Showing tasks with "No Project"

[Paul Hoadley]

Hello,

I'm collecting quite a few singleton tasks with no project. What's the easiest way with the current UI (r87967) to show these tasks? I can't find them at all in project view. In context view, they're grouped by context, which isn't quite what I want---I just want a list of my singleton tasks, much as I can get a list of tasks in any project in project view. No doubt I'm missing something quite straightforward.

[Wild Rye]

I've been creating catch-all projects such as "Errands" or "Chores" to collect these types of tasks. Things like reminders to check my tickler, update my status report, wipe the mud off my shoes before coming in the house...

[Paul Hoadley]

I've been creating catch-all projects such as "Errands" or "Chores" to collect these types of tasks. Things like reminders to check my tickler, update my status report, wipe the mud off my shoes before coming in the house...
Thanks for the reply. Good workaround.

Surely I'm just overlooking something with my original question, though? How can I show tasks that have no project?

[rish]

Thanks for the reply. Good workaround.

Surely I'm just overlooking something with my original question, though? How can I show tasks that have no project?
The way I use my single tasks is that I've created a parallel project by the name Single Tasks and I've put all my single actions in it. Hope this helps!

[coconino]

By definition, an action which is not part of a project will not show in the project view. There's a clue in the name of the view! ;)

More helpfully, the workarounds suggested are good. I'd only add that when I've been entering actions which at first seem not to be part of a project, on further consideration I've seen that they do belong to a higher order outcome, the result being that I have had few project-less actions.

Project-less actions show up in context view, under their appropriate context—which is where I reckon they should be.

(Actions which have neither project nor context stay in the in-box after clean-up. This is good behaviour too, in my book.)

[Paul Hoadley]

By definition, an action which is not part of a project will not show in the project view. There's a clue in the name of the view! ;)
Evidently that's the case, but I guess one of the questions I'm asking is whether that is the most desirable behaviour. Calling it "project view" is somewhat arbitrary---it could just as well be called "task view", and projects just happen to be the way we group sets of related tasks.

More helpfully, the workarounds suggested are good.
They're certainly reasonable workarounds, but given that singleton tasks are creatable at all, my original question remains: how can I get a list of them?

I'd only add that when I've been entering actions which at first seem not to be part of a project, on further consideration I've seen that they do belong to a higher order outcome, the result being that I have had few project-less actions.
Fair enough, but it just doesn't seem unreasonable to me that a task can exist without a containing project. All I want to know is how to find them.

Project-less actions show up in context view, under their appropriate context—which is where I reckon they should be.
I noted that in my original post, and I agree that context view is one of the appropriate places to find any task, singleton or otherwise.

I can only assume that the answer to my original question is that I simply can't get a list of tasks without containing projects.

[coconino]

I can only assume that the answer to my original question is that I simply can't get a list of tasks without containing projects.

A fair assumption, sure. However, I wouldn't be surprised to find eventually that some support for singleton actions gets implemented in OF. As others have said elsewhere in this forum, whereas OF is inspired by GTD (via kGTD) there is no law which says the GTD methodology—itself developed in an entirely different medium—must be applied slavishly to OmniFocus.

[Paul Hoadley]

A fair assumption, sure. However, I wouldn't be surprised to find eventually that some support for singleton actions gets implemented in OF. As others have said elsewhere in this forum, whereas OF is inspired by GTD (via kGTD) there is no law which says the GTD methodology—itself developed in an entirely different medium—must be applied slavishly to OmniFocus.
I don't understand your resistance to what I'm calling "singleton tasks". Are we having a terminology mismatch? I have Allen's book open in front of me: "[A project is] any desired result that requires more than one action step." This directly implies that (a) it's conceivable I might need to do something that requires exactly one action step, and (b) that wouldn't be called a "project", nor would it be part of one. I don't mind what we call them, but "singleton tasks" are part of Allen's approach, and they're creatable in OmniFocus (in that I can create a task without a project). All I want to be able to do is find them.

[coconino]

I don't understand your resistance to what I'm calling "singleton tasks".

I'm not resistant, just pointing out that if—by the DA definition—a singleton task is not a project, then to expect it to show in a view called "Project view" is like asking the proprietor of "Just Cheeses" why he doesn't sell ice-cream.

I can see quite clearly the usefulness of showing single-action tasks, but it wouldn't fit under Projects if the role of this view is following David Allen's methodology precisely. I don't have any problem with Omni including such a feature but putting it under Projects is a kludge as far as canonical GTD is concerned.

[Paul Hoadley]

I'm not resistant, just pointing out that if—by the DA definition—a singleton task is not a project, then to expect it to show in a view called "Project view" is like asking the proprietor of "Just Cheeses" why he doesn't sell ice-cream.
Why are you ascribing this expectation to me? In my original post, I simply observed that "I can't find them at all in project view". It was more of a statement of fact to suggest that I had certainly tried looking around the UI. All I want is a list of singleton tasks—I'm really not too bothered where the list eventually resides.

