Achieving 'logbook'-like functionality with OmniFocus
 

Does anyone know if there are plans to implement a 'Logbook'-style feature for OmniFocus? I'd like to be able to look back in time and see what tasks I have accomplished.

I realize I can change my project filter to 'completed', etc., but this is not really what I'm looking for.

I want to be able to ask OmniFocus the question: "what did I do yesterday? last week? last month?". Such a feature would show me, in order by date descending, which tasks I checked off recently. Of course I could filter by project or by other criteria, but the ability to effectively retrospect on my productivity is the core use case.

It seems to me this would add a lot of value to the application without, necessarily, a lot of work. I believe that using GTD in general, and OF specifically, genuinely makes me more productive, but how do I know? I'd like to look back in time and have a warm fuzzy feeling about what I've gotten done.

I imagine many folks have requested similar support, yet I don't see much in the forums after a quick search. Have I missed it?

You can group by completed date. Switching to context mode and setting the view bar like so:

[ATTACH]1443[/ATTACH] (click to zoom)

seems to give what you're asking for. If so, then you can just save that as your Log Book perspective and you're good to go. If not, then let us know what's missing and we might be able to offer suggestions.

[QUOTE=curt.clifton;78438]You can group by completed date. Switching to context mode and setting the view bar like so:

[ATTACH]1443[/ATTACH] (click to zoom)

seems to give what you're asking for. If so, then you can just save that as your Log Book perspective and you're good to go. If not, then let us know what's missing and we might be able to offer suggestions.[/QUOTE]

Correct me if I'm wrong here but wouldn't this perspective not work if I continually archive my OF files?

I archive about twice a week so my OF is up and running at full speed, mainly for my iPhone app and soon to come iPad app.

HappyDude,

Obviously, if the data of interest has been moved to the Archive database, you would need to look there, but the same view settings should work to organize the data.

I haven't bothered with the Archive since OmniFocus for iPhone 1.6 came out (with the sync performance changes) and except for the times when my entire database needs to be rewritten or processed (compaction, or launching after installing a new OF version) I really don't notice any performance hit despite having nearly 7,000 actions of which probably at least 1,000 are eligible for archiving. If you have a recent iPhone and good network connectivity when syncing, frequent archiving may not be providing as much of a performance boost as you might think. There are other reasons why you might want to clear out the accumulated detritus regularly, of course, such as not having to wade through lots of completed items when using the Search facility on the iPhone.