How do you use folders?
 

I'm curious to hear how people are using folders. Inspired by 7 habits, I have a folder for each of my "roles"— teacher, mentor, husband-dad, geek, artist etc. The method has some merit for weekly review and for making sure that all of my values and goals have some sort projects attached to them.

I love the built in flexibility of the folders (although, I would prefer tags and smartfolders!)

How are you using the folders?

[QUOTE=steve;20352]Inspired by 7 habits, I have a folder for each of my "roles"— teacher, mentor, husband-dad, geek, artist etc. The method has some merit for weekly review and for making sure that all of my values and goals have some sort projects attached to them.[/QUOTE]

I use folders in a similar way. I've converted each role into an actionable goal. For example "Computer Science Professor" becomes "Advance and propagate knowledge of computing". Under some of my top-level folders I have another level of folders for sub-goals, like "Help others understand software development" and "Earn tenure". I find these folders extremely helpful for monthly and annual reviews.

I have to resist the impulse to over-organize, but this amount of structure seems to work well for me. While I support the idea of tags and smart folders, I think I would still maintain my current hierarchy of roles and goals.

I also use folders for roles, or for Uber-projects.

My current folders are:
Housewife
Shopping
T-Shirt Shop
House Remodel
Kids
Personal
Computer Admin (family Macintoshes)
SF Con (DH and I are Registration Chairs)
GT Con (I give a presentation every year)
Templates
Someday/Maybe

I have a couple other things that could be folders, but are top level "projects"* at the moment:

Friends
Knitting Design
Freecycle (I'm the local Moderator)

--Liz

* I use the word Project in quotes because I have few formal projects, and use this more as a sub-folder, a place to hold related actions, whether they are a linked project or not. We've discussed my heretical status elsewhere, but this works for me.

[QUOTE=steve;20352]
How are you using the folders?[/QUOTE]

I'm not. I haven't run into a situation yet where I really find it necessary. I suppose I could change my current project hierarchy (described in [url=http://forums.omnigroup.com/showpost.php?p=20164&postcount=5]another thread[/url]), but doing so would create a lot of singletons with no bucket to collect them (in any sensible manner).

I've found that, for me at least, simply sticking to projects and action groups (sub-projects, whatever they are) is about perfect.

After joining the sneak peek program I used to to create a hierarchy of folders structured around several criteria. Nowadays I don’t use folders anymore: they’re too rigid. I just have a flat list of projects and I use the filters to show only the relevant informations.

By the way, I‘ve seen the same pattern with contexts. For example, I used to have the usual @WAITING FOR context. Now I just set a start date (say, next week) and I can “forget” about it until the given date; then I can review them and decide what to do: is it done? should I ask (again) what’s going on? etc…

I don't want to use folders, but I'm forced to since there is no concept of sub-projects in OmniFocus.

I would prefer to have one "top-level" project for each of the areas of concern that I have (e.g. work, exercise, etc.). Then I would have sub-projects for each particular thing I'm trying to Get Done. Many of them would be "singleton actions" but of course those things have a tendency to turn into bona fide projects. I would prefer that by adding sub-actions to any individual action, that would turn the parent action into a real project with all the power that comes with it.

Since you can't do that (yet??) I am forced to have a folder for each area of concern, containing a single singleton project and a variable number of actual projects. If an action morphs into a project I have to move it out of the singleton project.

This seems like a lot of work but I keep hoping that the "identity" of any "entity" in Omnifocus will eventually not depend on setting up the Project (or Library as it is now known) hierarchy in a certain way. I would like to have a project at x depth level without having to create folders, which to me seem to just add visual clutter.

I realize there are just as many preferences as there are users of this software, so take this as just my 2 cents about my particular preferences.

[QUOTE=maverator;20434]I don't want to use folders, but I'm forced to since there is no concept of sub-projects in OmniFocus.

I would prefer to have one "top-level" project for each of the areas of concern that I have (e.g. work, exercise, etc.). Then I would have sub-projects for each particular thing I'm trying to Get Done. Many of them would be "singleton actions" but of course those things have a tendency to turn into bona fide projects. I would prefer that by adding sub-actions to any individual action, that would turn the parent action into a real project with all the power that comes with it.

