Quote:
Originally Posted by mikulla
I'm having a hard time figuring out the best way to organize my projects and contexts.
As an example:
I have 2 companies. Art Gallery and Commercial Photography. Each one has a website and other sub projects involved.
Should I keep main project folders of:
Art Gallery
Commercial Photography
or
Websites
Prints
Shoots
I'm not quite sure. Should I keep a main folder of Bills with sub projects for each company?
Has anyone addressed this according to omnifocus? Any examples?
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In your example, I would make main folders for Art Gallery and Commercial Photography. As jasong and djbell said, that allows you to focus on one of those at a time--for those times when one needs your undivided attention.
Within each, you might create folders for Websites, Prints, and Shoots, if you have a lot of projects for each and want to distinguish them. Or you could just keep all your projects at the same level.
Contexts are places or tools that you need to do your work, regardless of the project or folder it's in, as several posters have said.
As an example, here's my current setup. I'm a university professor with a major administrative job in my department, but not a full-time administrator.
Planning view (active projects shown)
Inbox
Library
--GPD (Graduate Program Director, the major job)
----18 projects and 1 single action bucket
--Scholarship (i.e. research and keeping up with the literature in my field)
----14 projects and 1 single action bucket
--Book reviews
----4 projects
--Teaching (courses, advising, and preparation)
----7 projects and 1 single action bucket
--Service (committee work, etc.)
----4 projects and 1 single action bucket
--Home (keeping my castle in decent shape)
----1 project and 1 single action bucket
--Organizing (errands and miscellaneous tasks)
----2 single action buckets
This setup, in which each folder represents an area of responsibility, allows me to focus on one of them, which is useful when I decide I really need to spend half a day working on my research lest it get way behind. Some of my responsibilities could take up a 40-hour week if I let them, so the ability to focus is crucial.
My context view (available contexts shown):
No Context
Contexts
--Reflection (stuff I need to think about, anywhere)
--Reading (a conceptual context because I shuttle books around)
--Agendas
----8 subcontexts for key people or offices
--Computer
----Internet
----Email
----Offline
--Errands
--Home
--Library
--Office
--Phone
--Study
--Waiting (stuff delegated or for which I need a response)
At some point I need to enter an action to rethink my contexts (which would obviously go in the Reflection context!).
By selecting one or several contexts, I get a list of everything I can do where I happen to be. If I also focus, I can trim my list of 158 available actions to a small number that doesn't overwhelm me when I look at it!