Priorities... last arguments
 

[B]One more thing to digest...[/B]

Ken Case mentioned is one of his posts that OmniFocus already incorporates a form of priorities, because it lets you order your tasks in each project.

But (as I am sure others have pointed out many posts ago), nobody pursues only one project at a time. So where Priorities become useful is where more than one project's next action is competing for your time.

[B]And my very last argument (I promise)...[/B]

I don't know about everyone else here, but over the past year, I must have changed systems 10 different times. I've used everything from paper to pdas to 3x5 cards, custom-built software, you name it. And even when the changes are minor, my system is still always evolving.

So today, I may not find priorities useful at all. But who knows what new "revelation" I'll have tomorrow! Wouldn't it be better to know that the system that (you will eventually be paying $$$ for) has the flexibility to service your needs regardless???

[QUOTE]OmniFocus lets me filter tasks that I think will take 15 minutes or less. That way I can get a quick email or phone call out of the way and not have to choose between it and something that I've already guessed will take me half an hour.[/QUOTE]

That's a really cool idea...

What you are describing are not "priorities", but something new. I like it. Why not? If that's what works for you, then by all means, that sounds like a terrific optional feature.

In fact, it almost seems like we shouldn't have an official "context list" at all. But instead have the ability to create Smart Folders that can be configured to display a variety of data using rules (contexts being one of them)...

[QUOTE=brianogilvie;23011]Because I use it for estimated time. :-)

That is, some tasks take a while but don't need much brain power. Others might be quick but I want to be at the top of my game for them. I can figure that out on the fly but I wouldn't object to having a way to note estimated energy required. I think estimated time is more important to my workflow, though.[/QUOTE]

I see. You want to filter for both x minutes and braindead. I notice and miss the ability to filter for multiple criteria at the same time in OF.

I don't think adding a priority feature would solve that for me. One reason I like GTD is that you don't pre-prioritize future actions. I agree with what MEP said:

[QUOTE=MEP;18590]I'm really only saying that when I finally ditched priority completely, it made a huge impact on the overall effectiveness of my entire GTD system.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Adam Sneller;23019]That's a really cool idea...

What you are describing are not "priorities", but something new...[/QUOTE]


referring to filtering next actions by time, but this is actually recommended by the "the David". Selecting from among the non-prioritized next actions based on resources (Context and Time available) is what is supposed to make working the list easy.

I really would like to be able to set priorities. I personally love GTD but have been getting a little frustrated by not being able to sort by priority. Its so useful for me. I have many projects with many tasks going all the time. And when it comes to personal planning I think a large percentage like the feature. So why risk alienating them.

[QUOTE=LizPf;17423]One of the reasons GTD abandoned prioritization is that is often doesn't work.

Say you're meeting someone in a downtown hotel for a working lunch at noon. You hit your subway connections well, your lunch partner called to say she's running late, so you have about 30 minutes waiting time in the hotel lobby. You pull out your laptop, look at your To Do list, and the top priority items are: Office Cleaning, check stationary order for typos, call printer and review design for ad.
None of these can be done while sitting in the hotel lobby.
With a GTD system, you can look at your "laptop-offline" and "phone-mobile" items, and see the tasks you can do there/then, without being reminded of the things you can't do. Maybe they're lower priority, but they still need doing (or you wouldn't bother to list them), and you CAN do them.

--Liz[/QUOTE]

Yes, but from the remaining tasks in "Laptop-offline" or "phone-mobile" I want pick the most urgent ones by priority. If I had to to through all remaining task and need to think about what to do next, then the system is less usefull for me, because I am getting all of them back into the RAM in my brain.
I only want to see a maximum of the 5 most urgent ones and dont bother with the others.

[QUOTE=BwanaZulia;17445]You set the priority and that is the point. No software is going to know which one of those calls is the most important or process that information as quickly as your brain can.

Look at a list of 5 calls and you will know instantly which one you need to do first and you will.
[/QUOTE]

This sure works great if you are lucky to have got only 5 calls to do. But if you have to go through a list of 30, you instantly have a list of loose ends in your mind. Then I'd better like to see only the 5 most important ones.

[QUOTE=HiramNetherlands;17499]You can drag items up and down the list to assign them priorities. This, to my mind, is much more precise than giving them numeral values for priority. What does priority 3 mean? "Ignore for now"? "Not very urgent, but still deserving attention within the next ten days"? Priorities are, by definition, relative, so dragging them up and down makes a lot of sense. And you can have as much priority levels as you have items (as Ken Case pointed out earlier).[/QUOTE]

Has been discussed earlier in this thread. The order in the project is only relative to this one project, but not comparable to other projects. Task 5 in project A might have a much higher priority than task 1 in project B.

[QUOTE=Ken Case;17722]Of course, that's not nearly as big a problem if you have a separate priority field rather than using it as the only indication of order. (Maybe an easier path would be to just give people more flagging options, so you can flag something as "high" or "low" priority rather than just "a" priority?)[/QUOTE]

Please keep in mind, that some people dont always carry their Mac around, so they sync to a more portable device like a smartphone. I sync my calendar and ToDo list from iCal to my Palm, which I carry around most of the time.
For doing this, I have to sync to iCal first, which has "High", "Medium" and "Low" priority.
Maybe it is a good idea to have these 3 levels also for iCal sync?

[QUOTE=Adam Sneller;22873]I have to throw my 2 cents in here.

I've just waded through 10 pages of people debating whether to include priorities in OmniFocus. To me, this only proves two things: (1) a lot of people use priorities and (2) a lot of other people do not. Trying to force one group of users to conform to another group's workflow is only going to end up alienating a large portion of your market share (who may end up turning to other solutions).
[/QUOTE]

I 100% agree to you. If we all agree, that if priorities are added, they would be optional, this thread would be much easier. And syncing is defnitely an issue.

I came late into this discussion, and now the last posts are all mine ;-)

I'd like draw attention to one thing. GTD is about Getting Things Done. It is not a mantra, nor a religion. It is not about being worlds best DA adept.

When I need a hammer, it is of no use if someone tells me that he does not need a hammer and so shouldn't I.

If somebody gets his work better done with priorisation, then it is OK.
If somebody gets his work better done without priorisation, then it is OK.
There is not the one ideal solution, that fits every situation on the planet.

So - as long as its optional for those who dislike it - could we please have priorisation? And with sync to iCal please. It looks like it would ease the life of some OF users.

TIA

abruenin: I understand what you're saying. And maybe there is room for prioritization in Focus. I'm not the one to make that call.

Can I take off my Omni hat and speak as just another user for a minute?
I'd like to offer an analogy to explain why some people are reluctant to have more features thrown in, even if they can be turned off.
Have you ever needed a screwdriver, and been handed one of those everything-in-one tools? For a quick tightening of one screw, that tool will probably work just fine. But when you spend all day every day tightening screws, you want a screwdriver that was made just to be a screwdriver. Its designer didn't have to shorten the shaft so it would fold back into the handle neatly or make any other compromises. She (or he) could focus on making a device that was optimized for tightening and loosening screws.

Many GTD-ers expect to use the app multiple times per day, so they want it optimized for getting things done the way they work. I welcome the fact that there are many GTD apps being developed and encourage everyone to find the one that fits them best. (Even I might not end up using OmniFocus -- my hipsterPDA is pretty reliable.)

You know, I kind of wish OmniGroup had never said "OmniFocus works great as a Getting Things Done® trusted system but can also be used to fit other task management styles."

If only you guys had said "we're out to make the best damned GTD application in the world!" and sell to those willing to have such an application, a lot of the discussions about which tool to add to the all-in-one might not happen.

Sure, there'd be a bunch of arguments over whether something is or isnt "canonical" GTD, but at least you'd have had something to use as a fallback. "Priorities aren't in GTD, so priorities aren't in OmniFocus".

Oh well.

You guys have managed to do an admirable job building OF.

I think, though, that Ken or Tim should spend more time with Steve Jobs and start demanding (the lack of) certain features!

[QUOTE=jasong;29476]You know, I kind of wish OmniGroup had never said "OmniFocus works great as a Getting Things Done® trusted system but can also be used to fit other task management styles."

If only you guys had said "we're out to make the best damned GTD application in the world!" and sell to those willing to have such an application, a lot of the discussions about which tool to add to the all-in-one might not happen.

Sure, there'd be a bunch of arguments over whether something is or isnt "canonical" GTD, but at least you'd have had something to use as a fallback. "Priorities aren't in GTD, so priorities aren't in OmniFocus".

Oh well.

You guys have managed to do an admirable job building OF.

I think, though, that Ken or Tim should spend more time with Steve Jobs and start demanding (the lack of) certain features![/QUOTE]

I totally agree. Please don't let it become a "jack of all trades, master of none" app (not that I think Omni will!).

