Quote:
Originally Posted by elektroglide
imo the workarounds via context mode don't fulfil adequately the need for a dedicated today feature, as in cc things.
today i again wanted to regroup, and get a simple list of items to do now, grouped together, and re-orderable - useful for when mental ram is low.
OF doesn't allow this, and it's a serious omission for me.
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I am experiencing some similar issues with OF, as reflected in my original question, which the "context" workaround described above doesn't fully address.
I have learned something from OF, which is to think more in terms of "projects" per se and completing projects. On the other hand, this is not always the way actions in my life are organized. Sometimes there is just a list of things I want to do today, not actually associated with a larger project. In a work, business, "enterprise" setting (not mine) I presume it is primarily the case that people's lives are organized into projects they have to complete. When this is the case, I can see that OF helps them avoid losing track of the project goals by focusing too much on actions. Conversely, OF offers help in breaking down projects into actions that help make them more manageable and less daunting.
On the other hand, for those like me not using this in a formal work setting (in my case, as a self-employed person life is a mixture of work and personal activities), I often simply have a list of things I want to do today some of which are not specifically associated with a project, or may be associated with long term goals that have not yet coalesced into a project. Of course I could organize my day into "projects" like fun, eating, entertainment, art, music, though I'm not sure this would be really that productive. It sounds a bit compulsive.
Sometimes there are just things I want to do on a certain day that are not really connected with some larger project framework. The best way I have been able to use AF to organize a list of things I want to do today is to make a project that is called "today" and put these things in it. A challenge here, however, is that some things I want to do today are also parts of other existing projects. I figured out that I can copy them into the "today" project, which kind of works. This gets a bit complicated, however, as there are then two actions in two projects (today and the original project) that I have to track. It would be useful to be able to copy an alias into the "today" project so anything I add to it, or if I check it completed, is reflected in the original action in its original project location.
I have used omnioutliner for years to organize things and in some ways find it much easier to use than OF. I simply use outline headings as projects and move items in those projects into an outline with a "today" heading if I want to do them today. I often actually organize them into groups like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc. If I don't get it done today, I move it into the next days, outline.
OF is clearly a project oriented framework, much more than a todo list framework, the framework I am used to. I'm trying to learn from OF and am realizing the value of thinking in terms of projects and completing projects (which too often doesn't get done), but life doesn't always divide itself up in a project framework. Sometimes it also seems to re-organize itself into a new set of projects, making the old list irrelevant. Again, I am sure this is different if you are working for someone and they give you a list of projects to complete.
--Kenoli