Tell me what tasks I completed yesterday
 

Hello,
every morning at work I fill out my timesheets to show what I did the previous day. I'm hoping that I can use OF to help me remember what I actually did!

Is there a way I can get OF to show me tasks I completed yesterday (or some other user-definable timeframe)?

This should be critical to any GTD process - viewing completed tasks. However, I can't get OmniFocus to do this in any useful way at all.

If you create a new perspective with status set to completed, you sort of get the data - but in a form that's pretty much useless. It's too project focussed.

I completed 14 actions yesterday, only two of which were associated with a project (the other miscellaneous) - there doesn't appear to be a way to list those actions. All the various groupings don't help.

What we need is a "Flat" grouping. Forget your folders and such like, just show me the actions.

If someone knows how to do this - please let us know!

Completed Tasks
 

I found this posted earlier in the forum. Try creating a perspective with these qualities...

View Mode
Context

Focus
No Focus

Filter
All Contexts

Grouping
Completed

Sorting
Completed

Action Filter
Completed

Time Filter
Any Duration

Flag Filter
Any Flag State

Hope this helps.

[QUOTE=foopfoop;49639]Is there a way I can get OF to show me tasks I completed yesterday (or some other user-definable timeframe)?[/QUOTE]

This option may be helpful:

In Context mode, set the following filters to:
Contexts (left pane): All Contexts
Group Actions By: Completed
Sort Actions By: Completed*
Show Actions with Status: Completed

In the main outline, your completed tasks should now be arranged by date completed, including Completed today, Completed yesterday, Completed within last week, Completed within last month, and Completed within last 3 months. The list of actions in each of these groups will begin with the task most recently completed. Simply collapse all groups, expand the Completed yesterday group, then save these settings as a custom perspective to refer to each day for your timesheets.

*The Sort Actions By filter need not be set to Completed. This setting only places the actions in each completed group in chronological order of completion.

[Be sure to do this in Context mode, not Planning mode. Since Planning mode filters are more project-focused, completed tasks in an active project will be grouped as “Not yet completed” since their parent project is still active. Context mode filters are more task-focused, so using the above settings should display all completed tasks, regardless of whether a parent project is still active.]

Thanks
 

amazingbrian and kaijin - thank you! It seems the magic lies in choosing context mode. All of a sudden my OF is a lot more useful!

It works! Thanks very much.

(Turns out I didn't do very much yesterday... ;-) )

Wow... this is a great help for me too. One question I have that is related. What happens to this when you start archiving? I'm new to OF and not archived anything yet but assume I'll start doing that at some time. Can archives be viewed later like this?

The archive is just data that's been moved to a second database file - the interface for viewing it is the same.

You have access to all your perspectives and so forth. An archive window just gets the data it's presenting from a different source than a 'normal' window.

[QUOTE=convergent;50117]Wow... this is a great help for me too. One question I have that is related. What happens to this when you start archiving? I'm new to OF and not archived anything yet but assume I'll start doing that at some time. Can archives be viewed later like this?[/QUOTE]

To view archived items, use File > Open Archive. OF will open a new window using the archive database. As Brian pointed out, you will be able to use all OF features in the archive window.

Thanks to the forums!
 

Thank You all for making OF so transparent.... I was on the verge of switching back to things ;-))).... now the completed view is plain perfect!