I'm new to this discussion and I also haven't read every item in the thread (disclosed for those of you who wish to read no further based on that!).

Actions have various kinds of optional metadata already such as "estimated time", "flag", "repeat every", and three (or five!) date fields. A prioritization field would fit very well into how so many people might use this program to sort and filter actions that it makes a lot of sense to me. WITHIN certain focuses I can afford to specify dates or estimated level of efforts but that doesn't make sense across all of my perspectives.

Priorities can fit smoothly into the existing interface and users can smoothly go back and forth: If the option is turned off you see the flags as they currently stand. If the option is turned on the "flag" gets replaced by priority 1 thru 5 and that same field is sortable instead of the flagged filter. If you turn it back off, all priority 1 or priority 2 items will show up as flagged and all 3-5 will show up as not flagged.

Should OF be pure GTD?
 

Should OF be pure GTD? I hope not, because even out of those who admire and aspire to GTD, only a small fraction have achieved pure implementation. Many people are working their way towards that goal, or have found some happy stopping ground along the way, or even fall off the wagon and get back on repeatedly over time. For instance the [URL="http://www.43folders.com/2007/12/19/missing-iphone-todo-app-not-missed"]great article and feedback[/URL] discussion the past couple of days at 43 Folders shows lots of examples of people in these different states of adherence.

I think Omnigroup are picking the almost perfect focus when they design the product around the GTD concept, but allow for flexibility and variations in needs and work style and orthodoxy.

As someone who's operationally standing somewhere between a more traditional task management method and GTD, I've found this discussion very interesting. Good dialog. :)

Hallelujah, lizard and jasong. Both of you have beautifully articulated something that's been increasingly worrying me lately. I was more involved in early discussions about OF features than I've been lately, simply because the demands for non-GTD features have been putting me off (and making me fear for the future of OF, frankly). I've been waiting a long time for the perfect GTD app to come along, and OF is it-- sans priorities, sans tagging, sans anything else that is more about fiddling and tweaking your lists than actually Getting Things Done.

Right now, OF is looking like the most well-designed specialty screwdriver I've ever seen, and one that I would happily pay handsomely for, just like any other high-quality specialty tool that I know I'm going to be able to rely on for a long time. Please, Omni, don't dilute it in an attempt to woo practitioners of "other systems".

[QUOTE=idea2go;29486]Should OF be pure GTD?[/QUOTE]


I'll admit, I tend to get snobby about being pure GTD, but in reality, the system is one person's take on a task management system (granted, with lots of experience coaching others), and there's always room for improvement. Considering GTD (the book) doesn't really discuss a software system, things that may not work well with a paper system, might actually work very well with a computerized system.

However, there's a fine line between "modernizing" GTD and throwing in way too much.

[QUOTE=jasong;29476]Sure, there'd be a bunch of arguments over whether something is or isnt "canonical" GTD, but at least you'd have had something to use as a fallback. "Priorities aren't in GTD, so priorities aren't in OmniFocus".
[/QUOTE]

Correct me if I am wrong but didn't someone pointed out in this thread, that priorities [B]are[/B] part of GTD, though not discussed in detail?

This discussion seemes to be moving a bit in circles.

As I am no native English speaker, I am missing some of the ironic parts, sorry for that.

But I can not see, why some of you are that against adding this little feature. It could be disabled by default.
I got the point of not overloading the app with hundreds of unwanted features. But looking through this forum, I got the feeling that this is the most wanted feature. Just look how long this thread became.

To sum it up
- Many dont want priorities, but they should not care if it is disabled by default.
- Many need priorities and it seemes the #1 wanted feature.

And think of: A fool with a tool is still a fool.
What is a methodology like GTD good for, if we waste lots of our time on an endless unproductive discussion? Did anyone got more of his work done by joining this thread? It cost me a whole evening to go through this.
Why not find a solution that fits everybodies need and end this thread? Why not just implement it, leaving it off by default?

[QUOTE=Adam Sneller;22873]I have to throw my 2 cents in here.

I've just waded through 10 pages of people debating whether to include priorities in OmniFocus. To me, this only proves two things: (1) a lot of people use priorities and (2) a lot of other people do not.

I would suggest that priorities be included for those who use them. But there should also be a Preferences option to turn these off, for those who don't.

There is nothing wrong with adding features that some users find superfluous. In fact, this fits really well with the whole "shrink to fit" concept that OmniFocus is based on.
[/QUOTE]

Amen.

I personally would love to have priorities. As Adam points out, adding this as an optional feaure wouldn't hurt those who don't need it.

OmniFocus is a pro-tool for us productivity-lovers. It's already rich featured and someone who hasn't ever looked into productivity-stuff will get confused with all these options anyway. So in my opinion a pro-tool should get me all the features I might need. It just needs to be well designed and integrated, so it won't get in the way but help us if we need it.

I like Curts suggestion having a relative slider. It worked in life balance pretty well for me.

1.0 needs to be reliable, sure. But why not integrate it later?

SOD from Omni?
 

This is now a problem for me, which will hopefully be solved by the people from Omni.
You offer a discount until Jan. 8th, so I have to decide to buy it or not until then. I won't buy it for $80,-, IMHO this is way to high. This is the price of the complete iLife or iWork suite. Comparable products are all below $40, iGTD is free (though they will charge for additional groupware features in the future).
So I will buy it now, or won't buy it at all.
Priorities are crucial to me, OF is useless for me without (instead I would continue to use iGTD, which has priorities, which also sync to iCal priorities).
I could live with it, if priorities are not in the V1.0, as you are already in the phase of getting it stable. But I would need a clear statement of direction.
So would you please give me this SOD?
And though this is a different thread. The brackets [] for the project name brake synchronisation with Agendus on Palm, which uses this brackets for the contact link. Agendus is the #1 organizer on Palm, so many would have this problem. What I would need is an option to use other characters instead (eg. {}).
As this is also a showstopper for me, I would like to have a SOD for this also.
I am hoping that you will clarify this.
TIA
Arne

abruenin,

At its heart, OF is a GTD application. If you even had a cursory understanding of GTD, you would understand why stronger priority features were not a huge concern for v1. Complaining that OF lacks the sort of priority feature you want only makes you sound like the guy who wanted to know where the horse goes on seeing his first automobile.

I don't think you have to buy the GTD book to use OF, but I am convinced that you will get more out of OF if you do. BTW, there are web sites with GTD info if you don't want to pay for the book. Post if you want some links.

FWIW, Omni has gone outside conventional GTD thinking in the design of OF, and there is no reason to think that they won't continue to find creative ways to include useful features from outside GTD canon going forward. However, for v1, I think what you see now is pretty much what you are going to get.

How weird to see The Faithful get indignant about a proposed impure feature in a fundamentally impure program (re: outlining/nesting), from a company explicitly aiming to serve more than just the faithful. I'm reminded of the LOTR loonies hectoring Peter Jackson during his filmmaking.

It's a feature easily-enough made invisible. But still...the sacrilege incites eleven pages of howling.


Anyhoo, a few things amid the grogger spinning:

1. flagging is a poor workaround for prioritization (though nowhere near as poor as affixing prefixes...sheesh, to be forced into that in $80 software!) because flags are binary. If a very important action is temporarily overshadowed by some screamingly important actions, and you de-flag the former to highlight the latter, the former might then get lost. We need a spectrum.

Also, as-is, gathering flagged actions into a single list (such a list being the ultimate intention of prioritization) means navigating two levels of pull-down menu (and doing so twice, to later reset flag view) without so much as a keyboard shortcut. Ugh.

2. I love Adam's idea of "have the ability to create Smart Folders that can be configured to display a variety of data using rules (contexts being one of them)". Hope that didn't go unnoticed by TPTB.

[QUOTE=Eric Schoenfeld;31074]How weird to see The Faithful get indignant about a proposed impure feature in a fundamentally impure program (re: outlining/nesting), from a company explicitly aiming to serve more than just the faithful. I'm reminded of the LOTR loonies hectoring Peter Jackson during his filmmaking.

It's a feature easily-enough made invisible. But still...the sacrilege incites eleven pages of howling.[/QUOTE]

It'd be nice if you'd made a reasoned contribution to the debate instead of ranting. I'm afraid I don't understand where you're coming from: if OF doesn't fit your needs, why did you buy it?

Er, wow, A lot to chew on!

First, there IS no debate. I see potential customers who desperately need priorities noting that it need not intrude on the UI of those who don't want to see it. I see Omni responding that they'll probably add priorities, but that it won't intrude on the UI of those who don't want to see it. And I see forty miles of bluster from folks who mostly note, post-rant, that they wouldn't mind its addition if it doesn't intrude on their UI. That's not debate. That's AGREEMENT.

