Inbox item count
 

Don't know if this has been discussed anywhere else on the forum, but here is a tentative suggestion:

Could there be a little icon or button or something in context view that lets me know how many items are in my inbox. I live in context view, and I worry that i will forget about items sitting in my inbox, unassigned... being constantly aware of your inbox status seems like an important part of a 'trusted system'.

[QUOTE=markbrown00]Could there be a little icon or button or something in context view that lets me know how many items are in my inbox. I live in context view, and I worry that i will forget about items sitting in my inbox, unassigned... being constantly aware of your inbox status seems like an important part of a 'trusted system'.[/QUOTE]

I second that. In fact I think the Inbox should appear at the top of both context and project views, and that it should have a number next to it (like the unread count in Mail.app) that indicates how many items are in it. Midnight Inbox, for all its faults, does this well.

Thirded to number beside Inbox.

That would be nice indeed. And a "Show number of Inbox items on icon" option would be great too!

Just so long as I can hide the inbox in all views and turn off the item count. I don't want to be interupted by items in my inbox when I'm "doing". The inbox for me is a place to toss things so they are out of my sight and out of my mind until it is time to review them.

Mark, I agree. On April 5th Michelle from Omni posted this message: "How do you use your inbox?" I think she got a lot of good feedback. But, to your point, below is some of my response to that original message.

Thanks for your suggestion, thus raising the issue again. If some sort of inbox item count feature hasn't already been added, perhaps this thread will get some attention from Omni.

Regards,
John

[QUOTE=keone]Yes, preferably in the toolbar, perhaps as an icon of an ordinary desk inbox tray. And like the Apple trash icon, if it contains an item it would have some "papers" on the top of it; no papers = empty. Additionally, [B]I would want to know how many items are in there, so perhaps either an item count in a small circle right on the front of the tray, or revealed via a mouse rollover.[/B] Double-clicking it (or using a command key combination) would open it for me.

An inbox nag. This would, of course, be controlled by user preferences: some would love it, others not so much. But [B]if I checked the appropriate preference, then whenever I quit the app, if I still have items in my inbox, a window would pop up advising me of this.[/B] I could then choose to ignore it and quit anyway, or click on an inbox button in that window which would immediately open up my inbox for me.[/QUOTE]

John,

I quite like that idea of an icon with 'papers' when not empty. In fact, having just that without an item count would give one a lot of incentive to keep the inbox empty

I just wanted to jump in to say that I, too, would like a count for the inbox. It creates a positive pressure to move things into the system.

I actually suggested that they put it in the bottom status bar, kind of like how Excel does it.

1 of 2,256 Tasks

40 of 49 Projects

That way when you are in "Focus" mode you can see what is the universe size.

This would be a great start to the stats that I have been bugging them about.

BZ

Excellent idea!

BZ, why would you want to know all that? What will you actually do with that information? Whereas a simple running item count of the inbox will tell you how many items you need to get processed that day (and how many items remain). Processed would mean moving the item(s) into an existing project, starting a new project, or just dealing with that one item. Personally, I don't want to know how many total tasks I've got, or how many projects I've got going. It seems like information overload to me. Knowing the work that needs to be done that day seems far more focused, valuable and GTD-like than what you're suggesting.

I want to know all of that because when I am in "Focus" mode I want to know what I am focusing on. Is it all of the things? Half? A quarter?

I agree it is not very "GTD" like, but there are some things that an application can add to help beyond GTD.

GTD also doesn't mention anything about history, but that, I have found, is very useful in terms of digging up things to do.

A simple indicator, at the bottom of the screen, wouldn't get in your face, but would let you know if you are in focus mode or not, which I think is good design.

BZ

Why bother to have word, sentence and paragraph count in a word processor?

Same with OmniFocus ... just because you don't need something doesn't mean it shouldn't be there for me. (sorry if this sounds snarky).

I can see another use for the counts ... if I get used to having around 100 active Tasks/subprojects, and over the course of a few weeks the number shifts a lot, it means I'm falling behind -- either with recording tasks or with doing them.

It would be very nice to have a Stats preference that would allow us to set the statistics we see in a bottom bar ... maybe in v2.0?

--Liz

crazy crazy inbox idea
 

here's a crazy idea for the inbox

If you've seen Ethan's recent screencasts about cleaning up one's desktop, he advocates using Hazel to have files that you haven't looked for a few days be automatically deleted. It forces you to get disciplined about processing your junk.

What about an expirary date on inbox items, to enforce the very GTD-esque inbox processing discipline?

...too dangerous?

[QUOTE=markbrown00]What about an expirary date on inbox items, to enforce the very GTD-esque inbox processing discipline?

...too dangerous?[/QUOTE]

Certainly too dangerous if you can't turn the feature off when you take a 10 day backpacking trek.

What might work better is color coding ... someone on these boards suggested starting with a pale background tint, deepening until it was 100% saturated. Having tasks in the inbox scream [COLOR="Red"][B][SIZE="5"]RED[/SIZE][/B][/COLOR] would get my attention.

--Liz

perhaps, rather than an inbox item expiring after 10 days of inattention from it's creation date, it would could expire after the item is ignored 10 times. Each time you open your inbox you would be incrementing the expiary counter on inbox items by 1. This would prevent your backpacking problem.

