[whpalmer4]

In my experience, newly created projects will end up at the bottom end of the sidebar, unless you've created a project that is nested inside an existing folder. You can do that by typing <foldername><your hierarchy separator><new project> cmd-return where <your hierarchy separator> is the character or string you've set in the General preferences panel of the OmniFocus preferences.

So, if you've got the default separator (":" if I remember correctly), and wanted to create a project called "Get a raise" in the Work folder, you could do so by typing "Work:Get a raise<cmd>-<return>" in the project field.