RFC: Another way to view tasks in context mode
 

It's great that OmniFocus lets me see only the available tasks in a given context. It means that when I go into town I can bring a list of only the things I can do in town *right now*, and not make me remember which are waiting on other tasks to be finished.

However, suppose I'm a good friend, and I agree to drop off John's dry cleaning for him. I might have a sequential project that looks like this:

[CODE]
* Pick up dry cleaning from John. Town
* Bring John's dry cleaning to cleaners. Town
* Bring dry cleaning ticket to John. Town
[/CODE]
If I print out a list of things I can do in town, I'll only see the first task. But I'd really like to see all of the tasks at once. What's the solution?

Another way to view tasks: instead of just showing tasks that are actionable, also show tasks which would become actionable [I]if other tasks in this context[/I] were completed. That is, show me all the threads of execution available to me to complete without leaving the context. "Pick up dry cleaning" is an available task in this context; if it were completed would another task in "Town" be available? And if that task were completed?

Would other people find this sort of view useful?

Peeja, have you tried using the View bar set to "available" rather than "next"? That should do what you want, I believe.

"Remaining" is the desired filter setting, and it already exists.

[QUOTE=Chris;22666]"Remaining" is the desired filter setting, and it already exists.[/QUOTE]

That's not quite it. Suppose the dry cleaner is in another town. (I'm a very good friend.) Then my project might look like this:

[CODE]
* Pick up dry cleaning from John. Town
* Bring John's dry cleaning to cleaners. Big City
* Bring dry cleaning ticket to John. Town
[/CODE]

Looking at "Remaining" tasks for Town, I see "Bring dry cleaning ticket to John." But there's no way I can get to that task without leaving town first. It's just clutter.

This is a bigger issue when one context is "Office" and the other is "Home". I want to be able to see all the things I can do at work, but some things may not be actionable until I've done something at home. There's no way I can do those before I leave work, so I don't want them to clutter up my list.

Bzzt! 15 yard penalty. I answered the question you asked. You can't complain that it doesn't answer a different question!

Peeja,

I think your original question was perfectly clear. So, Chris, the penalty is on you for unnecessary roughness. ;-)

OF doesn't currently do what you are asking for. I think it is a very interesting idea, but doesn't quite fit in the current scheme of contexts in OF. For example, suppose you select both the Town and Big City contexts in context view. Should the full thread show up then? And how should it change if you're grouping by context? Would the first and third tasks show up under Town and the second task under Big City?

One way that I've handled similar situations is to put the sequential tasks for a single context into one action. I may only partially complete the action. In that case I'll just delete the part I complete (if the record keeping is inconsequential) or use duplicate and some editing to split the action in two. This isn't strict GTD because I don't have a single next action, but then taking care of a series of tasks while I'm out and about feels a lot like a single action to me.

Hmm, it seems to me that the original question is pretty clearly all about a single context: [I]Another way to view tasks: instead of just showing tasks that are actionable, also show tasks which would become actionable if other tasks in this context were completed.[/I] :-). Be that as it may ...

One solution would be to introduce a filter between "Available" and "Remaining" that would be, in effect, "Remaining in the current context(s)". (By this I mean that it would show all the actions that remain in the currently selected context(s) that aren't dependent on actions in currently unselected context(s). It would be less restrictive than "Available" but more restrictive than "Remaining".) Aside from having to find a name for it, I think it would give the desired behavior, and would scale properly as different contexts (or sets of contexts) were selected. The answers to Curt's questions would be "Yes" and "Yes" I think.

I'm not sure it's really useful enough to include, though.