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Originally Posted by michelle
Interesting . . . we were thinking of creating a special type of project for single tasks that had no next actions. You're idea may be better. Do others agree? Should they all be next actions?
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I agree that people should not be forced to adhere to the GTD dogma and that it should be as flexible as possible and it looks like OmniFocus will be that.
But here is my understanding of the way GTD works. The goal is to get things off of your mind. You do this by quickly adding items to your inbox for processing later. So you have an inbox, a number of context lists and a project list. Once things are in your “inbox,” the goal is to get “in to empty" by processing your inbox. Processing is not actually doing the task, but rather putting it on a context list or a project list.
Taking a look a David Allen's workflow diagram (
http://images.google.com/images?um=1...rkflow+diagram) you "process" by first asking, "is this item actionable?" If it is actionable, you ask, "is this item multi-step?" If it is multi-step, then it is a project and you add it to the projects list. If it is not multistep, then you add it to one of your context lists. Next actions from your projects will also be added to your context lists as you see fit.
The context lists really seem to be the most important part of the GTD process because they are the lists that you review when you actually want to get some work done. The project list is just one way of getting next actions onto your context lists.
One possible solution would be to ever so slightly course correct OmniFocus so that the focus is on the context lists. The inbox would be just a default context that captures next actions if they are entered without a context or project. As soon as a context or project is assigned to the next action (or in other words "it is processed"), it disappears from the inbox and appears on the new context list. It does not show up in the project list ... unless you associate a project name with it. Then it magically appears as part of a project too. OmniFocus would also have the flexibility to add the item as a project first, before adding any next actions. But adding the next action to a project would not be required to move it out of the inbox. Leaving it in the inbox seems like it has not been processed.
But hey, I might not know what I am talking about because I have not actually gotten my hands on the app yet. In any event, we all really appreciate the opportunity to have a little input into your development process. Thanks.