Newbie Hep: How to use the inbox?
 

I am utterly confused....
What is supposed to be in the inbox and what is not supposed to be in the inbox? Is the inbox supposed to be empty? Is everything supposed to be assigned to a project? Why does everything disappear from my inbox if I put it as a project?

You use the inbox as a temporary place to put your thoughts.
When you decide where it should be (projects or single action lists) you set that in the action and it goes out of the inbox to the project etc.

The use of inbox is not even needed, it depends on how you want it to work. Anyway, it's just a temporary place, you are not supposed to keep everything in the inbox forever.

EDIT: there's a lot of videos explaining how to work with OF. You can find some here: [url]http://www.omnigroup.com/video/omnifocus[/url] and also search in google. Even if it's not for the new OF2 for iPhone, the idea stays the same.

I saw all the videos and still don't get it.
How do I make it into a "single action item"? I put it to contexts, and it's still in the inbox.
If I put something like "call bank," even if I put a context it will stay there. I would have to put it into some arbitrary project for it to go away.

Yep. You can create a project called "miscellaneous" or "assorted" or whatever and throw in it OR leave it in the inbox.Whatever works better for you.
There isn't a proper way to use OmniFocus, you can either follow someone's system or make yours. I use a project called "assorted" to throw this kind of stuff.

Projects and Contexts are two separate axes for organizing your work. Projects are "why" you are doing the thing. Contexts are more about "how/when/where/with whom" you will get it done.

The Inbox is sort of the "This has no project" project. Everything starts there by default, so that you can find things that have no place yet. Some folks leave all their one-off tasks in the inbox until completed. Others find it useful to create a project whose type is "Single Action List" and put those one-off tasks there.

For example, I have a single action list for "Sporadic Household Chores". That tells me these are all things I need to do for my family, not for work.

[IMG]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1747618/Forums/SporadicHousehold.PNG[/IMG]

Some of these actions belong in my home context ("Put away patio furniture"), some of them actually happen elsewhere ("Buy lightbulbs"), but all of them are for the benefit of my household.

Great thanks!

Now I deleted the miscellaneous project folder and it doesn't assign it automatically anymore.
How can I get a project to be automatically assigned by default like it used to be?