[whpalmer4]

Originally Posted by viewpoint

How about a SAL with items under it, VS. a parallel project?

I'm assuming you mean a SAL that has action groups -- a SAL with nothing in it doesn't really merit discussion.

I've read on here how some people use a "msc" SAL for all the actual SINGLE actions. Some have multiple SAL items in a folder "Home: SAL #1" vs one SAL with all different the single actions listed.

Any comments/observations on this? Maybe I'm missing something obvious.

If you wanted to assert that "single action lists" are somewhat confusingly named, I wouldn't object.

The concept is not that actions in the list can only have a single step, though that may often be the case. SALs exist as a way to house actions which may not rise to the level of projects, as the current object model of OmniFocus doesn't allow you to have single actions in the project list. In OmniFocus 2, this restriction is apparently being removed. Very early on, there was no SAL concept, only sequential and parallel projects. You can see some of the evolution of the concept in this thread.

This is what has confused me w/OF. if it is a SINGLE action, why does it even have the possibility of items under it? Doesn't the very tem, "single action LIST" seem odd?

I have, any it seems most people on here, have a Home folder, a Work folder, and one or more other folders. With a Folder #1 Home: Home: SAL, Home:Project #1, etc
Folder #2 Work: Work:SAL, Work:Project #1 etc

Someone already had a trademark on "big bag of tasks", I think :-)

Again, the notion is that it is a collection of items which may be relatively independent of each other. For example, I've got a Photography folder. In it, I'll have projects for various things -- "Photograph holiday party at school" would have actions like "Pack flash equipment", "Back up raw images", "Publish processed images to class website" and so on. There are also going to be things that need to happen which aren't necessarily part of any given project, like rotating batteries, periodically exercising the shutters in less frequently-used gear, checking for new firmware versions, etc. Those sorts of tasks will end up in my Photography : Miscellaneous SAL. At some point in the future if I'm working on photography matters and want to spend some time keeping my house in order, so to speak, I can just select that SAL in the sidebar and there I've got my list of miscellaneous photography-related tasks from which to choose.

Another reason for using SALs is that some feel there is an fundamental difference between a project (a list of steps to achieve some outcome) and an area of responsibility (which may not have a final outcome). For example, we've got a small menagerie of pets. There are numerous actions which need to be done on a daily or weekly basis, some on a monthly basis, some on a yearly basis. There are some obvious projects, like "Get cat microchipped" (which requires finding the best place to have it done, filing some paperwork, making sure the records get updated, but in the end there is a distinct outcome), and some things which are clearly not projects, but need to get done ("empty litter box", "buy more cat food"). My organization is a folder devoted to pet-related topics, which includes both projects and a SAL or two. Some of us object philosophically to projects without outcomes and prefer to use SALs instead for such collections of ongoing tasks. Could those collections be implemented instead as parallel projects? In most cases, yes. But if implementing it with a SAL adds more value to your setup, why not?

Finally, I'm not aware of any place where an individual action can't be replaced by an action group ("putting things under it"). This allows structuring activities in ways that would be awkward otherwise. As an example, say I've got some orchids that need to be watered every week, and every 3rd time or so they also need to be fertilized the next day. This task lives in a SAL (it's not a project), and is structured with an action group that has two actions (watering the first week, watering the second week) with start dates followed by an action group (water the third week, mix orchid fertilizer, fertilize orchids) that also has start dates and a due date on the fertilizing step to make sure it gets done the next day. In theory, I could set up a bunch of different repeating actions that accomplished the same effect, but it would be more difficult to see the intended result and a headache to maintain.

Clearly, I find SALs to be useful constructs in OmniFocus! I guess that explains why I've got 38 of them at the moment :-)