Second, I made several contributions in my posting. Umm...what'd YOUR posting add?

And third, who says I bought the program? There's a demo, you know. And I won't buy until priorities are added. Though, come to think of it, maybe I will just because I feel really bad for the Omni guys, who will come to regret ever having mentioned GTD in their marketing materials.

Oh, and I like GTD just fine, btw. So even that's not a debate. I just think the world needs fewer incensed true believers all around.

Oh, I've already said my piece on this earlier in the thread and I'm not going to rehash it now. I just found it amusing/ironic that you were complaining about the "incensed true believers" but coming across as one yourself. :)

As far as the debate goes, I felt it was largely a philosophical one about where OF was going re: GTD - was it (like its predecessor Kinkless) going to "enforce" GTD principles/practice to some extent (which, FWIW, I think it does - it makes you use contexts, for example) or was it going to be more freeform. Remember that most of this thread was written when the app was in (early) alpha and the feature set was pretty undefined. Also, most of the people who came on the beta program initially (myself included) were attracted to OF purely as a GTD app, then as it became more widely publicised a wider audience joined. There was bound to be some argument. :)

[QUOTE=al_f;31132] you were complaining about the "incensed true believers" but coming across as one yourself. :)
.[/QUOTE]

That's odd...I don't believe anything but that I need priorities to make good use of this app.


[QUOTE=al_f;31132]
Remember that most of this thread was written when the app was in (early) alpha and the feature set was pretty undefined.[/QUOTE]

Point well taken

Is this still going? There are plenty of ways to priortize in OF, just not an actual priority which is not very GTD.

Lots of features I rather have first.

BZ

I haven't posted yet, so I don't feel too guilty adding to a thread that's just too long already.

GTD purists, why haven't you been beating on the OF developers about flags? The Book doesn't mention flags. They aren't GTD. Should we have a new war about the blasphemy of flags? Just kidding! Just kidding!

I want priorities for the reasons GeekLady posted so well. Flags seem like binary priorities, so it might be natural to replace them with 1-5 priority levels. Some people will still want flags, so perhaps OF should let us turn on or off both flags and real priorities. There may be a use for both at the same time. Make today's behavior the default.

Any news on this?
 

Is there any update on plannings for task priorities?

PLEASE no answers regarding "priorities is not plain GTD", this is absolute irrelevant to me. I am just looking for something that works.

So is there any hope for priorities in the near future?

[QUOTE=Pete Siemsen;31177]GTD purists, why haven't you been beating on the OF developers about flags? The Book doesn't mention flags. They aren't GTD. Should we have a new war about the blasphemy of flags? Just kidding! Just kidding![/QUOTE]

...and in DA does not mention the window layout of OF, so please trash it!

Also just kidding ;-) But I definitely second, that this discussion has been more religious than pragmatic.

In the near future, no. Priorities are one of the feature requests in the system, but the ones we're working on right now have more demand behind them.

I would hesitate to dismiss the whole no-priorities position as dogma, though; that's an oversimplification. For some folks the feature would constitute nothing more than an attractive distraction. (Twiddling tasks by marking them with statuses is not time spent getting things done, in other words.) One of the way OmniFocus is supposed to assist you is by helping avoid distractions.

Personally, I do fine without them; I review my tasks, I flag the ones I care the most about, I do those, then I review again. Having additional layers of priority wouldn't help me one bit.

I know folks [I]want[/I] priorities, but I'm not (again, personally; I am not speaking for Omni) convinced they actually [I]need[/I] them. The app seems to be doing pretty well without them so far.

On the other hand, it is on the more popular end of the feature request list; ultimately, I'm not sure what we'll do.

Reordering items only work in planning mode...

One fundamental thought here. Because we have a sequential option for projects and groups; that specifies the order already. If the priority is so important then you shouldn't go about doing lower priority tasks before high priority tasks. Therefore there is no point to even look at the lower prio. stuff. Or is it?

I think Brian's response is great.

I am surprised that more people don't readily see why the distraction of tweaking priorities is a form of procrastination. At different times of the day, and/or in different locations, my priorities are vastly different. No priority system is capable of dynamically adjusting my priorities on so many levels. However, my brain can adapt to the variables of the moment and make the priority call on the spot, rather than being a slave to a A-B-C-D-E (or high-medium-low) priority system.

The real key is that if a artificial priority system is added to OmniFocus, as long as it is able to be completely hidden (aka truly optional), then both camps will be happy. Now [B]that[/B] would be a priority! :)

Jim

[QUOTE=Lecter;36740]The real key is that if a artificial priority system is added to OmniFocus, as long as it is able to be completely hidden (aka truly optional), then both camps will be happy.[/QUOTE]

Except that adding those undesired features, even if completely hide-able, still brings complexity to the app and consumes limited engineering resources. So it's still not really a complete win-win situation.

There's no making everyone happy. :)

I've read posts now on this desire for prioritization and a desire to have OF connect tasks to blocks of time in your calendar. What happened to the WEEKLY REVIEW. Remember DA's admonition that no organization can do all your thinking for you. I think he said something like, "You can't push a button at 9:43 AM and have your organizer tell you 'Call Fred'." When it comes right down to it, deciding what to do at any particular moment is an intuitive judgment based on circumstances at that time. No personal management system can nor should try to take all factors into account. This is what the weekly review is for, to keep oneself refreshed week-to-week in the landscape of one's life. So, knowing the priority of something derives out of that complexity, not some number/letter assignment in OF. It is my opinion, and only my OPINION, that GTD as DA defines it handles nearly every situation perfectly well as it is, if you truly do GTD throughout your system. Hybridizing one's system is usually not necessary if one is truly following GTD methodology. So, I would ask the folks at OMNI to please NOT do any prioritization feature. Keep OF simple, straight-forward and as pure GTD as possible.

[QUOTE=jonwalthour;36750]So, I would ask the folks at OMNI to please NOT do any prioritization feature. Keep OF simple, straight-forward and as pure GTD as possible.[/QUOTE]

I don't want to be cast as a GTD zealot, and I'd prefer OmniFocus not be shackled to GTD (will GTD still be in fashion 5 years from now?).

Despite this, I completely agree with jonwalthour. In my opinion, adding priorities is unnecessary and a waste of valuable engineering resources. I'm not religious about it, but I think pure GTD is the best approach. Even if OF is not shackled to GTD, OF can still follow its principles.

It's software, not religion
 

It's software, not religion

Hey folks, if enough people want priorities, then what's the harm? If you don't want to use them, don't, they'll be invisible to you.

I'd like priorities, I'm tired of only two priorities, flag on, flag off.

Please implement priorities.

[QUOTE=Boatguy;37649]...if enough people want priorities, then what's the harm? If you don't want to use them, don't, they'll be invisible to you.[/QUOTE]

That is simply a myth. Adding any feature, even if it can be turned off and mostly ignored, does not mean it's free, harmless or "invisible" to users who don't want it.

Every minute spent on adding priorities is a minute lost fixing or developing some other more important or more appropriate feature. And, at least in my mind, there are [I]many[/I] things I'd much rather see than support for priorities.

The risks are significant: increased design/engineering cost, increased complexity, straying from canonical GTD, pollution of the UI, etc. And the benefits are negligible.

I cannot believe this debate continues.

Stunned actually.

BZ

Uh, yeah. It's down to just reflex reaction now. :)

I believe they call if "Pavlovian Response".

The debate would have settled down, but the priority zealots keep seeing it pop up in their daily to-do list, due to it being marked as "urgent."

:)

Prioritizing and Levels
 

I recently migrated over to OmniFocus from iGTD and really like the program a lot.

There's one feature that seems to be be missing and that is a way to prioritize tasks. And the ability to assign many levels of prioritizing, for instance, some tasks should be number one, while other tasks are not as important and can be assigned to level 3. Will OmniFocus eventually be able to do that?

Please see the HUGE thread about priority and OmniFocus.

Recap: Priority in GTD is not meant to be captured in a tool.

BZ

[url]http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=3836[/url]

BZ

Thanks. I think I'll let the flag work for me as a way to prioritize items and see how that goes.

Let's examine this whole priority problem from a more psychological/cognitive perspective.

Why does people need priority flagging?
Whenever you are faced with a list of tasks from which you can choose only one, you must prioritize. Prioritizing essentially means; comparing all items to all other items. This requires mental effort and time.
This effort spent cannot be saved for later (at least not fully), due to limitations of our brain's working memory and changes to the list of tasks, so we are forced to re-prioritize again the next time we need to pick a new task. We need a way to save the work that we have done; hence the need for priorities...

Strengths of priorities:
* Allows you to save on cognitive workload by reusing previously esablished priorities.

* Saves time when priorities can be quickly reused.


