Best practices for completing + entering NA
 

Hi all,

I'm here on my iPad but wondering generally what your practices are for entering the following NA on any platform. What I'm thinking about is the scenario where there might not be enough info/material to plan ahead more than 1 NA, but once you've completed the first one, you now know enough to enter the next. This sounds pretty confusing so here's an example:

Task 1 - waiting for reply on email to X regarding advice on Y. (context: @waiting for reply, project: Y).

Once this task is completed (I.e. I've heard back from X), I have enough new information to come up with:

Task 2 - email Z regarding Y (context: @email, project: Y).

Assume I've already got other tasks that do not necessarily need to wait for Task 1 to be completed to be performed, although they still generally can be completed sequentially (so I don't want to turn Y into a parallel project).
How do you deal with entering Task 2 with minimal effort? Would you sketch out what Task 2 might look like in the notes to task 1 so you can do a quick copy/paste into a new task once 1 is complete? Would you just edit Task 1 at the time of completion to "turn it into" task 2 (possibly fastest, but you lose track of the completed task 1)?
I'm guess in a sense I'm just wondering whether it would be useful to ask for a feature "Complete action and enter Next Action" (possibly pre-populated for project?) maybe akin to Curt's complete and await reply script or if I'm just being overly lazy.

Looking forward to hearing your opinions and advice

I have 2 main proceedings:
A) if task 2 stays simple, I might just as well change the subject of task1 instead of completing it (avoiding my habit wishing too much to click off tasks w/o reflecting well about it's NA)
B) I might use the notes field for add'l data for a task in an ordered way, I.e. date/name/data

[QUOTE=hypotyposis;87437]
Task 1 - waiting for reply on email to X regarding advice on Y. (context: @waiting for reply, project: Y).

Once this task is completed (I.e. I've heard back from X), I have enough new information to come up with:

Task 2 - email Z regarding Y (context: @email, project: Y).
...
I'm guess in a sense I'm just wondering whether it would be useful to ask for a feature "Complete action and enter Next Action" (possibly pre-populated for project?) maybe akin to Curt's complete and await reply script or if I'm just being overly lazy.
[/QUOTE]

I find this to be a major flaw in OF workflow b/c it's what I want to do most of the time. If I'm working from a context list, there is no really good way to do this. For reasons unknown, OF Mac allows duplication of an item in project view but not context view. And the problem is worse for the iPhone and iPad versions.

Thanks guys for your responses. So I take it maybe a feature request for at least iPad OF "Complete and enter new task" button would not be completely outlandish? I'm going to send one in. Cheers,

On the Mac, double-click row handle of action, get window focused on project where you can add additional action(s). Close when done.

On the iPad, tap on action to bring up editor, in Info pane tap on Go to Project button, add additional action(s). Unfortunately you don't get back to where you were as easily.

On the iPhone, there is no built-in route that comes to mind, and you have to drill down from the Projects list.

As for the inability to duplicate in context mode, perhaps the issue is putting the task in a reasonable spot when the user has no visual feedback for confirmation, unlike in project mode where it is immediately apparent where the duplicate has been placed.

[QUOTE=whpalmer4;87496]On the Mac, double-click row handle of action, get window focused on project where you can add additional action(s). Close when done.

On the iPad, tap on action to bring up editor, in Info pane tap on Go to Project button, add additional action(s). Unfortunately you don't get back to where you were as easily.

On the iPhone, there is no built-in route that comes to mind, and you have to drill down from the Projects list.

As for the inability to duplicate in context mode, perhaps the issue is putting the task in a reasonable spot when the user has no visual feedback for confirmation, unlike in project mode where it is immediately apparent where the duplicate has been placed.[/QUOTE]

Thanks Bill–I just found out about the double-click to focus today (!) this is definitely going to prove useful! I sent in the feature request for the iPad, and apparently there's already one open, so if you're as lazy as I am, send in your votes!

You might also take a look at Curt's "Complete and Await Reply" script, which I personally use constantly, and which might be able to be tweaked to get at what you're trying to do here.

[QUOTE=Lucas;87967]You might also take a look at Curt's "Complete and Await Reply" script, which I personally use constantly, and which might be able to be tweaked to get at what you're trying to do here.[/QUOTE]

Thanks Lucas–I do use Curt's script all the time too (thanks Curt!). Having an equivalent on the iPad would be awesome, though.