[curt.clifton]

Why are you ascribing this expectation to me? In my original post, I simply observed that "I can't find them at all in project view". It was more of a statement of fact to suggest that I had certainly tried looking around the UI. All I want is a list of singleton tasks—I'm really not too bothered where the list eventually resides.

Paul, this seems to be a functionality missing in the current alpha. Since OF supports creating singleton tasks there certainly there needs to be a way to view them. Be sure to report this using Send Feedback. (I'm off to do the same.)

Cheers!

Curt

[coconino]

Why are you ascribing this expectation to me? In my original post, I simply observed that "I can't find them at all in project view". It was more of a statement of fact to suggest that I had certainly tried looking around the UI. All I want is a list of singleton tasks—I'm really not too bothered where the list eventually resides.
Sure. It's clear from your responses that you're reading my comments as somehow confrontational so I'll back off and leave you to it. I'm not here to upset anyone, especially over something so trivial.

[taylorluker]

1. Context View
2. Group by Project
3. ALL of you Singleton tasks, Single Tasks, No project tasks etc.
will by listed under "None"

[jelmore]

Starting with build 89257 for me, it appears that tasks with a context but no project are greyed out and italicized. They only appear in Context View if Remaining or All is selected from the Filter ribbon; they do not appear if Available or Next is selected.

Creating a new task using Quick Entry or using Structure > Add Action produce the same behavior. When using Add Action, the task appears in Context View until you switch to Inbox or Project View; when you switch back, they disappear.

This seriously disrupts my workflow, as I have many single actions on my context lists. I hope this is not an intended change in how OF works!

[al_f]

The appearance of tasks in context view is generally a bit buggy - I've reported several issues relating to their appearance not updating correctly when you change their status. I'm sure it'll get fixed.

[jelmore]

As of build 89350 this new behavior hasn't changed. :(

The build that I am using that maintains this functionality (v89243) expires tomorrow; I guess I'll have to upgrade to a new builds and just switch my view to All or Remaining to get my single tasks until i is fixed.

[aimee]

I've been creating catch-all projects such as "Errands" or "Chores" to collect these types of tasks. Things like reminders to check my tickler, update my status report, wipe the mud off my shoes before coming in the house...

Okay, so my issue is this. I want to have my projects organized into (in some cases hierarchical) folders and other groupings that reflect my actual way of thinking about things and the different roles and relationships I have in my life (I am a mom, a professional, a student, and a homeowner, just to name a few -- it makes more sense to me to have projects grouped according to role and idea).

I already have a "Single Tasks" project separate from those groupings, at the top of the whole pile, and if I realize something is more complex than I thought, I move it down to where it belongs, but the fact is, it seems really kludgy.

I could, of course, create a "Single Tasks" project in each major grouping that is likely to do that, but then I end up with quite a lot of these, and that makes scanning the rest of the projects and tasks more difficult.

The other workaround is that I create a lot of projects that really only have one task, but that is a lot of keystrokes for something pretty simple. Again, it feels very kludgy, and it takes up a lot of screen real estate.

So right now, it is not possible to have a task that lives in a folder -- a task can only live in a project. I would like a task to be able to live in a folder all by itself. Is there a way for that to happen?

-- Aimee

[al_f]

So right now, it is not possible to have a task that lives in a folder -- a task can only live in a project. I would like a task to be able to live in a folder all by itself. Is there a way for that to happen?

I think the issue with this is that in GTD parlance a project is something that requires more than one physical action step to get it done, so single tasks don't really belong in Project view at all (as by definition they aren't projects). I'd handle your issue by putting any tasks that require more than a single action step in as projects, then entering the truly 1-step ones as actions in the appropriate context. An "aha!" moment I had when implementing GTD is that a lot of things I originally regarded as single tasks were actually projects i.e. required more than one step. It took me a bit of time to get used to the degree of granularity required for this approach.

I don't think you really need these single tasks in Project view for review purposes, as you should be looking at all your context lists as part of your weekly review anyway. If you do that nothing should slip through the cracks.

[Shanana]

The biggest issue that I'm having with this is that my quick entered tasks don't default to Inbox and also I can't assign "inbox" as a "project".

These new tasks that will either get assigned a project during "processing" or left as individual tasks but OF doesn't seem to be considering them "next actions" or even "available". This makes since but it means I never see them in any of my views since my context screen is filtered to show only available actions. Thus, these tasks never turn up visible anywhere and seem to be lost. They aren't, of course, but I don't want to have to change my view in order to find these errant tasks in context view just to try and then assign them a project.

For now I'm creating two projects that aren't really projects, an "inbox" and a "none" so that single actions can go in the none project and new stuff that I don't want to think about yet can go to inbox.

I'm not sure why my quick entry stuff isn't just turning up in the inbox?? Any suggestions.

Shanana

[curt.clifton]

I'm not sure why my quick entry stuff isn't just turning up in the inbox?? Any suggestions.

I suspect its because of (what I consider) a bug in the handling of quick entry items that have a project or context. See this post (http://forums.omnigroup.com/showpost.php?p=19215&postcount=2) for more details and a fix.