Problems with assigning static priorities.

* Priorities have different semantic meanings.
e.g. Currently the single red flag in OF have different temporal meaning for different people. "I flag: todays stuff" vs "I flag: must do this week stuff".
e.g. The priority was decided by someone else - alien to your system.
e.g. The lowest priority could mean that "you won't do" it or "you must do it but its not important when", "you must do it at least this month", "you don't have to do it but it would be nice". etc...

* Priorities change due to external factors.
e.g. Boss says "drop everything, this company will pay us a gazillion dollars to do x", the next day he says "the deal fell through go back to old priorities".

* It is hard to assign the correct priority.
In low granularity systems (e.g. 1-3) there are too many gray zones where two actions have different priority but it can't be captured in the system. In high granularity systems you easily run into a situations where a lower priority task gets a higher priority number simply because you did not compare the two tasks in relation to each other.

* It is hard to maintain system balance
When you decide on the priority of an item you do so by comparing the priority of other items that you have already prioritized. Once you have assigned some faulty priorities the system starts to deteriorate because you make bad decisions based on bad decisions.

* Assigning priorities means more fiddling with the system.

-----------
To have priorities could mean huge benefits in time and cognitive workload saved. It is possible that priorities should be used to capture only short term priorities. But then again short term can be pretty different for different people. Some people do daily reviews, others do fine with weekly and yet some people do hourly reviews. If OF had a today screen some people would want a "this week" screen and so on...

+1 on not adding priorities.

[QUOTE=Lecter;37692]The debate would have settled down, but the priority zealots keep seeing it pop up in their daily to-do list, due to it being marked as "urgent."

:)[/QUOTE]

I enjoyed that one.

I'm amazed that this debate still goes on a year later now. I thought I'd check in and wow.

Efficiency is getting a lot of things done.
Effectiveness is doing the right things.

When I work in a reality where every day I have too many things to do, I am not going to be very effective by employing silly tactics like doing all the easy, short things first. Fear of prioritization is odd to me. It seems it's better to have a plan that you can change than go have no plan at all.

I need prioritization. I fake it with the blank column that I have in the right-hand side of OF -- which I think might be a remnant from an early alpha release -- which has a 10-digit number for every single entry. I can change the number and sort by that column, and there, I can at least fake having an effective task management system.

I wonder how much of the back and forth in this thread is simply because it doesn't take much time to reply, so it ends up at the top of many GTD lists. Not important, but certainly easy and quick, right? ;)

[QUOTE=laura;38139]I'm amazed that this debate still goes on a year later now. I thought I'd check in and wow.

Efficiency is getting a lot of things done.
Effectiveness is doing the right things.

When I work in a reality where every day I have too many things to do, I am not going to be very effective by employing silly tactics like doing all the easy, short things first. Fear of prioritization is odd to me. It seems it's better to have a plan that you can change than go have no plan at all.

I need prioritization. I fake it with the blank column that I have in the right-hand side of OF -- which I think might be a remnant from an early alpha release -- which has a 10-digit number for every single entry. I can change the number and sort by that column, and there, I can at least fake having an effective task management system.

I wonder how much of the back and forth in this thread is simply because it doesn't take much time to reply, so it ends up at the top of many GTD lists. Not important, but certainly easy and quick, right? ;)[/QUOTE]

What do you envision a prioritization scheme giving you that you don't already have? It seems to me that you've already got some tools you can use for this, even if we don't include your mysterious 10-digit number column. You've got the binary flag - flag individual actions or flag whole projects, and you can easily spot those actions in the scrum when looking for the next action to do. There's also that time estimate field, which could be used much like your 10-digit number (and unlike your 10-digit number, can be filtered by perspectives) if you don't need to filter or sort on duration. You could still keep notes on duration in the notes field.

I'm curious how you manage your prioritization scheme. How often do you update priorities? How many priority levels do you find you need? Do the top-priority items at any given time tend to be the next actions from a bunch of different projects, or a large number of sequential actions from a small number of projects? Do you want to completely block lower-priority actions from sight until all of the higher-priority actions have been handled?

I'm a little mystified by multiple-priority systems, because back in the days when I had to prioritize what I worked on from the pile of way too much stuff, it was pretty much impossible to get agreement from all the affected parties on what was really the highest priority, and my binary prioritization scheme worked well. Everything was classified into two states: "this needs to be done yesterday or the world will come to an end", and "this needs to be done yesterday or the world will come to an end (or so you would have me believe, but I know you're full of it)". Generally, the only clue the requester had as to which priority it was assigned was whether or not it ever got done :-)

How often do you get all the high priority stuff cleared out such that you can work on low priority stuff? It just seems to me that if one only works on high priority items and has a continual influx of new tasks, anything more than a level or two down in the hierarchy should really be assigned to some other person, unless the priorities are always being shuffled.

Looking back over the last 1/3 of this discussion thread, my impression is that there are people asking for a priority system, but not making it clear to me as an interested bystander what the essential core of that which they want is. Frankly, if you've got X requests for an ill-defined feature, and about X-3 ideas of what it should look like, there will be a lot of unhappy people unless the designer is really, really good and can come up with the core idea that makes everyone happy...either it will get done in a fashion that best suits the designer, or not at all...

A - Absolutely must get done today
B - Should be done today
C - Would be nice if done today

A flag system does not handle that, as it's only binary.

As for what we're all talking about, Franklin-Covey has been around a while. Call it "ill-defined" if you want, but GTD is the new kid on the block, and I have to say that being on the receiving end of a GTD practitioner is an experience of urgency but not necessarily importance.

Call me persnicketey for wanting more functionality than a glorified laundry list of tasks. Some of us can actuall evaluate tasks and know which ones are the most important for the day, and not based on how long they take (which strikes me as a ludicrous idea).

[QUOTE]It just seems to me that if one only works on high priority items and has a continual influx of new tasks, anything more than a level or two down in the hierarchy should really be assigned to some other person, unless the priorities are always being shuffled.[/QUOTE]

Ha! I would submit that this would be important data then. After all, if you take the alternative and are constantly doing all the little tasks that come in, you aren't getting the important things done. If that doesn't matter to you, wonderful. Me, I need more, and I guess my investment on this app was wasted in the battle against dogma.

As I [URL="http://forums.omnigroup.com/showpost.php?p=37991&postcount=9"]recently mentioned[/URL] in the [URL="http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=8169"]Tags[/URL] thread, our plan [URL="http://forums.omnigroup.com/showpost.php?p=13360&postcount=51"]all along[/URL] has been to allow people to create their own columns of metadata, which they can use however they want: with generic tags, or with specific columns for priority, people, etc. (We have this capability in OmniPlan, OmniOutliner, and OmniGraffle.) We just didn't have time to do it for 1.0, and we won't for 1.5 (which has to focus on synchronization so it can be ready to synchronize with the iPhone).

Hopefully in 1.7.

[QUOTE=laura;38151]Some of us can actuall evaluate tasks and know which ones are the most important for the day, and not based on how long they take (which strikes me as a ludicrous idea).[/QUOTE]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but GTD [I]does[/I] call for prioritization. The difference is that they're not explicitly recorded in the system because, by David Allen's reckoning, priorities are ephemeral, frequently changing, and entirely relative to the other actions on your list and the situation you're in.

So once you've established your context, and have a reasonably-sized list of items that can be acted upon, you scan down the list and prioritize them on the spot. Merlin Mann did a nice job explaining this approach at the recent OmniFocus Meetup in San Francisco. I think he called it the "Hair on Fire" system. :)

Given a reasonably-sized list of options, the human brain is very good at making these impromptu judgments. And this approach is much more flexible than rigidly recording arbitrary priority assignments with a numerical or alphabetical value on your list. And without recording priorities, they never need to be managed or updated in the system.

I think that's the reasoning behind the current implementation in OmniFocus. And I've actually found it quite liberating to get away from traditional priority tracking.

[QUOTE=laura;38151]Me, I need more, and I guess my investment on this app was wasted in the battle against dogma.[/QUOTE]

If you *must* have traditional, Franklin-Covey style priority tracking, then maybe a GTD app is not the right tool for the job.

Blaming dogma, however, is a straw man argument. I don't think anyone claimed there's only one way to do this. Arguing [I]against[/I] priorities is no more dogmatic than arguing [I]for[/I] priorities.

OmniFocus was inspired by the GTD methodology. It says that clearly on the product's web page. I don't think it should be a big surprise that the app actually favors that approach over others.

-Dennis

Take Dennis's explaination. Print it out. Read it over and over and over and over again until you underand.

Sum.

