Sorting by next review date
 

The standard Review perspective has the Grouping set to Next Review and has a standard heading of Review within the Next Week as the first heading (assuming there's nothing to review in the past).

What I'm trying to accomplish is to keep some projects on a tighter review schedule. So this morning I set several things to review in 3 days. There are also some things that are set to review in the next week that are not in this grouping of things I want to look at in the next 3 days.

I figured that if I turned off the Grouping selection of the view bar and instead chose Next Review on the Sorting selector, that I'd get all my projects sorted by the date of the next review that shows on the inspector. I had been on the default Review perspective (I don't [i]think[/i] I've done anything to it) and only changed those two settings (see screen shot below). But the order of next reviews that I get is not what I'd expect.

6/16, 6/20, 6/20, 6/20, 8/1, 10/13, 8/12, 6/15, etc.

I'd appreciate both suggestions to accomplish what I'm trying to accomplish another way if you've got them. And I'd also like confirmation that the behavior I'm expecting is proper and what I'm getting is buggy (or to be told I'm misinterpreting something).

TIA

ETA: Also, the headings when using the Grouping by Next Review selection on the view bar...are those editable? Can a shorter term than within the next week be added?

ETA2: Another also...If I have the Grouping set to Next Review and the Sorting set to Next Review, should I expect that the projects actually be sorted by next review date?...because they're not.

Workaround suggestion:
place those projects you want to review every three days into a folder.
When you review items, select that folder and you'll only see the projects you've marked to review every three days.

[QUOTE=SpiralOcean;78533]Workaround suggestion:
place those projects you want to review every three days into a folder.
When you review items, select that folder and you'll only see the projects you've marked to review every three days.[/QUOTE]

Thanks. I don't really want to move them. (I JUST re-implemented a folder structure so I'm loathe to change it just now.)

My current workaround is to put the ones I don't want to see that review in the next week on hold and toggle between Remaining and Available Projects as necessary.

I then focused on the ones that review in the next week (which prompted my other thread about the keyboard shortcut not working for me and it opening Evernote instead) and then switching to Context view to work through things.

I've been putting off sitting down and developing my own, workable perspectives for a while now. I'm just really frustrated that now that I'm actually doing it, I'm hitting so many stumbling blocks. And the biggest frustration is that I'm always second guessing whether it's my own misinterpretation that's making things not do what I'm thinking it should do. And now that my most recent issue is cross-application...grrr.

There is definitely a bug in the sort by Next Review setting. I'm not sure what it is sorting by, perhaps [I]last[/I] review? Using Help --> Send Feedback to report the bug.

The group-by heading work the same for Next Review as all the other time based headings. You get Today, Yesterday/Tomorrow, Last/Next Week, Last/Next Month, and so on.

What's your trigger for reviewing a project? Why not wait until it shows up as Review Today instead for trying to review it in advance? Then the stuff with a three day review interval will get reviewed more frequently as you wish.

Sorting by Next Review doesn't seem to do anything in 1.8 Sneaky Peek r133571 -- you get the straight sidebar ordering. Grouping by Next Review confuses the issue a bit because it does appear to correctly group the projects, but you still get the sidebar order in each group. Good eyes! I presume you are running a SP release, as the next review sorting does seem to work properly in 1.7.5.

It shouldn't matter, though, if you do a review pass every day. If you always review the items in the "Review Today" grouping, you'll stay on top of those projects regardless of whether their review period is a day or a year.

[QUOTE=curt.clifton;78541]There is definitely a bug in the sort by Next Review setting. I'm not sure what it is sorting by, perhaps [I]last[/I] review? Using Help --> Send Feedback to report the bug.[/quote]

Thanks. As I've said, I'm more inclined to think I'm misunderstanding than I am to think it's a bug. I'll definitely report!

[quote]The group-by heading work the same for Next Review as all the other time based headings. You get Today, Yesterday/Tomorrow, Last/Next Week, Last/Next Month, and so on.

What's your trigger for reviewing a project? Why not wait until it shows up as Review Today instead for trying to review it in advance? Then the stuff with a three day review interval will get reviewed more frequently as you wish.[/QUOTE]

I'm just going through and re-vamping so I flew through a bunch of past due reviews and blew past everything prior to "within the next week". I should be fine with Today, Yesterday, Tomorrow moving forward.