But it is starting to get a little convoluted now.

kGTD has a color code aging system which seems to work ok. Personally, I rather just filter on age than have something change color.

BZ

Inbox Item count
 

My, this is becoming an interesting and rather protracted discussion. Thanks again, Mark, for starting it.

BZ and Liz, I think the main point of our disagreement is in the [I]display[/I] of information rather than the [I]access[/I] to it. For example, I use DevonThink every single day, and it has a feature called Database Properties. Click on it and you can find out everything you ever wanted to know about that particular database--twelve different summaries actually--such as number of words, number of HTML pages, and so on. So, if I wanted to know how many pimples there are on the grand butt of my database, I would simply click on that, look at it and say, "Oh, how nice!"

And, to your point, Liz, on word, paragraph and sentence count, most of the better writing programs that I am aware of--and I do not include MS Word in that category--provide access to that information either on a constant basis by preference or when selected, but they are not constantly staring you in the face. And even in Word, while I grant you that word count appears at the bottom of the page (e.g. 12/155), paragraph and sentence count are only available when Word Count is selected in the Tools menu. (Maybe they are at the bottom of the page, but I've never seen them.)

So, when BZ says that he wants to be able to look down at any moment and see a running count of all of his tasks and all of his projects, fine. I don't. Therefore, it seems to me that the best way to satisfy both would be the option to turn such a feature on or off, or to have it accessible like DevonThink. Come to think of it, perhaps that option should apply also to the inbox item count (the actual start of this thread); some would want it, some wouldn't.

One last point: With OF, didn't Omni set out to design an app based on key GTD principles? If so, then let's not be so quick to dismiss those principles out of hand, especially one as basic as staying focused like a laser on your next action steps (do this and your projects will take care of themselves). It seems to me that to stray too far afield from those basic tenets would be in keeping with designing some other project management program, but not one modeled after GTD.

I don't want to get into a GTD vs Non-GTD here but...

Maybe I am not being clear.

The problem right now is if you are in Focus mode (feature of OmniFocus) other than the button in the toolbar, you cannot see the other things (projects/folders/etc). I was suggesting a simple little status bar at the bottom of the screen just giving a quick indication of what you were looking at.

It wouldn't/shouldn't be any more in your face than any status bar at the bottom of any application (Firefox/OmniWeb/etc).

A preference to show and hide it would be nice for those who don't care.

BZ

i just noticed that the quick entry box gives you an inbox item count... perhaps that already fits my needs. Although it would be nice to see the same count in context view

Hey, Mark, did you see this from a recent thread? Note Michelle's reply at the bottom "This is planned."

John


[I]michelle
Omni
Yesterday, 03:54 PM
Originally Posted by [email]Mario.Batz@cern.ch[/email]
Hi,

it would be extremely usefull to have another icon for the Inbox when it is not empty and showing also the noumber of items in the Inbox next to it.

Cheers

Mario


This is planned :-)[/I]

ah, brilliant

Another option would be putting a badge on the dock icon with the number of items in the inbox, as in Mail.app.

Not saying I'd prefer it, but just putting the idea out there...

[QUOTE=Craig]Another option would be putting a badge on the dock icon with the number of items in the inbox, as in Mail.app.

Not saying I'd prefer it, but just putting the idea out there...[/QUOTE]

I like that as well.

Or a feature for showing the amount of things due today/now/etc.

Could be a preference:

Show: X in Dock (Inbox count, items due today/this week/etc)

BZ

[QUOTE=BwanaZulia]I actually suggested that they put it in the bottom status bar, kind of like how Excel does it.

1 of 2,256 Tasks

40 of 49 Projects

That way when you are in "Focus" mode you can see what is the universe size.

This would be a great start to the stats that I have been bugging them about.

BZ[/QUOTE]

This thread has gone rather dormant, but I hope there's still some possibility of adding this feature. Now that the flagged filter is broken out, I'd find it very useful to know how many flagged actions I have at a glance, as this status bar would enable.

[QUOTE=curt.clifton]Just so long as I can hide the inbox in all views and turn off the item count. I don't want to be interupted by items in my inbox when I'm "doing". The inbox for me is a place to toss things so they are out of my sight and out of my mind until it is time to review them.[/QUOTE]

What if the inbox was severed from both Project and Context, and was given an icon up in the toolbar with Project and Context? Could you put the number of inbox items on that icon without it being disruptive?

[QUOTE=GeekLady]What if the inbox was severed from both Project and Context, and was given an icon up in the toolbar with Project and Context? Could you put the number of inbox items on that icon without it being disruptive?[/QUOTE]

That would be worse. If the number is in the toolbar, then it never goes away. Currently in context view I don't see anything having to do with the inbox. That's how it should be when I'm in "doing" mode—no distractions.

I can live with counts in project view or an optional status bar at the bottom of the window.

But if it is a toolbar item then it is optional because you can customise the toolbar.

[QUOTE=markbrown00]But if it is a toolbar item then it is optional because you can customise the toolbar.[/QUOTE]

Only if it is a separate button. The current view buttons are a paired set.

[QUOTE=curt.clifton]Only if it is a separate button. The current view buttons are a paired set.[/QUOTE]
As it turns out, I take my idea back, I hadn't finished reading the thread and I greatly prefer the idea of having the inbox icon look like a paper tray, and be empty or not empty accordingly.