1. Priority IS in GTD
2. Priority is too FLUID to capture in tool
3. Brain can do priority FASTER than too.

BZ

Fluid priorities vs. goals
 

[QUOTE=Toadling;38163]Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but GTD [I]does[/I] call for prioritization. The difference is that they're not explicitly recorded in the system because, by David Allen's reckoning, priorities are ephemeral, frequently changing, and entirely relative to the other actions on your list and the situation you're in.[/QUOTE]

I can't speak to what GTD is or isn't. I'm just going by the rather huge push-back against prioritization in OF.

The reason that in F-C approach you start with your governing values is because then you find that your day's priorities aren't shifting around on you so much. This may come more naturally to a goals-focused orientation than a process-focused orientation. Otherwise what you end up doing each day may not end up serving your longer-term goals, or even short-term goals if they span beyond the day.

The tags Ken Case mentions might be a kludge that could work. I may give them a try. But in the end I think I've been spending time on something that doesn't serve my long-term goals.

[QUOTE=laura;38151]A - Absolutely must get done today
B - Should be done today
C - Would be nice if done today

A flag system does not handle that, as it's only binary.
[/quote]

Well, I also suggested how you could use the Duration field (which you denigrate as a useless concept, so it should prove no loss of vital functionality to you) to have as many states as you might need. Or another approach would be to knock off all the A tasks, then scan again to see what deserves your attention for the rest of the day. As I said, they've provided some tools with which you can implement a priority scheme; if you don't care for them, by all means, you should investigate other options. I was hoping to hear something interesting about why you couldn't make the current offering work, but I guess that won't be forthcoming. My loss; I don't bother asking questions if I'm not interested in hearing the answer.

I find the duration field to be useful, myself; it lets me fill up small blocks of time productively when all the more important stuff comes in chunks that can't be done in the time available. If I have a meeting starting in 10 minutes, it isn't going to be a productive use of my time to start reading a block of code looking for a subtle bug; I might be able to knock off 2 4-5 minute lower-priority tasks in that time if I don't have to spend 3 minutes figuring out what my options are. Same argument as is used for needing to keep the prioritization effort written down, except in my opinion slightly better justified as the time it takes to photocopy your timesheet or call to make an appointment for a tune-up isn't going to change because the boss decided the team needed to go in a different direction today. And while you sneer at doing the short things first, it's also useful in the other direction, when one finds that unbelievably there's going to be a solid, large block of time without interrupts, what's some task that needs to be handled as a unit and never gets worked on because there's never enough time to do enough work to make it practical? Better do the biggest one that will fit! A co-worker mentions that they won't need their test gear for an hour, and I can make faster progress on a given class of problems using their gear; what are some test cases I can do that will make best use of that time? It's all the same priority, it all needs to get done before we can ship...

[quote]
Call me persnicketey for wanting more functionality than a glorified laundry list of tasks. Some of us can actuall evaluate tasks and know which ones are the most important for the day, and not based on how long they take (which strikes me as a ludicrous idea).
[/quote]
How does OmniFocus interfere with your workflow, in that case? Oh, right, you need a pre-printed glorified laundry list that has a priority column and fits in a snazzy leather binder :-) You've got all your tasks, can view them in ways not remotely possible with a paper system, seems like a step forward to me.

[quote]
Ha! I would submit that this would be important data then. After all, if you take the alternative and are constantly doing all the little tasks that come in, you aren't getting the important things done. If that doesn't matter to you, wonderful. Me, I need more, and I guess my investment on this app was wasted in the battle against dogma.[/QUOTE]

I'm afraid you misunderstood my point. My experience was that I could fill just about every day of the week, week after week, with what you would call "A" tasks. And behind them, when there was an occasional lull, enough "B" tasks to fill my days, week after week. So assigning tasks of priority "C" to me (never mind "D", "E", and so on), if I was expected to only work on the highest priority tasks until no further progress could be made on any of them, that was equivalent to dropping the task for a few weeks (until someone came around asking why nothing ever got done about it, and took my advice that if it was important to them that it get done, find another resource to do it). It's a pretty short step from there to flagging or focusing on whatever it is I'm going to work on today, because on most days, everything that gets touched will be on the same priority level. Little tasks, if they got done at all, were usually done only because there was some reason a bigger task couldn't be worked on, or it was something that interested me and I'd already spent as many hours working on priority matters as anyone could reasonably ask (in other words, done on my own time).

As Master Yoda might say, "do, or do not - there is no priority C" :-)

I'm not anti-priority. I am however opposed to the good folks at Omni spending too much time on it when there are already some features that can (so it seems to me) do much of what the priority requesters want when that prevents them from getting work done on features that can't readily be done with what they've already given us. This will undoubtedly lose them some customers who feel they just can't survive without a purpose-built multi-level priority scheme, and undoubtedly gain them some customers who think that whatever else they did with those resources was something that made the app worth buying. I want the company to make the choices that enable it to thrive in the long run, even if some of those choices aren't exactly what I want, because I look at how much time I spend using everything except OmniDazzle and OmniGraffle and I think of how much more time I would have to spend with other, lesser tools. Right now, they seem to be spending their OmniFocus resources on the iPhone app and synchronization. In my opinion, that's the right thing to do -- and at the moment, it's of absolutely no use to me whatsoever.

It's good that I still have a few hours left in which to do the important stuff today :-)

[QUOTE]Oh, right, you need a pre-printed glorified laundry list that has a priority column and fits in a snazzy leather binder :-)[/QUOTE]

It's snide comments like this that make me feel like this is just an argument about dogma. You might as well say "All you F/C people can go take a flying leap because we don't want you here." Well, that "snazzy leather binder" changed my life very much for the better, and while I may have become disenchanted with the software that was designed to support it I did not become disenchanted with the ideas behind it.

For better or worse there seem to be plenty of people who feel a priority system would be useful. There are also plenty who don't, and that's ok with me. What I don't understand is the investment that some people seem to have in telling other's what the tools they use should, and should not, be able to do. After all, no one but me sees my projects, or my next actions, or anything else that I do in OF. What could it possibly mater to anyone if I chose to implement a priority system, or for that mater if I ask for one. I payed my $80 like everyone else.

I bought David Allen's book, as I said I would in another thread, and I've been reading it. OF, being based on a different system than I'm used to, does some things that I don't understand yet, and I'm trying to figure out why, and how I can use these new tools to make my life a bit easier. If you want to offer some tips and suggestions about how I can make better use of OF that's great, but don't treat me like some empty headed ninny who was dazzled by a "snazzy leather binder." Frankly I find it insulting.

Berate and browbeat all "you" (the generic, editorial "you") want. I work with priorities, knowing that urgency does not always equal importance. I'm looking elsewhere now, as I think I wandered into a chapel instead of a feature request thread.

[QUOTE=jpathomas;38187]What could it possibly mater to anyone if I chose to implement a priority system, or for that mater if I ask for one. I payed my $80 like everyone else.[/QUOTE]

and

[QUOTE=laura;38206]I'm looking elsewhere now, as I think I wandered into a chapel instead of a feature request thread.[/QUOTE]

I really hope you don't end up with a negative view of OmniFocus based solely on the opinions of this user community. Ultimately, for you, it doesn't really matter what we (other users) think; we don't necessarily represent the viewpoint of the Omni Group. If an explicit priorities-based system works for you, then you should use it. And if you can convince the Omni Group to add support for it in OmniFocus, then more power to you.

However, keep in mind that asking for a priorities feature in an open forum for an application that is inspired by a methodology that actively [I]eschews explicit priorities[/I] is sure to draw criticism and debate.

This forum is all about open discussion. If one is brave enough to submit a proposal, they should also be brave enough to accept an honest response from the community. If that's not what's desired, the best course of action is to simply not post in the first place, and instead send the feature request [I]directly[/I] to the Omni Group (via Help -> Send Feedback).

Personally, I tend to agree with the GTD approach: explicit priorities are at best unnecessary and at worst a waste of time. There's no dogma here, no religion, no crusade - just my personal opinion.

I argue against priorities in OmniFocus simply because nothing is free. Every new feature adds complexity, increases the risk of bugs, and consumes valuable engineering resources. In my mind, explicit priorities just aren't worth it.

However, I think a generic, multi-purpose metadata column that could be used for priorities (among other things) would be an acceptable compromise. I hope that maybe others feel the same way.

-Dennis

I think that's completly fair Dennis. I know that every conversation has its ups and downs and we all feel passionitly about something. I've known lots folks for whom F/C was the One True Way, and I'm meeting a few who feel the same about GTD. We can all agree, or disagree about the merrits of any particular approach, but we should keep our disagreements to the issue at hand, not resort to personaly jibes.

