Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew Scott
I think Things "Today" feature is a major strength and something that OF can't match on the iPhone. Today integrates sceduled tasks with manually selected tasks in a unified, simple view that I find very usable. Using Flags in OF doesn't replicate this. Setting the Start or Due dates on items can achieve something similar but it's far more cumbersome than the "Show in Today" mode of Things.
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One big difference is that Things' flag (the "today star") has a much narrower meaning than the OmniFocus flag. The Things "today star" means exactly one thing: "Do this today." The OmniFocus flag, on the other hand, is a generic marker than can mean virtually anything; it has more flexibility but is perhaps harder to use in a very specific manner (mostly due to view bar limitations, I guess).
The Omni Group said they were considering smart folders for a future release; maybe that feature would allow you to build a perspective displaying flagged *or* due items in a single view.
Personally, I think there's a subtle but significant difference between importance and urgency. And I don't think I'd want to see both of those kinds of items mixed together in one monolithic view.
To me, items that are important (flagged items in my OmniFocus database) are things I want to draw my attention to but don't necessarily want to do today or even set a due date or start date on. I want to see these items in a separated list because there tends to be a fair number of them (often 20-30 or more) and I want to be able to sort, group, and browse them independently of all my other actions. OmniFocus' flagged filter works perfectly for this.
Urgent items, on the other hand, are things that are date-driven (usually by a due date). They are distinctly different from my important (i.e. flagged) items, although sometimes an item might be both important and urgent, so I'll assign a flag and a due date. Like my important items though, I want to see the urgent items in their own specific list without the clutter of the usually unrelated important items.
I wonder if maybe the Omni Group was making the same distinction between importance and urgency when they designed the current view bar. But I agree that it'd be nice to have the flexibility to mix these items if you want.
-Dennis