Since you can't do that (yet??) I am forced to have a folder for each area of concern, containing a single singleton project and a variable number of actual projects. If an action morphs into a project I have to move it out of the singleton project.
[/quote]

I do that without any folders. Action groups are essentially sub-projects from a functional perspective. The UI is a bit wonky still, but the functionality is all there.

<edit> fixed my post which was horribly broken. nothing changed tho

[QUOTE=MEP;20472]
I do that without any folders. Action groups are essentially sub-projects from a functional perspective. The UI is a bit wonky still, but the functionality is all there.[/QUOTE]

As far as I can tell, and which I also gathered from other threads, action groups are not projects. Meaning that you can't have a Project (capital-P) with action groups in it and expect the action groups to behave like Projects themselves. You can't independently make an action group sequential if the parent project is parallel, you can't review them separately, and you can't set state independently. (I.e. the attributes in the Project Inspector apply to the parent project, not the action group.) Yes you can look at an action group and mentally consider it a project, but from a software functionality standpoint it isn't. But if I'm wrong and it's really wonky UI issues that give this illusion let me know.

I'm a business owner, so I tried folders like this:

Personal
Business
Clients
--Client1
--Client2
--. . .

My kGTD method was to make actions called "Client1: update spam filters", "Client2: update spam filters", and so on, which was redundant and annoying; this is vastly, vastly better for me. I think of folders as project prefixes-- if I'm buying a mouse, a folder tells me who I'm buying it for and thus has intrinsic value to my workflow.

OF's folders are a GTD miracle that are a huge boon to my ability to organize. I absolutely love how folders work within OF; they truly provide the user with the ability to "Focus," and provide useful and consistent information in the Context's Outline view (when the proper option is selected in preferences).

Sadly, folders are worse than useless when it gets to iCal right now, because a project name can be completely ambiguous when relying on folders to provide structure, but I trust in the Omni to make these things universally useful soon.

[QUOTE=maverator;20482]As far as I can tell, and which I also gathered from other threads, action groups are not projects. Meaning that you can't have a Project (capital-P) with action groups in it and expect the action groups to behave like Projects themselves. You can't independently make an action group sequential if the parent project is parallel, you can't review them separately, and you can't set state independently. (I.e. the attributes in the Project Inspector apply to the parent project, not the action group.) Yes you can look at an action group and mentally consider it a project, but from a software functionality standpoint it isn't. But if I'm wrong and it's really wonky UI issues that give this illusion let me know.[/QUOTE]

Yes and no.

You certainly can put parallel action groups inside sequential projects, and vice versa. Right-click the action group to set it's "sequentiality". I use this all the time to control dependencies on complex projects.

You are right though, that you can't set review dates and state for action groups independent of their parent projects. You also can't assign an action to an action group using the quick-search mechanism.

So, the difference really has to do with how many of the OF features you're using. If are not using on-hold projects, dropped projects, review dates, or quick-search to assign projects, then action groups behave like sub-projects. If you are using those features, then they are substantially different beasts.

Thanks for the tip on parallel/sequential in the action groups Curt.

It seems to work just like it should (in terms of next actions and available actions), which is a definite help.

Let me put in a plug for the current distinction between action groups and projects, just for the sake of argument. I'm not sure I wholly agree, but I can see value in distinguishing them.

A project is some desired outcome that takes more than one action to complete, but where you can define what a reasonable outcome would be. "Become the world's leading triathlete" is not a project--perhaps it's a life goal--but "Prepare for Iron Man 2008" might be one. You know that it's not something that's actionable in itself, but you have a sense of what getting there means.

An action group is a set of actions that, taken together, contribute to that outcome but aren't sufficient. It's like a lemma in a mathematical proof: it's not independent (at least in the context of the proof), but it hangs together. Within the context of my Iron Man example (I've never run more than a half-marathon nor cycled more than 40 miles, so this is fantasy land), "Train to improve century time" might be an action group. Getting it done is not for its own sake but for the sake of the Iron Man project.

