Waiting For, Someday/Maybe, and Tickler?
 

Been using iGTD and one thing it has that I dig is I can mark tasks as 'Waiting For', which is pretty big for me in my work. I don't want to forget that stuff and I want to view it on occasion to make sure things are happening or not.

I'm also interested in porting my someday maybe list from omnioutliner over...be cool to review in OF and move projects/tasks over easily and quickly.

What about tickler? I currently use iCAL but I'd rather have it all in one app so on the day/time its up it just pops up a message, or there is a view for them. Kind of like a 43 folders view?

Any plans? Are these features coming? The Waiting For feature is definitely the highest on my list though, a must have really.

I see many people say they just create a project of "Someday / Maybe". That, to me, is not a satisfactory solution. In kGTD, I ended up with a Someday/ Maybe project list that was longer than my acting project list. Of course, I had to order them... ultimately reflecting the same folder/ subfolder / project hierarchy that the acting project list had. I would love to see functionality where I would say: This project is Someday / Maybe for the next 2 months... year... etc... - for any project in the entire file. And yes, this is different from "On Hold", which I see more as projects I know I won't be taking care of for the next week or so, so I just hide them out of sight.

WaitingFor
 

Create a WaitingFor context, and in the Context inspector, uncheck the box "Allows next actions". Any task in the WaitingFor context is now prevented from becoming an available or next action, but if it is at the top of a sequential project, it also prevents all subsequent tasks from being available. Awesome.

When you want to inspect WaitingFors, just focus on that context in the context view. You can also put due dates on waiting fors and sort them by due date in the context view.

"Waiting for" is different
 

I have tried both using a context and a project for both "waiting for" and "someday/maybe" and none of the solutions is perfect. Why? Because "Waiting for" and "Someday/Maybe" are not contexts or projects, they are _statuses_.

I might have a task which I know which context I should be doing it in and which project it belongs to, but I do not have the time to do it within a reasonable timeframe. Also, the task is not of a very high priority - so I want to mark it as a Someday/Maybe task.

My point is that the concept of task/project/context statuses is needed.

[QUOTE=eatmytag]My point is that the concept of task/project/context statuses is needed.[/QUOTE]

Currently OmniFocus allows you to specify a context as active or inactive, and to specify a project as Active, On Hold, Completed, or Dropped. The filter allows you to show All, Active, On Hold, or Completed projects.

[QUOTE=eatmytag]I have tried both using a context and a project for both "waiting for" and "someday/maybe" and none of the solutions is perfect. Why? Because "Waiting for" and "Someday/Maybe" are not contexts or projects, they are _statuses_.

I might have a task which I know which context I should be doing it in and which project it belongs to, but I do not have the time to do it within a reasonable timeframe. Also, the task is not of a very high priority - so I want to mark it as a Someday/Maybe task.

My point is that the concept of task/project/context statuses is needed.[/QUOTE]

I couldn't agree more. I posted this reply in a previous thread re handling of single tasks, but believe my approach supports your argument. Other than ThinkingRock (unfortunately, I can't deal with the mac repellent GUI), I've not seen a GTD specific app address status, which means I'll continue to use Journler until it happens.

[QUOTE=Janice]Another potential approach. Currently, I utilize Journler as my GTD application and organize my tasks according to three broad categories; status, context and projects. Status captures tasks as either Scheduled, Delegated, Pending, ASAP, Reference or Prospective.

When processing my inbox, each task is assigned a status and context. Project assignment is optional.

I find it distasteful to categorize my Status groupings as Projects for the reasons previously stated in this thread. And I find it equally distasteful to classify these groupings as Contexts. Personally, I use Context groupings to determine the environment (e.g. office, loft) and resources (e.g. phone, labeler) required to execute the task. To manipulate the definiton of Context to include the "status" of tasks, dilutes the effectiveness of both categories.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=eatmytag]I might have a task which I know which context I should be doing it in and which project it belongs to, but I do not have the time to do it within a reasonable timeframe. Also, the task is not of a very high priority - so I want to mark it as a Someday/Maybe task.[/QUOTE]

I can see wanting this for a single task. But if a task is part of a project, I don't see why you would want it to be Someday/Maybe unless the whole project is Someday/Maybe. If it's part of an active project, then it seems to me that it ought to be a necessary part of the project.

Now that the latest build uses start date to determine whether a task is available, you could always set a start date in the reasonably distant future--like a tickler.

Good point.

[QUOTE=brianogilvie]If it's part of an active project, then it seems to me that it ought to be a necessary part of the project.[/QUOTE]
What if it is an unnecessary part of the project, but would be icing on the cake if you could do it? E.g. a figure might not absolutely require redrawing, but if it was, it could be made to look better? That is, it is an aspiration, not a goal. (Note, not being [I]au fait[/I] with GTD semantics, I suspect that this is probably not a strict part of the methodology but OF should be flexible enough to cater to people like me who don't want to be strait-jacketed by the one, true method while rigid enough to let people use it who do).

I also like using Someday - and agree that there should be some flexibility with it. But I'm not sure what more would be useful for them, or what previous posters are asking for.

So far, for Someday, we can already:
1) Set it as a Folder of Projects, or as a Sub-Project (which is what I do, and like)
2) Set it as a Context (Active or Inactive)
3) Set it as a Project On-Hold
4) Set it as a Project, with a future (far off) Start Date

So what would make it "perfect?" I think I'm hearing:
a) add "Someday" (or "Maybe") to the Status setting of project
b) add a pre-set folder, like the In-Box to the interface
c) something about sorting the order of the projects - rather than setting order only by dragging in the list

Did I catch everything?

I'm not sure that any of these are really needed, but it seems like adding something to the list of statuses would be relatively simple. Or maybe less simple, let the user edit the list of Status items.