How do you do "agendas" for people?
 

It's been a while since I read GTD, so that may be part of the problem.

But I'm curious as to how you use OF to maintain items that you need to discuss with something.

I'm thinking of this:

I have contexts for team members (@Joe, @Sally, etc). I was considering creating one "action" named "Joe Agenda", tagging it @Joe, and then utilizing the notes field to create a text-based list of things I want to discuss with Joe next time we meet.

Make sense? Any better ways?

I use two different contexts for each of the people I meet with regularly. One is a subcontext of my Waiting For context, e.g., [I]Waiting For : Alice[/I]. I use that context for items that I've delegated to Alice or am otherwise waiting for a response on. The other context is a subcontext of Agenda, e.g., [I]Agenda : Alice[/I]. I use this for things that I want to discuss with her in person.

When I meet with Alice, I pull up a context view and select the two Alice-related contexts in the sidebar. This has been working well for me. For my most frequent meetings, I've saved these settings as perspectives. That's particularly handy with the experimental perspectives support in OF iPhone.

Some items for Alice I might handle with an email or phone call. In those cases I'd put the actions in the appropriate context (Online or Phone). I tend to have few of these for any one person, so haven't used subcontexts there yet.

Ahh - that sounds like a very good way to do it. I think I'll go modify my setup to do just that.

Thanks for the response!

Hi Curt, Sorry for hijacking this thread but I have a related question. I do project work and therefore the people I meet with on a regular basis changes over a 6 month period.

I like your idea of a Waiting Context by person but what would happen once I leave the project and delete that person specific context?

If I needed that info, would I still be able to access it but just not via context?

Thanks!

[QUOTE=bmushrush;73908]… I do project work and therefore the people I meet with on a regular basis changes over a 6 month period.

I like your idea of a Waiting Context by person but what would happen once I leave the project and delete that person specific context?

If I needed that info, would I still be able to access it but just not via context?
…[/QUOTE]

In that case I would drop the context, rather than delete it. This causes the context to be hidden when viewing Remaining contexts, but available if I want to show all contexts.

Hi Curt,

Quick question from a new OF user. How do you show multiple contexts at once? I like the idea of pulling up a contexts view with both my "waiting : bob" and "agenda: bob" contexts, but I'm not sure how to show just those two contexts.

Thanks,
Max

I'm not Curt, but Curt and Bill have the same number of letters, so close enough, right? :-)

If you go to context mode, and click on one context in the sidebar, the display will only show the contents of that context. If you now cmd-click on another context in the sidebar (standard Mac OS selection building applies here), the display will show the contents of both contexts. By default, OmniFocus shows you most everything, but its real power is in its many abilities to show you less than everything!

[QUOTE=whpalmer4;73996]I'm not Curt, but Curt and Bill have the same number of letters, so close enough, right? :-)

If you go to context mode, and click on one context in the sidebar, the display will only show the contents of that context. If you now cmd-click on another context in the sidebar (standard Mac OS selection building applies here), the display will show the contents of both contexts. By default, OmniFocus shows you most everything, but its real power is in its many abilities to show you less than everything![/QUOTE]

Exactly! I have 5 team members and I cmd-clicked on those 5 contexts to show just their "due items" and saved the perspective as a Team Actions perspective.

Likewise, I customized my other action views (due, due radar, etc) to NOT show the team so those perspectives can be focused on ME.

Good stuff.