront for me to do at any given time as opposed to having Due Dates and Sequential vs Parallel alignments of tasks.

That is not to say that some folks absolutely do believe that they absolutely require multiple tags to move forward at all in doing stuff. Based on my experiences, I would have to question their faith (and the application there-of in the GTD "religion / mantra") rather strongly.

OTOH, having tags to help develop reports at the back end of the pipeline could be helpful for me. For example, let's collect all work completed in >Marketing on the @Phone last month. In this regard, I weigh in firmly on the side of development of meta-tags using the OpenMeta framework. Whether OpenMeta tags would be extendable to please those (GTD heathens :-)) who feel they need multiple tags at the front end of their day is another story.

--
JJW

[DrJJWMac]

....The problem lies in actually finding information while doing things, for example:

I agree with your example on why having tags in OF would be useful.

--
JJW

[grangej]

I have read several posts on here why GTD / single context is the way to go. I agree, and also I agree that any task should only exist in one project at any given time. But here is a very good reason why we need an additional way to organize things :

I have Root folders by Overall type of task : Work, School, Home etc, then under this the individual projects and single action lists go. Then contexts are organized by what I need to complete the action (computer, being at my office, at a particular client, or needing the internet ) Also very useful. Now here is a good example why I (we) need Tagging : I have a weekly meeting at the office, at which we review projects for various clients etc, assign tasks. Now I don't want to make this a "project" because these tasks exist outside of the meeting in there own projects, folder structure (such as client A... ), but I would love to be able to tag these tasks with "weekly meeting task" so when it came to to review these tasks in the meeting I could just focus on this tag and there they are. Key to this is we should be able to focus on the tag and view then further look at them by context or by project organization or location etc. Another example is I have tasks on a help desk,I really want to organize these in there own project /context, not have a "helpdesk projects".

Hope this clarifies things well enough so that this can be implemented and that it is shown it doesn't break any GTD methodology.

[wdiadamo]

My issue, explained in some of my other posts, is that I think the very concept of contexts is outdated because of technology readily available now that was not in 2001 when GTD more or less burst on the scene. With an iphone and a Macbook Air, I can do almost anything work related wherever and whenever I want. My problem is that these two "contexts" make up a huge, and unwieldy portion of my tasks, and filtering them in a meaningful way is difficult. My primary method is start dates, which I use liberally, but that still leaves me with too much to triage on a daily basis. I know I can only mow the lawn at home, but I can call, write, email, research, read, etc, pretty much anywhere, and do most of what I need to do all day every day on something that fits in my pocket, or at least in my bag. I need a way to further limit and refine those contexts, and right now OF makes it somewhat difficult. (BTW - I know about all the filtering and perspective options and have used them extensively; I still don't have one that tells me what I need to do today, that does not either force me to place a start date on everything, or look an a list with hundreds of possible actions.)

Again, I am hoping that OF 2.0 addresses some flexibility issues, and gets closer to the iOS versions, which are in my opinion superior products, but my eye is wandering. OF is still the best, but whether it is good enough is a different matter.

[whpalmer4]

Again, I am hoping that OF 2.0 addresses some flexibility issues, and gets closer to the iOS versions, which are in my opinion superior products,

How do you figure that? The iOS versions fall far short of the Mac version when it comes to filtering, searching, etc.

[DrJJWMac]

... I can do almost anything work related wherever and whenever I want. ...

This is one reason why I have included contexts that are "Energy/Input" related in addition to some that are location based. Some work I just cannot do wherever I want, regardless of the tools at hand ...

@home, @lecture, @office ...

... and some work requires certain tools (regardless of location) ...

*Desk, *Computer, *Phone ...

... and some work just depends on my frame of mind ...

!reading, !planning, !grading ...

... I still don't have one that tells me what I need to do today, that does not either force me to place a start date on everything, or look an a list with hundreds of possible actions.)

Start dates should not really be about when you WANT to do something. They should be about being limited to do that task only on or after that time. For example, you determine that you cannot mow the grass until the weekend (because your weekly workload takes all available time otherwise) ... OK ... so set that as the start date. You have to mow the grass before the end of the weekend (because otherwise the county will fine you) ... so there is your Due Date. By comparison, just because you WANT to read some new fiction novel tomorrow does not mean the task of reading it gets a start date of tomorrow.

Again, I am hoping that OF 2.0 addresses some flexibility issues, and gets closer to the iOS versions, which are in my opinion superior products,

That is a mixed bag of wishes IMO. The iX versions have some bells and whistles that are still lacking on the desktop version. However, here is an example ... you might try on the iX device to duplicate an entire project as a template to create a new one. Oh! Cannot do that one. Have to create the entire project again from scratch. Ouch!

... but my eye is wandering. OF is still the best, but whether it is good enough is a different matter.

My sense is, you could be over-utiliizing the start dates as a way to try to force OF to tell you what to do next from a sea of tasks that you want to do. Instead, perhaps you might try to define your tasks based solely on their external constraints. Then, make intelligent decisions about what you WILL do next from constrained DUE TODAY and NEXT ACTION lists.

--
JJW

[Brian]

Similar to JJW's context advice in his post, one of our interface designers did a blog post (http://www.omnigroup.com/blog/entry/slay_the_leviathan_context) a while back that may be helpful. Since so many of his work tasks happen in front of his Mac, a tool-based context wasn't helpful.

I know our CEO uses a similar approach to separate his tasks out into the various headspaces he needs to separate them into.

[Brian]

A call comes in from a person who is associated with multiple projects. They want to touch base on multiple fronts, as do I. I would like to find, instantly, via a search in OmniFocus, all items I have captured pertaining to this contact, across all projects and all contexts.

