[rbeverly]

Either a calendar feature or more complete iCal syncing would help a lot. (Current iCal sync through WebDav only shows things that are due in the next week). Not because we users necessarily want to use OmniFocus as a calendar, but because in the event that tasks do need due dates or start dates, we need a visual way to see that they do not overlap in impossible ways.

The last thing you want is to be broadsided by 2 things coming due in a week that can't possibly be done at the same time. That's what a calendar view saves you from. You won't assign an impossible due date if you can see when the other thing is due.

Some people, I think, have a fairly small number of tasks to do. For them, maybe reviewing every single task every day can work. Others may own more than one business. We're also pretty driven and probably somewhat competitive. It's good, because we get a lot done. But it also means we find ourselves in business "race" conditions, trying to finish projects before someone else can. And we're up against client deadlines too, and personal ones, and government ones.

So the point of a calendar view isn't to use it as a calendar.

That's right, I don't need the calendar to be a calendar.

I need it to be a visual representation of the tasks or projects I have committed to deadline.

Why, you ask. Because I need to make quick decisions. I have used Omnifocus for a little longer than the trial period now (bought it of course). Already I have 47 tasks across 9 projects. No worry, I always have at least 9 projects. I'm getting lots of things done, probably more than I was pre-Omni. But I'm also in a predicament.

If I need to assign a due date to a task, or a start date, I have to read through all those other tasks and their due dates (if they have them) before I can assign the due date or start date. Everyone has their limits, and mine is holding more than about 4 dates in mind at once. However, a calendar VIEW does not ask you to understand dates and times all at once, thus taking up your verbal and math resources. A calendar view lets you look at the distance between two objects and say "those aren't too close together. I can fit one here." That task is much easier when done spatially than it is when done with a list of numeric dates.

To be clear, the tasks and projects I'm talking about are generally NOT things like "buy cat litter" or "attend the meeting." They are more like "Edit volume 2 of 'Insurance Practices for the Risk Manager.'" They are ongoing tasks. When you edit a book, you spend many days doing it, and you also have to do other things on those days, and you also will surely have a deadline.

One or two posts made a statement that sounded like "anything with a deadline should go on a calendar." But editing a book doesn't fit well on "just" a calendar. You might need to look at a calendar view to see if you can edit a book in a given period of time, but a calendar would be useless for managing the task of editing a book. A calendar doesn't tell you what to do next. And so, ironically, that's one reason why OmniFocus needs to have, or integrate with, a calendar. It is because there are many tasks and projects which OmniFocus is suited for, and which calendars are unsuited for, yet which need to be cross-referenced with calendars and the things that calendars have on them. And to do that cross-referencing, it is easier and less error-prone to allow people to use the visio-spatial capacity of their brains, by showing everything on a calendar view, thus understanding date conflicts as shapes and patterns and distances, not as lists of numeric dates on one side and a calendar on the other.

And if you don't like calendars or don't want to make one, it wouldn't take much at this point. Currently you have iCal syncing through WebDav. Just add the option to see *everything* that has a dues date assigned, rather than only the things with due dates in the next week. That way, when we find we need to assign a due date, we can flip over to the calendar (or iCal) and see that the week or month we're shooting for is not saturated with one or more other due dates.

I hope that makes some sense. Thanks for reading, and I'll also send an email through the feedback feature in the application.