[usertech]

A couple of comments Dale.

Just as cartrijn did, you are pointing out that there are features in OF which do enable you to narrow down the number of actions within one context. My response would be though that there will be situations (and I have provided an example in another thread which you referred to of a shopping trip) where you won't make one context's list small enough and simple enough that sorting its items wouldn't be advantageous.

In addition I have pointed out that the challenge of choosing the next action to complete is a task that often involves multiple contexts, each of whose actions are not in any coherent order.

I am having trouble understanding why there is some distinction between choosing the next action to complete and dragging it to the top of a list (and so is Ken Case as you will see if you read on!). If I had to represent the logic being presented to me it would be that I need to choose the next action to complete but not express my choice by moving it.

Here is a quote from Ken Case, admittedly from 2007, which I just read in a thread that has risen back to the top of the forum.

"OmniFocus has a notion of priority already: it's the order in which you arrange your items. If you want something to have a higher priority, simply move it up in the list.

This gives you much finer-grained control than a typical priority system, which typically only has a few levels of priority: OmniFocus effectively has as many priorities as you have items.

Does that make sense?"


Why is prioritising in a project exercised by moving an action up and down, yet, when such priorities exist within a context we aren't allowed to express our priority by raising a task up and down? Does the dragging take longer than the choosing?

What would OF users say if OF suddenly chose to have the same mentality with projects as the program does with contexts? (You shouldn't need to order the items within projects. If your projects have too many actions just use some program feature to make your project smaller, like projects within folders and then just choose your next action! To those who say don't be ridiculous are you saying that complex situations of order can't exist within a context?)

In response to your comment Dale about what happens when your shopping trip is interrupted by your boss, I suggest, without being disrespectful, that you do what your boss says immediately. But after that, your life will be as it so often is again, you will be seeking to complete actions in a sensible order and the call from your boss during your shopping trip hasn't altered that reality. It mostly won't prevent you from again making sensible choices about how to order the rest of your day. It just highlights how much we can benefit from a program that effectively supports the prioritisation of tasks.