Project 1st, NA 2nd?
 

Hi y'all,

In the past few weeks I've noticed that whenever I enter something new into OF, I tend to enter the project in the NA field, and the NA in the project field.

This, of course, matches the GTD process:
1. What's the succesful outcome, and
2. What's the next action

I tend to think that way, too, but OF's ordering of fields is tripping me up. Am I the only one, or should I put in an enhancement request that the order of the fields be configurable?

Or am I just missing something completely obvious to the rest of the world?

[QUOTE=raxtor;104566]... whenever I enter something new into OF, I tend to enter the project in the NA field, and the NA in the project field.

... am I just missing something completely obvious to the rest of the world?[/QUOTE]

Most of us use a mirror in front of the monitor. :-)

Seriously though ... I had to think for a moment what you meant. Of course, thinking in sequence ... What is the outcome (project)? and then What is the "next action"? ... is opposite the order of information requested. That works for starting a new project. However, consider also the case that someone has a project and realizes they need to add another action to it. Then, the order to enter input is "logical".

So, perhaps a feature request is in order. Or keep a big mirror handy ... :->

--
JJW

Raxtor, just to make sure I understand what you're requesting - you'd like the project field to be to the left of the title when entering something, correct?

I had a little bit of trouble parsing "NA field", but I'm pretty sure that's what you're after. If you can confirm that's what you're after, I'll make sure this gets filed as a new feature request and/or attached to an existing one as needed. Thanks!

[QUOTE=Brian;104589]Raxtor, just to make sure I understand what you're requesting - you'd like the project field to be to the left of the title when entering something, correct?
[/QUOTE]

You got it. A picture > 1000 words, and all that:

[IMG]https://img.skitch.com/20111201-pff7euifttiebmyekatqsfiwxb.jpg[/IMG]

On the other hand, if I'm the only one suffering from this, of course, there's no reason to change things.

Another reason that the order to input is logical is that the task name is the only field required to make a new entry. Enter the task name, save, and the task is added to the inbox.

Logical, yes. But logical doesn't always make for good practices. It's [I]logical[/I] to keep things in your head, too.

:-)

I have a related request. I would like to be able to see the project field on the left in context mode. This would make for a cleaner display when I sort NAs by project.

[QUOTE=raxtor;104604]Logical, yes. But logical doesn't always make for good practices.[/QUOTE]

One could say that the best practice would be to not use a capture tool to apply the process stage of GTD ;) Seriously though, that is what we are discussing here. In GTD the collection process occurs before the successful outcome/next action phase of the workflow, and the Quick Entry command is a collection process.

[QUOTE=Greg Jones;104606]One could say that the best practice would be to not use a capture tool to apply the process stage of GTD ;) Seriously though, that is what we are discussing here. In GTD the collection process occurs before the successful outcome/next action phase of the workflow, and the Quick Entry command is a collection process.[/QUOTE]


I agree (see, I'm not that contrarian :) This is collection, not process, and the process phase is explicitly meant to elicit successful outcome + next physical action. I do frequently hit the keyboard shortcut, enter just a few words in the first field, then Command+K it away.

On the other hand, sometimes I know the successful outcome but not the next action. But then the successful outcome tends to end up in the next action field. And in my training + coaching practice I notice that depending on whether you tend towards micromanager or crazymaker, you tend to omit either successful outcome or the physical next action.

What would probably work even better (for me, at least, being of the micromanagement kind) would be:
1. having a free format quick entry form (possibly enhanced with the same parsing mechanism as the Mail-to-Omnifocus thingie so that you can enter either "Mom" or "Call Mom for recipe > Make chocolate chip cookies @Calls-Private #tomorrow $1h")

2. An inbox-processing mode, whereby one by one OF would present each item on its own (I tend to get sidetracked if I see more than one) and ask me to define a successful outcome, a physical next action, and a context.



Hm. Would #2 be scriptable, I wonder?

// later
Bleh. I just learned I can dispense with #1 headache here by using [URL="www.alfredapp.com"]Alfred's[/URL] entry box + [URL="http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=21781"]this little script[/URL]. Still looking for #2 though.

Looks like we have an existing request for the ability to re-order the columns; feedback from this thread has been added to that item in the development database. Thanks, folks!