This is really helpful feedback - can you expand on it a bit? I think a lot of us here use some variant of this approach (http://forums.omnigroup.com/showpost.php?p=106044&postcount=4). What's an example of a task that would be related to a person but not assigned to their context? I tend to have tons of "discuss <project> with <person>" actions, but those all go in that person's context.

As mentioned, we do want to give some additional flexibility in task organization; it just won't be tag-based. This sort of feedback will be really helpful to have once we start that work.

I think simply having a contact field, to which we could add more than one contact, and preferably referencing Apple's Address Book, would solve the majority of these real-time usage issues. Perhaps this is being considered?

I know it's an open feature request - I'm not sure if the "can add more than one" is something we've seen before, so I'll be sure to add that to the dev database so it doesn't get lost - thanks!

[Brian]

Grangej, the thread you started is pretty similar to the topic under discussion in this one, so I moved your post here. I know you mentioned reading previous threads, but if this wasn't one of them, it might be helpful.

It would be helpful if you could expand your feedback a bit, as well. Are you currently using Flagging, for example? Your meeting example would be one case where that perspective might help.

I have Context-mode perspectives set up that cover tasks related to the folks that are in the meetings I go to. That and the flagged perspective to catch any random/one off tasks works for me, but if that doesn't work for you for some reason, that'll be good to know about.

[DrJJWMac]

OK. I had an epiphany last night. The ONE missing piece to work effectively is ...

--> RESOURCE

This additional dimension in the GTD database can handle the >people, *tools, ... that are needed to complete a given task.

My request to OmniGroup is then ... rather than tags, add RESOURCE as an additional dimension in the OF database. Allow RESOURCE to be a completely separate dimension for searches and perspective definitions. Then we can define views of tasks with such demands as

* (DUE DATE: today) + (RESOURCE: >colleague) + (CONTEXT: @work)
* (CONTEXT: @errands) + (RESOURCE: >spouse)
* (CONTEXT: !reading) + (RESOURCE: <none>)
* (CONTEXT: !reading) + (RESOURCE: <any>)
* (RESOURCE: *computer) + (DUE: soon)
* (RESOURCE: >(all people, no tools)) + (DUE: today)
* (RESOURCE: *(all tools, no people)) + (CONTEXT: @home)

--
JJW

[eurobubba]

Fundamentally, we view "showing things you can't actually do" as undesirable, so we don't want to introduce that tradeoff into the app. We do feel like we have a good understanding of people's desire for more flexibility in organizing their tasks, and we plan to service that underlying desire in the future.

You guys generally know what you're doing, so I'm eager to see what you come up with under the rubric of "more flexibility". But I can't help but wonder if you've been a little too hung up on the idea that tags are fundamentally the same as contexts. To me tags and contexts are orthogonal. (More precisely, contexts could be regarded as one particularly narrowly defined use for tagging, as in Things, along with all the other unlimited range of metadata one might want to capture.) I want ways of structuring and filtering my data that may never make sense to anyone but me, and tags are a way of achieving that. Right now I just dump any additional info I want to keep in the Notes field, but I really want something with more structure. Actually, adding extendable, user-definable columns a la OmniOutliner would probably be an even better solution than tagging as fas as I'm concerned — although OpenMeta support would be nice too.

[matt_s_h]

I realise there has been a quite a bit of discussion on how to get round the singular context situation, but I was wondering is this a feature that is a future implementation or simply not within the thinking of the development?

I think if even if there was a restriction on the number of contexts (2 or 3) or sub contexts would make things easier.

[Brian]

Matt, moved your post to a thread that contains the info you're looking for. Hope this helps!

[Cameron]

Brian,

Your posts linked above really helped me understand the single context philosophy a lot more. Thanks for the insight.

[Dale]

Still working on wrapping my head around OF as opposed to Things.

Contexts = tags, right?
Folders is just a means of organization, correct?

How do you keep it simple? It seems to me that too many folders and too many contexts just seems... busy for busy sake? At least to me and I'm looking for suggestions.

i believe in keeping it simple. I currently have two folders: Work, Home. I used to have a couple more: Finance, Tech, Personal. But then I found I rarely had many tasks/projects in Finance, so I moved those items into Home. Same with Personal. Then Tech.

I thought I'd just use Contexts, but that's getting out of control.

Again, what's your method of organization? Suggestions for keeping it simple?

Thanks so much in advance!

To address your comparison of context, folders, tags and organization.

Contexts are triggers for circumstances necessary to complete a task. e.g. phone to make calls, grocery store to buy groceries. This then requires one to adjust and update contexts for how their workflow needs to be to move forward on completing tasks. OF offers a way to view contexts so when you are at home you see home tasks by either selecting that context or making a custom perspective.

Folders are a type of organization. I relate them to the varying levels illustrated in David Allen's book. Simply put though similar projects are better handled in a common folder. An example of this is when focus is applied to lets say a work folder, even though there are tasks which share a common context with projects in another folder - such as, @phone. You will only see the ones related to work and not be overwhelmed or distracted by other similar context items not related to projects you organized into a work folder.

A hack for metadata tagging.

I hear many people enjoy tagging items. Personally, do not like it because it is another level of organization I would need to maintain. That being said, I read this somewhere and do not remember where (possibly within these forums), but to implement tags in OF add #tagname to the notes field of a task or project. You then can search by #tagname and all associated tasks/projects are viewable. Yes, it is a hack and no, I will not use tags if implemented by Omni Group. Still this is a current solution to your issue even if not official or elegant.

Good luck and I hope this answers some of your questions.