A cyclist might make that an independent project, if his or her goal is do do well in a 100-mile race. So the distinction is semantic; it depends on the user's goals. The question is what it takes to arrive at closure. I see a value in maintaining the distinction. When I was using Life Balance, which did not distinguish different hierarchical levels, I found myself prefixing "(p)" to projects, so I could tell the difference. Other people might not find the distinction useful, and I might be able to live without it, but I wouldn't like to see it disappear.

[QUOTE=maverator;20434]I don't want to use folders, but I'm forced to since there is no concept of sub-projects in OmniFocus.

I would prefer to have one "top-level" project for each of the areas of concern that I have (e.g. work, exercise, etc.). Then I would have sub-projects for each particular thing I'm trying to Get Done. Many of them would be "singleton actions" but of course those things have a tendency to turn into bona fide projects. I would prefer that by adding sub-actions to any individual action, that would turn the parent action into a real project with all the power that comes with it.

Since you can't do that (yet??) I am forced to have a folder for each area of concern, containing a single singleton project and a variable number of actual projects. If an action morphs into a project I have to move it out of the singleton project.

This seems like a lot of work but I keep hoping that the "identity" of any "entity" in Omnifocus will eventually not depend on setting up the Project (or Library as it is now known) hierarchy in a certain way. I would like to have a project at x depth level without having to create folders, which to me seem to just add visual clutter.

I realize there are just as many preferences as there are users of this software, so take this as just my 2 cents about my particular preferences.[/QUOTE]

I have the exact same problem and hope they will fix this issue soon.

Curt,
Hi it's me Dwayne again.
What about goals categories such as health financial social.. is it an either or situation where u can organize your goals around roles or categories? If so then how do you, or anyone account for catergories such as health financial and social..

I am also one of the proponents for sub projects but according to Omni this is really tricky to implement UI-wise. We had a good discussion about it in this thread:

[url]http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=8079&page=2&post=19[/url]

The suggestion here is to give more power to individual actions instead.

-----------------------

I try to use as little folders as possible because whenever you use strict categorization you will eventually run into problems of gray zones (one item might equally well belong in two categories).
Over-granularization of folders will get you into this kind of micro-management-hell-scenario quickly.

One thing I have noticed about myself, which is potentially dangerous, is the fact that it is very tempting to organize projects into folders (increase granularity). Later on when several projects have been completed I don't collapse folders to reduce complexity as needed. It is kind of like; I don't want to ruin my finely thought out structure.

How many projects do YOU need in a folder before your fingers start itching for cutting that folder up into sub folders?

I would love to forget more about the planning mode and live more inside context mode but it is simply not possible at work because everything here is so project-driven. Besides, if I'm going to show some tasks to someone that don't understand OF and GTD; I can really confuse them by switching between planning and context mode.

[QUOTE=maverator;20434]I don't want to use folders, but I'm forced to since there is no concept of sub-projects in OmniFocus.

I would prefer to have one "top-level" project for each of the areas of concern that I have (e.g. work, exercise, etc.). Then I would have sub-projects for each particular thing I'm trying to Get Done. Many of them would be "singleton actions" but of course those things have a tendency to turn into bona fide projects. I would prefer that by adding sub-actions to any individual action, that would turn the parent action into a real project with all the power that comes with it.

Since you can't do that (yet??) I am forced to have a folder for each area of concern, containing a single singleton project and a variable number of actual projects. If an action morphs into a project I have to move it out of the singleton project.

This seems like a lot of work but I keep hoping that the "identity" of any "entity" in Omnifocus will eventually not depend on setting up the Project (or Library as it is now known) hierarchy in a certain way. I would like to have a project at x depth level without having to create folders, which to me seem to just add visual clutter.

I realize there are just as many preferences as there are users of this software, so take this as just my 2 cents about my particular preferences.[/QUOTE]

Yes, I would say one draw back of using a folder heavy structure is a seeming need for single action lists for each folder. This can get a bit unwieldly.

