[whpalmer4]

Originally Posted by dal71

Thanks for the advice. Unfortunately, this is exactly what I'm doing. But since I tend to populate lots of start times in projects that I'm doing over the next few days, it doesn't accomplish so much. I suppose you do make a good point though-- if I try not to assign start times to any but the next action in a group, I can get much of what I want.

Well, where it breaks down for me is when I have a sequential project with a bunch of start dates sprinkled through the sequence that represent actual constraints on when I can start the action, but otherwise I'm relying on OmniFocus just supplying me with the next action when I complete one. In that case, looking ahead at the actions scheduled to start is potentially misleading, because there may be quite a few other actions I should do first that I didn't assign a start date. The remedy for this is to look at the action you're thinking about doing in its project setting, which can be done quickly by double-clicking on the row handle (the dot at the left), though this will change to be option-double-clicking in the upcoming 1.8.3 release of OmniFocus. Doing that gives you a new window (in addition to your old window(s)) showing the project containing the action you clicked on so you can quickly decide if working on it is appropriate, or if there is something else in that project you should do first.

I'm new to OF and the forum, but I know I saw at least one online blog that suggests using start dates the way I do. Are many people doing this? If so, a sensible future feature might be "intended date" that captures this idea in the right way instead of forcing an imperfect abuse of "start date." Is this already a feature others are requesting?

I'm not sure that I agree this is an abuse of the start date. After all, a start date is just a way of signifying that you don't wish to be shown this action or project until some point in the future. Is that not what you are doing?

Another tactic that may be useful to keep your view uncluttered is to simply keep entire projects that you don't intend to work on in the next few days on hold or pending, rather than trying to manage at the action level.