[QUOTE=Toadling;38213]
However, keep in mind that asking for a priorities feature in an open forum for an application that is inspired by a methodology that actively [I]eschews explicit priorities[/I] is sure to draw criticism and debate.
[/quote]

I think this is why this thread refuses to die. People who are not using a strict (or even halfway) GTD methodology don't understand why priorities are considered a Bad Thing by GTDers. They don't understand that a priority assigned during processing (rather than at the moment of action) is at best arbitrary and at worst a tool of procrastination rather than productivity. It's a hard concept to work out since we have been taught for years that prioritizing tasks is a fundamentally good habit, and those of us who have accepted this methodology had a hard time adjusting to it as well.

I'm glad I did though, because eliminating the priority field is one of the most productive things I've ever done. It's right up there with adding context to my todo list. If more people tried it, I think they'd understand why. I've already explained (at length) why priorities are harmful to productivity in a GTD methodology, somewhere in this very thread way back when so I won't beat that horse any further.

[quote]
However, I think a generic, multi-purpose metadata column that could be used for priorities (among other things) would be an acceptable compromise. I hope that maybe others feel the same way.
[/QUOTE]

It sounds like Ken Case already answered the feature request question. He said exactly what Omni's plan is and even said which version they expect this feature to be in, so complaining that this is a "chapel instead of a feature release thread" is kind of silly. The fact that other people, users whose opinions count just as much as yours, disagree with your request and have decided to say so should hardly cause so much distress. This is especially true considering that the real question, "Will there be priorities in OF?", has already been answered. If you want priorities, you'll have to set up the meta-data field to enable priorities in version 1.2--done. I suspect that some enterprising soul will even make an Applescript to do it for you if you really want (or perhaps there will be a "priority" preset for the meta-data field).

If you want more than that, realize that at least as many users as you don't. So this is the compromise that Omni has come up with. When you think about it, a configurable meta-data field actually sounds better because now we can use it for all kinds of things beyond just priority. So what's with all the fuss?

Finally though, Omni does listen to feature requests from users, and they do sometimes add features that clearly exist outside of the strict GTD domain. Case in point: we can see actions without a context in the context view. I and a few other users argued passionately against the inclusion of this feature. We even ended up in a debate over what the definition of "next action" was, or should be, simply because of the introduction of this feature in one of the new alpha builds. The context-less context list was ultimately added due to overwhelming demand from other users and the implementation at the time was fraught with problems for strict GTDers (IMHO).

But we're all in luck, because Omni ultimately addressed mine and other's concerns as well. They added an option to decide how items would get cleaned up from the inbox (the old behavior was one of my primary complaints) and I'm pretty sure I can set up perspectives to never ever see context-less actions in my context view (which was my other primary complaint). It took some time, but Omni found a way to make everybody pretty happy in this instance.

It may take some time to find the same happy medium with priorities. Priorities are a bigger issue frankly; GTD basically breaks when you add in priorities so it's going to be hard to implement a solution that makes the priority users happy while still not interfering with those of us who have let go of pre-assigned priorities and are comfortable factoring priority into our real-time decision making process. If any priority feature is implemented, it has to get out of the way of the people who don't want to use it--preferably by disappearing completely when configured properly.

This won't happen overnight as there will obviously be many different ways to achieve such a goal and Omni will likely try to explore them (since they're good at what they do and don't rush these things). But I'm sure it will happen. They solved a set of problems that I thought were deal breakers almost a year ago when I deleted OF from my hard drive and vowed never to return. I'm sure they'll figure this out somehow.

Now, can we please stop posting to this thread?

The reason this thread refuses to die is because Omni Group advertises their product as follows:

[QUOTE][B]Flexible Task Management[/B]

OmniFocus works great as a Getting Things Done® trusted system [B]but can also be used to fit other task management styles[/B][/QUOTE] [url]http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnifocus/[/url]

IMO, once Meta data tags are implemented (thanks Ken for mentioning this!), it will be fair to say this claim can be substantiated. On the other hand, if this functionality is not introduced in some reasonable number of release cycles, the highlighted clause(s) really would be stretching the truth and they should consider changing it.


- Art

OF can be used for time management styles other than GTD. Omni never claimed that it could be used for [b]all[/b] other time management styles, just "other", which would imply some other. The lack of support for one particular time management style does not invalidate their marketing claim so long as OF continues to support at least one style other than strict GTD, which I'd say it does.

That it doesn't support [b]your[/b] way of doing things doesn't mean that it doesn't support more than one way or that it only supports GTD.

Every time this thread starts back up, I'm just going to post another link to [URL="http://forums.omnigroup.com/showpost.php?p=38155&postcount=155"]Ken's post[/URL].

[QUOTE=MEP;38240]OF can be used for time management styles other than GTD. Omni never claimed that it could be used for [b]all[/b] other time management styles, just "other", which would imply some other. The lack of support for one particular time management style does not invalidate their marketing claim so long as OF continues to support at least one style other than strict GTD, which I'd say it does.

That it doesn't support [b]your[/b] way of doing things doesn't mean that it doesn't support more than one way or that it only supports GTD.[/QUOTE]

1) Well, first I disagree with your reading of the passage. A reasonable person, I think, can rightly conclude that the connotation of the passage is much stronger than your are suggesting. As written, the passage is ambiguous, certainly. But interpreting the passage literally to mean 'Some' in the sense of "Somewhere in the universe there exists an example of an alternative management style to which OF fits" is flatly absurd. The connotation is clearly is that OmniFocus is a flexible product and can used to work with a broad range of styles.

2) Prioritizing certainly isn't a single management style, it's a method that is common to many management styles. Failing to support a method that is common to many or most management styles would not constitute a case of failing to support a single management sytle, as you suggest, but instead constitute a case of failing to support many or most management styles, and therefore arguably invalidate the posted claim.

3) It is my observation is that without exception everyone at OmniGroup consistently demonstrates behaviour of the highest integrity and community mindedness. They are absolutely dedicated to creating great software.

At this point in the evolution of this product, there is decidedly a level of unresolved tension regarding the definition of the software. Time will tell how it goes. Maybe with versions 2, 3, ... OF will evolve in a direction that is more strictly GTD, maybe the pressures of the greater market will push it in a more general direction. Regardless of how they go, my observation is that Omni Group will want to describe their product fairly and accurately --rather than dance around attempting to employ logical technicalities to maintain false descriptions of their products. Instead, they will say what their product does well, and keep building from there.

[QUOTE=otter;38293]1) Well, first I disagree with your reading of the passage. A reasonable person, I think, can rightly conclude that the connotation of the passage is much stronger than your are suggesting. As written, the passage is ambiguous, certainly. But interpreting the passage literally to mean 'Some' in the sense of "Somewhere in the universe there exists an example of an alternative management style to which OF fits" is flatly absurd. The connotation is clearly is that OmniFocus is a flexible product and can used to work with a broad range of styles.[/QUOTE]

I don't know, I think I'm pretty reasonable and I tend to agree with MEP's interpretation: OF works well with GTD in addition to [I]some[/I] other styles. The wide variety of styles practiced by users of this forum demonstrates this nicely. So I would say the passage [I]is[/I] accurate, and the fact there's currently little support for strict priorities doesn't invalidate it.

Anyway, this is all largely irrelevant if support for metadata columns is soon added.

-Dennis

[QUOTE=Toadling;38299] The wide variety of styles practiced by users of this forum demonstrates this nicely. [/QUOTE]

Which non-GTD styles are those, precisely?

[QUOTE=otter;38306]Which non-GTD styles are those, precisely?[/QUOTE]

You don't have to look far on this forum to find all kinds of people using decidedly non-GTD techniques in customized, hybrid approaches, many inspired by a variety of traditional practices and other, more formalized programs. I don't know what people call them, but it's not David Allen's GTD.

In my experience, such home-grown systems seem more common than true, by-the-book GTD. In fact, around here, GTD purists are frequently branded as zealots.

Well, if you can't name these, could you at least describe some of these traditional practices or other more formalized programs?

There's no questioning that OF provides a large degree of flexibility for implementing GTD -- by the book or otherwise.

But what about the wholly other? What -- besides prioritization -- actually constitutes something wholly other than GTD? And how is it being implemented in OF?

[QUOTE]OmniFocus works great as a Getting Things Done® trusted system but can also be used to fit other task management styles[/QUOTE]

I think this is a little bit of marketing. Don't read too much into it. You can't expect omnigroup to curtail possible sales but calling it an only gtd app. Also, systems come and go. Maybe in 2 years gtd is still going strong, maybe it's here to stay. But it's also possible that something new comes along that steals some of its thunder. If that happens an application built on gtd principles, but advertised as usable without gtd, would be easier to sell.

Omnifocus is definitely a gtd application. The fact that some people are using omnifocus without strict gtd principles doesn't change that. I used omnifocus for months, and I use loose gtd principles, but I need priorities. No, not flagging, but a simple priority system. So I left omnifocus and I'm very happy for doing so. I'm much more productive not using omnifocus (there's many more reasons omnifocus isn't for me, but priorities was a main one).