[QUOTE=MEP;20472]I do that without any folders. Action groups are essentially sub-projects from a functional perspective. The UI is a bit wonky still, but the functionality is all there.

<edit> fixed my post which was horribly broken. nothing changed tho[/QUOTE]

Yes. This is how I am using action groups too. Unfortunately, you cannot put action groups on hold as you can a project. IMHO it would be better if action groups could get the same funtionalities of projects.

[QUOTE=brianogilvie;20491]Let me put in a plug for the current distinction between action groups and projects, just for the sake of argument. I'm not sure I wholly agree, but I can see value in distinguishing them.

A project is some desired outcome that takes more than one action to complete, but where you can define what a reasonable outcome would be. "Become the world's leading triathlete" is not a project--perhaps it's a life goal--but "Prepare for Iron Man 2008" might be one. You know that it's not something that's actionable in itself, but you have a sense of what getting there means.

An action group is a set of actions that, taken together, contribute to that outcome but aren't sufficient. It's like a lemma in a mathematical proof: it's not independent (at least in the context of the proof), but it hangs together. Within the context of my Iron Man example (I've never run more than a half-marathon nor cycled more than 40 miles, so this is fantasy land), "Train to improve century time" might be an action group. Getting it done is not for its own sake but for the sake of the Iron Man project.

A cyclist might make that an independent project, if his or her goal is do do well in a 100-mile race. So the distinction is semantic; it depends on the user's goals. The question is what it takes to arrive at closure. I see a value in maintaining the distinction. When I was using Life Balance, which did not distinguish different hierarchical levels, I found myself prefixing "(p)" to projects, so I could tell the difference. Other people might not find the distinction useful, and I might be able to live without it, but I wouldn't like to see it disappear.[/QUOTE]

Thank you brianogilvie. I will try to look at my projects/action groups similarly and see if that makes a difference. in some ways this is semantics. But in OF it's manifest in how they have organized the system. I'll give it a try to think of it this way.

I find this whole organizational debate regarding folders, projects, actions, sub-folders etc. very interesting as I'm still an OF newbie and still trying to strike the right organizational balance.

[QUOTE=smiggles;39360]Yes. This is how I am using action groups too. Unfortunately, you cannot put action groups on hold as you can a project. IMHO it would be better if action groups could get the same funtionalities of projects.[/QUOTE]

You [B]can[/B] set the start date on an action group to be in the future, and that offers much of the functionality without waiting months or years for Omni to implement something that I don't recall they have ever promised to deliver. The only drawback I've encountered with doing this vs. splitting it out as a separate project in a folder is that you lose some of the visibility (no view to just show pending action groups). I've found this to be more of a theoretical difficulty than a practical one, but YMMV. For me, the ease of coordinating action groups in a single project vs. coordinating related projects in a folder without actual dependancy linking provided by OF makes spending a little more time on the review worthwhile. Naturally, I'd like to have the best of both arrangements available :-)

[QUOTE=steve;20352]Inspired by 7 habits, I have a folder for each of my "roles"— teacher, mentor, husband-dad, geek, artist etc. The method has some merit for weekly review and for making sure that all of my values and goals have some sort projects attached to them.[/QUOTE]

hey - it's neat to hear a 7-Habits inspired use of folders! I can definitely see a compass folder full of roles and having 7 active roles any given week with the rest on hold - this would definitely fit in the Covey philosophy - good idea!

that said, I don't have my system set up this way - my folders are goal-oriented at the moment with projects that contribute to 3 primary goals to fulfill by 2015.

I, too, would love to have sub-projects, folders are my workaround for the same reasons other have mentioned - the ability to suspend a sub-project is critical.

tagging of projects and having views based on this probably would be a cleaner implementation and be nice to hear how some of you deal with dependencies as folders don't deal with this issue very well.

I am a +1 for smart-folders as well - this seems to be a very well-known concepts in mac-land indeed! :)

Is it too much to ask folks to put up screenshots.. blur out sensitive stuff.