[ingrid]

Thanks to both of you for your advice.

One way you could handle this is to link the "Vacuum carpet" task to the note field in the "Buy a vacuum cleaner" task. Then, set the start date for the "Vacuum carpet" task to a time ahead when you know that you will have bought the vacuum cleaner.

I think this could work if I use a start date way in the future...i.e. instead of one when I "know" the first task will be done by (which is rarely the case), one that is one or two years ahead, so it will be unavailable until I finish the first task and change or delete the start date.

Alternatively, you could create the project with [contexts] this way ...

Project Clean Apartment (parallel project)
- Tidy Up (parallel action group)
-- make bed [Apartment]
-- put away laundry [Apartment]
-- wash dishes [Apartment]
- Clean Carpet (sequential action group)
-- buy vacuum cleaner [Shopping]
-- vacuum carpet [Apartment]

I think this could work for some things -- the problem is that sometimes the tasks are totally unrelated in terms of context AND project, e.g. I need to "buy a leash" at [Context: Pet Store] in [Project: Productive Single Actions] before I can "walk the dog" which is at [Context: Home] in [Project: Daily Chores]. The two tasks are in different contexts AND projects. (And I'd rather keep something like "buy a leash" in [Project: Productive Single Actions] since it doesn't belong in [Project: Daily Chores] and I don't want to have to create a whole separate project just because one of my daily chores requires a certain one-time errand before I can do it...I could probably come up with a better example but I hope that makes sense.)

I think the linking thing could work for this kind of situation though. I looked at the other thread and it was helpful, I'll try it out and see how it goes. Thanks!