I'm not putting down omnifocus. It's a great application, and omnigroup is a great company. It's just not for me, so I moved on (and forgot my earlier screen name, so this is a new one).

To summarize, I can understand why omnigroup is marketing omnifocus as gtd 'inspired', but I think it's a stretch to think, for most people, its going to work when principles are used that are not gtd inspired.

There are a lot of features in OmniFocus which allow methodologies that don't fit within traditional GTD.

For example, with the Flagged and Due Soon filters, you can sort your objects into Stephen Covey's four quadrants (Important = Flagged, Due Soon = Urgent), and using Perspectives you can give each of those quadrants a button on your toolbar (each with its own representative custom icon).

The notion of focus (i.e., focusing on your Work or Personal folder—or even a single project—and ignoring all the other actions that you could be doing in your current context) is also very different from the traditional GTD workflow (which suggests you look at everything available in your current context when deciding which to do next).

GTD suggests you only use due dates when you have a hard date that you absolutely cannot miss without making the action irrelevant, but many people using OmniFocus use due dates exclusively to plan and schedule their work load, ignoring the contexts altogether.

Some people implement more granular levels of priority by using the context list to hold priority levels (e.g., contexts like URGENT, High, Medium, Low) and ignore the way GTDers might use those contexts.

OmniFocus supports planning out a project in detail (with parallel and sequential actions), while GTD suggests you just figure out the very next action you need to do to move a project and then go to work on that.

So yes, we were inspired by GTD and we think OmniFocus does a great job of supporting GTD's patterns, but those are certainly not the only source of inspiration and those are not the only patterns it supports.

[QUOTE=dandc;38318]To summarize, I can understand why omnigroup is marketing omnifocus as gtd 'inspired', but I think it's a stretch to think, for most people, its going to work when principles are used that are not gtd inspired.[/QUOTE]

You mean principles like keeping lists? I'm pretty sure they predate GTD :-)

You want a priority scheme, and can't wait until 1.2? Here are some options:

Reading a discussion on Laura's blog from about a year ago, I gather that she wanted (or F-C provides, I'm not sure which) a letter-based priority with a numeric ranking. A1, A2, A3, A4, B1, B2, etc. Anything that is an A is higher priority than anything that is a B, A2 is ahead of A4, B3 is ahead of C1, etc.

Use the duration field. It's a number. There's good support for sorting and choosing. A1=1, A2=2, A3=3, A4=4, B1=11, B2=12,... C1=21, C2=22,... D1=31, D2=32, etc. A sort by duration will now give you the list in priority order. If you want to only see things C and higher, choose Show Actions with Duration 30 minute and you'll screen out the D and E items. If you want to see what hasn't gotten a priority, choose Show Actions with Duration unestimated.

Another option would be to simply add A1: or C3: or whatever to the beginning of the action title. Sort by alphabetical order whenever you need to sort by priority.

I don't understand the fuss about the labeling. It is not factually incorrect. Omni bends over backwards to allow you a full trial of their products before any money has to change hands. Hard to see how one could try it out for a few weeks or even a few days and not notice the absence of a feature ostensibly essential to their daily workflow!

[QUOTE=Ken Case;38320]
So yes, we were inspired by GTD and we think OmniFocus does a great job of supporting GTD's patterns, but those are certainly not the only source of inspiration and those are not the only patterns it supports.[/QUOTE]

I have no doubt that many are using omnifocus that do not subscribe to the complete gtd system, or maybe none of it.

For me, it still felt like I was taking an application that was geared for gtd and trying to change it. The results were either frustrating or overly complicated. For me, the gtd inspiration was too strong. For others, it won't be.

By only point was that for some users the solution will be to find an application that better supports their methods. Expecting omnigroup, or any application, to please everyone is unrealistic.

[QUOTE=Ken Case;38320]There are a lot of features in OmniFocus which allow methodologies that don't fit within traditional GTD.

...

So yes, we were inspired by GTD and we think OmniFocus does a great job of supporting GTD's patterns, but those are certainly not the only source of inspiration and those are not the only patterns it supports.[/QUOTE]

Thanks, Ken, this is a good list of examples. It's good to get an idea what O.G. means by 'Other Styles.' It's also interesting (especially in the light of the details of this whole long thread) to see a strong statement that you do not regard OF as "strictly", "purely", "canonically" ( ... or perhaps even "mostly") a GTD app.

My thought is that there is a big unrealized marketing opportunity for O.F. in the "Other" area -- which can be tapped into basically by exemplifying the diverse styles you have identified (say for example, by having a section Entitled 'Management Styles Supported by OF' each with a link to a personal account by/about someone using these styles. ... Of course, several of these accounts would illustrate diverse GTD styles ... ).

Be that as it may, I think it's fair to say that the clearer (and stronger) the definition of O.F. you put out, the less warring there will be in places such as this forum about what O.F. is.

By the way, thank you once again for clarifying the commitment to meta tags.

- Art

Big disclaimer that I never read the David Allen book, but I think that I buy into the GTD concept.

With that said, I set up OF to do priorities entirely sufficiently to my tastes, because I was a little distracted from doing the priority tasks by my other tasks. You've probably all tried this anyway, but maybe you never thought of it.

Most of my priority stuff and non-priority stuff is in front of the computer & using a little subset of contexts. I duplicated those contexts into priority, which I should be accomplishing but put off, and normal. I grouped the priority ones into a context group. I arranged them near the top of my contexts list.

Now I really sort by three levels of priority: everything that is flagged is top of the list, everything that is in a priority context, then everything that is in a normal context.

Maybe this will be a useful idea for someone else.

Hey, that is an interesting idea. You can give a project overall priority by flagging the project (which makes all the actions have a phantom flag as well), and you can bump up the priority of crucial tasks in otherwise lower priority projects by just sliding them into the higher priority duplicate contexts when you do your daily overview of what you want to accomplish. Especially if you only needed to duplicate a few of your contexts, this could be a very useful approach...

It's my understanding that the ordering reflects the sequence, not the priority. If a task is higher than another task within a project, it will be completed before the next task begins. It is not necessarily more or less important than the next task.

Until OF implements tagging into the workflow, you can use the flagging to reflect greater priority.

[QUOTE=dconjar;38597]It's my understanding that the ordering reflects the sequence, not the priority. If a task is higher than another task within a project, it will be completed before the next task begins. It is not necessarily more or less important than the next task.[/QUOTE]

But if the actions are really sequential, it doesn't matter if you've encoded that Action 1 has less priority than Action 2 - you still have to do Action 1 first. The sequence is a description of how a projects "gets done".

Obviously it's very important that I "Deliver Budget for next Meeting". But to do that, isn't it even more important that I collect the data first to make that budget - regardless of how I hand code the priority in my lists? Should I adjust the priorities of my Actions based on what is currently in my list of Actions for that Project?

Are you suggesting it's important to be able to set priorities on a Project level? Are you suggesting it's important to set priorities on parallel Actions?

I supposed I'm saying when I put Actions in a sequential order, I'm both reflecting the sequence and the priority. I'm saying "I can't do B until I finish A. In terms of completing this Project, A must be a higher priority to me than B because I have to finish A to get to B."

If that dependency doesn't exist, I usually use Parallel Actions and set the Next Action (or most important Action) at the top of the list.

So, when I do my weekly reviews, I am making priority calls and those priority calls are reflected in the ordering of my lists.

In my life, and I'm speaking for me, there are too many fires to fight to hardcode a priority on a given Project.

grouping under library
 

I would like to see by due date when I click library. eg. I created a phone list to call. I entered a few items with different start/due date. When I view it with group it does not sort by due date. under due today it shows items that are not due today. 5 of them have a start date of tomorrow but are listed in today. There is no tomorrow just next week, and no due date. In the view tabs:

due
Unsorted
any status
any duration
any flag state

Wambli: are you in Planning mode or Context mode? In Planning mode, projects sort as a whole, by the earliest due date in the project. So if your phone list (which I assume is a project) has one call due today and five calls due in three weeks, it will be sorted (in Planning mode) as due tomorrow.

If you want to see the individual actions sorted when they are due, switch to Context mode and make the appropriate view bar settings.

On a deeper level, are these calls all related to the same project or goal? If not, I would be tempted to put them in separate projects, related to the bigger goal for which you are making each call. For example, "call appliance store to see whether they have LG WM0642HW front-loading washing machine in stock" is an action within my project "buy new washing machine" because it is a step toward achieving that outcome.

Another request for priorities
 

I don't know why there is so much debate about this. I too would love to have priorities. It is obvious a lot of people want them. It seems there should be a way to implement this as an optional feature.

