Hiding "Professional" folder for the weekend
 

I just got OmniFocus for Mac, iPad, and iPhone, all from Apple’s App Stores.

I have top-level folders for roles: Daughter, Friend, Professional, Homeowner, Consumer, HOA Treasurer, and a few other things.

When I’m home from work for the weekend, I’d like to have a way of seeing everything EXCEPT tasks in the Professional folder. (I’ll turn them back on if I want, and will include them in my weekly review, but I don’t want them there when I am home.)

I thought maybe if I paused the Professional folder all would go away when I viewed by available tasks or next actions, but it doesn’t seem that folders can be paused or put on hold. Maybe I could put a new Professional task inside Professional and pause that, but that seems silly.

I thought I could search for “NOT professional” or “-professional,” but (1) that does not seem to work and (2) I might use the word “professional” elsewhere.

I thought I could group everything else into “Not professional,” but that does not seem to work either and ended up emptying my other folders and aggregating everything else into a new folder, very different than what I wanted.

I think I’m missing something here. Could you help?

Thanks.

Why don't you just set up a perspective to give you what you want. Select only the folders that you want to see and then focus on those (View > Focus on ...). This will show you only the folders you want to see and the projects/action within them (just do NOT select your Professional folder). Then save this focus as a perspective (Perspectives > Save Window As > New Perspective).

I have the exact same issue. I tried using a perspective with selection, but as I reorganize my folders I have to remember to re-select the ones I want to see in my perspective, which sometimes I'd forget to do. What I want is a "select everything except" kind of feature in a perspective.

Just select the Folders, you don't need to select every subordinate or contained project.

If it's a common occurrence that you are moving folders and projects into other folders and projects, I'd probably take that as a sign I'm not organizing them effectively.

I have a few top level folders:

Inbox & Reading List
- Writing
- Self-Improvement (it's a huge "area of focus" ;))
- Consulting, memberships, professional interests, and volunteering
- Employer's Folder

Each has folders and projects underneath them. I don't think I've ever moved something from Employer to another box or vice-versa. The only exception is things in the Inbox I guess, but that doesn't matter since eventually it will get into an Employer project or some other project and show up in my perspectives.

I prefer this to an Exclusion method because a) there is no exclusion method and b) I have perspectives that do this:

1) Focus on Employer and Misc folders
2) Show me the following contexts:
- @computing
- @computing/EmployerNet (this is also satisfied by VPN)
- @agendas/Employer/* (colleagues)
- @sortie (my "leaving" context -- things to take with me in the morning or when I leave)
- @errands/Employer/* (errands I can run near Employer at lunch or if I need a break)
- @R&D (research work)
- @Waiting (actually useful since I limit to my Employer folder and Misc folder)

Just picking a folder in the wharf area instead of individual sub-folders and projects is the best way to do it, imo.


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