I'm trying to move away from using start dates. I found that as I was using start dates to hide things until I thought I might be ready to do them, more often than not, they'd show up and I wouldn't be ready for them. It was a continual parade of things showing up when their start date hit and then getting a new future start date. I'm not working on much that has true due dates, just trying to get a bunch of stuff done that I [i]want[/i] to get done. Therefore I've had less of a sense of urgency than I'd like.

My thought is that by limiting what I see to what I think I can get done in a few days and doing a review every few days, I'll be motivated to complete more. I figured with the flexibility of the review date intervals and the built in ways to deal with grouping, sorting (but not so much I guess) and marking as reviewed, this could be a good solution.

When I was working regularly on a system hooked up to a large monitor, I could deal more with seeing more of my projects/actions that weren't as important. But since I've moved back to working on a small MBP, I am trying to find ways to cut down the clutter and let it back in at a trickle when I want to.

[QUOTE=whpalmer4;78543]Sorting by Next Review doesn't seem to do anything in 1.8 Sneaky Peek r133571 -- you get the straight sidebar ordering. Grouping by Next Review confuses the issue a bit because it does appear to correctly group the projects, but you still get the sidebar order in each group. Good eyes! I presume you are running a SP release, as the next review sorting does seem to work properly in 1.7.5.

It shouldn't matter, though, if you do a review pass every day. If you always review the items in the "Review Today" grouping, you'll stay on top of those projects regardless of whether their review period is a day or a year.[/QUOTE]

Yes, I'm running 1.8 r133510. I'll report it.

Thanks for confirming that it's not me. As I said to Curt, I always seem to trust the software more than my thinking. I'm learning not to do so quite so much.

And again, as I said to Curt, I'm in the process of trying to set this up. So I'm sure I'll be tweaking as I go.

[QUOTE=malisa;78544]Thanks. As I've said, I'm more inclined to think I'm misunderstanding than I am to think it's a bug. I'll definitely report!
[/quote]
I'm of the camp that you should report odd things even if it eventually turns out that it was a misunderstanding on your part. After all, in doing so you're providing feedback about the design, and if many others have the same misunderstanding, that's an indication that the design and/or the documentation needs revisiting. When in doubt, report it!

[quote]
I'm trying to move away from using start dates. I found that as I was using start dates to hide things until I thought I might be ready to do them, more often than not, they'd show up and I wouldn't be ready for them. It was a continual parade of things showing up when their start date hit and then getting a new future start date. I'm not working on much that has true due dates, just trying to get a bunch of stuff done that I [i]want[/i] to get done. Therefore I've had less of a sense of urgency than I'd like.
[/quote]
One of the things that Merlin Mann said in his talk at the Omni booth at Macworld this year was that he only puts things in OmniFocus if he intends to do them in the next two weeks or so. To me, that begs the question of what do I do for a trusted storage system for all the things that I hope to do outside of that window, and my answer has been to put it in OmniFocus, just like the stuff I hope to get done sooner. I'm not Merlin, Merlin's not me, we're both happier this way, I'm sure :-)

Despite your misgivings about start dates, I think using them in conjunction with the hold facility might be the right track for you. Every week or so do a pass through all of your projects, and be merciless about putting them on hold or setting a future start date. Put just about everything you aren't planning to actively work in the next week or two on some sort of hold, and don't add anything more until you finish something off. Treat projects just like you would physical stuff in a major decluttering project -- I'm not going to buy that new book/CD/jacket/pot/pet/gadget until I have a place for it in my life, and making that place means something else has to go. You only have so much attention to spread across your projects, so make sure the active ones get enough to make a difference. Then go back to that list of projects you put on hold and promote a few more to the big leagues. You can use start dates to dribble in the calendar-based ones at the right time.

I noticed that Sort by Completion Date seems to be broken in the same fashion...

[QUOTE=whpalmer4;78550]
Despite your misgivings about start dates, I think using them in conjunction with the hold facility might be the right track for you. Every week or so do a pass through all of your projects, and be merciless about putting them on hold or setting a future start date. Put just about everything you aren't planning to actively work in the next week or two on some sort of hold, and don't add anything more until you finish something off. [/QUOTE]

I think I'll probably be able to go back to start dates eventually. Right now, I'm home for the summer (teacher) and have very few demands on my time. I also have a TON of things I want to get done at home (first summer off in about 6 years). So my cycle right now is a lot shorter than it would be normally, plus I have the time to be more thoughtful and reflective than I usually do. So I'm trying things out.

Thanks again.