Why do I want them? I am constantly moving across "projects" (the different classes I teach and the research projects I work on) each day. And it is rare that any project requires a specific sequential order. What I like to do the night before is highlight my top, medium, and low priorities for the following day.

Maybe my mind is disorganized, but those priorities constantly change. Something tagged a "top" priority today may not even be a priority the next day, even though it remains uncompleted.

Anyway, my main point is this:

People want priorities. Why not implement them as an optional feature?

Since Lizard hasn't done so yet, here is a [URL="http://forums.omnigroup.com/showpost.php?p=38155&postcount=155"]link to Ken's post[/URL] about Omni's plans to introduce arbitrary metadata columns into a future release of OmniFocus, so that those who want priorities (and notes about delegation, and whatever else) can have them.

Thank GOD for that one. I've made my own script solutions to this very problem, but right now they break attachments in the notes section. [Why are attachments linked in notes anyway? Metadata should be separate from text notes in applescript land.]

For those of you who are hard-core GTD, I can point you again to D. Allen's prioritization discussions. It's right there in the "Bible"....

User Metadata is a very very good thing. It will make this program much more flexible.

Of course, along with this type of thing also comes the need to sort both forwards and backwards, and likely within both Projects and Contexts!!

[QUOTE=Ken Case;38155]As I [URL="http://forums.omnigroup.com/showpost.php?p=37991&postcount=9"]recently mentioned[/URL] in the [URL="http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=8169"]Tags[/URL] thread, our plan [URL="http://forums.omnigroup.com/showpost.php?p=13360&postcount=51"]all along[/URL] has been to allow people to create their own columns of metadata, which they can use however they want: with generic tags, or with specific columns for priority, people, etc. (We have this capability in OmniPlan, OmniOutliner, and OmniGraffle.) We just didn't have time to do it for 1.0, and we won't for 1.1 (which has to focus on synchronization so it can be ready to synchronize with the iPhone).

Hopefully in 1.2.[/QUOTE]

We're now up to 1.5, and it seems there's still no metadata...so still no prioritization. Will we need to wait for 2.0?

[QUOTE=Eric Schoenfeld;51268]We're now up to 1.5, and it seems there's still no metadata...so still no prioritization. Will we need to wait for 2.0?[/QUOTE]
1.5 is really 1.1, renamed. So far the only way in which they have departed from what they said they would do regarding the contents of upcoming releases is in the numbering of the latest release, and it's still a 1.x release so no one has had to fork over any extra cash. Planning for what will be in 1.6 seems to be under way.

Thanks for the reply. Ok, will try to be patient. Hopefully, either this will be added to omnifocus so I can buy it, or else igtd will get another version out, before I drown in my poorly organized to-do list!

No need to drown in the absence of the metadata column. Pick your top 5 (for whatever value of 5 makes sense) most important projects. Select them in the sidebar and control-click to bring up the popup menu. Select focus. Now you've got a window that for all intents and purposes acts as if those projects are the only ones in the database. If you flip over to context mode, you'll only see the actions from those projects. Knock off those projects. When you're done, control-click in the sidebar and select Show All Projects. Repeat as needed until the metadata column hits the streets :-)

Thanks, I do appreciate your posting, but that doesn't work for me. Obviously, I'm not anywhere near a doctrinaire gtd person.....but I could sure make fine use of omnifocus if it included priorities....

Describe your workflow a bit more. If you are prioritizing, do you not do all of your top priority items first? Is the problem with my suggestion that you need finer granularity (only some actions in a project are high priority)? You could address that by flagging individual actions, and limiting the view to flagged items after focusing on the top-priority projects.

Admittedly, I'm proposing a one-dimensional priority scheme, and I gather that isn't what everyone desires as their ideal priority setup. But if you're drowning because you don't have any priority support, a scheme that allows you to prioritize some of your work would seem like a net improvement...

I find this hard to discuss. I'm not sure anyone can easily discuss his/her organizational set-up with any sort of great ease or clarity, unless they've bought into a full-fledged system like GTD. The choice to do so is a decision people think they make rationally, but really it's more emotional. They buy in because the system somehow speaks to them and intuitively fits their bill.

IGTD somewhat fits my bill, but I can't buy the entire program, because it just doesn't completely speak to me. Part of that is that my intuition of what I need is the ability to dynamically rank priorities and always have quick access to several levels of higher-priority to-do items for any context or project I can see myself involved in at any given time.

If I were "in" GTD, I could speak out to someone like me with clear language and principles. But the thing is, it's a lot harder to speak "in" to someone in GTD explaining my needs and workflow, because natural intuitive workflows can't be summarized with clear language.

Does that make any sense?

Apologies if this has already been suggested, but there is a simple method of implementing priorities in OF. I want priorities, but I do not need estimated time for actions. So I type a number from 1 to 5 into the estimated time field for each action. I can sort this field so that every 1 (high priority) comes to the top, while every 5 (low priority sinks to the bottom).

One advantage of this system is that, unlike iGTD, you don't have to apply a priority to every action. Any action without a priority drops to the bottom of the sorted list, where it can be reviewed and given a priority at the appropriate time.

It is irritating that OF automatically appends 'm' or 'minutes' after the number, but I can live with that.

In my experience, no action list software is perfect. That's because we all have different ways of working. I have tried iGTD, but the less-than-elegant interface and lack of recent upgrades made me move on. I was using Things for a short while, but missed being able to see a complete list of actions on one screen, and found the repeat option confusing. So I am back with OF and finding ways to make it do what I want, rather than the other way round.

From what I have read on this forum, Omni's reason for not including Priorities is that they will be introducing Tags which could be used for that purpose. The only problem with this approach for Priorities is that it will not sync with the Priorities field in iCal. I would like to see EVERY field in iCal have a corresponding field in OmniFocus. Why? Because even if you do not work out of iCal, it is Apple's link via Sync Services to be able to get OmniFocus to sync data with any other application that uses Sync Services... such as all the PIMs like Contactizer or SOHO or Nighthawk (if Now ever release their long-awaited successor to Now Up To Date / Contact)

[QUOTE=Ken Case;38155]As I [URL="http://forums.omnigroup.com/showpost.php?p=37991&postcount=9"]recently mentioned[/URL] in the [URL="http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=8169"]Tags[/URL] thread, our plan [URL="http://forums.omnigroup.com/showpost.php?p=13360&postcount=51"]all along[/URL] has been to allow people to create their own columns of metadata, which they can use however they want: with generic tags, or with specific columns for priority, people, etc. (We have this capability in OmniPlan, OmniOutliner, and OmniGraffle.) We just didn't have time to do it for 1.0, and we won't for 1.1 (which has to focus on synchronization so it can be ready to synchronize with the iPhone).

Hopefully in 1.2.[/QUOTE]

Question:

I'm just testing 1.5 and I can't see any metadata.

Is this not yet implemented?
If so when is it going to come?

Thanks!

The post you referenced is pretty old. OmniFocus 1.1 was actually released as OmniFocus 1.5 (there never was an actual 1.1 release). I have no inside information, but I suspect any features originally planned for a 1.2 release have been retargeted for a 1.6 or 2.0 release.

-Dennis

Add a sortable Priority column (with optional display) and we'll pay you
 

All of our company uses iGTD. I have been looking to migrate them to OF (or Things) but the lack of the good old 1 to 5 prioritisation that we have become accustomed to in calendars, CRM software and even peoples note pad lists is the only reason we are waiting.

When the developers add in a sortable Priority column (with optional display set in the preferences) we will buy a licence for everyone in the company and migrate them from iGTD.

I don't see the problem, technically it is not difficult, it is not unconventional, it needn't be either seen or compulsory for those that don't want it and we'll pay for the feature - everyone wins.

Just posting so that I can keep informed on when this will be implemented seeing that so many others have requested it too.

Every time this thread starts back up, I'm just going to post another link to [URL="http://forums.omnigroup.com/showpost.php?p=38155&postcount=155"]Ken's post[/URL].

[QUOTE=surferking;53394]All of our company uses iGTD. I have been looking to migrate them to OF (or Things) but the lack of the good old 1 to 5 prioritisation that we have become accustomed to in calendars, CRM software and even peoples note pad lists is the only reason we are waiting.

When the developers add in a sortable Priority column (with optional display set in the preferences) we will buy a licence for everyone in the company and migrate them from iGTD.[/QUOTE]

Go get your credit card, because you can do it right now. It's labeled "Duration" or "Estimate" depending on where you look (or even a little alarm clock icon), but you can put 1-5 in there and even sort by the number. This assumes you don't use it as originally intended, but dollars to donuts someone who is champing at the bit for a priority field wants that more than a place to stash a time estimate.