[rickdude]

Hi everyone,

Could someone give me some advice on how to think about (sub-)folders and (sub-) projects? I'm setting up my university teaching in OF for this semester. I teach several courses, and each course has 15 sessions, each of which has various tasks associated. Two schemes have occurred to me:

A:
A big teaching folder;
Within that, a folder for each course;
and within each course folder, a project for each session

B:
A bug teaching folder;
Within that, a project for each course;
and within that project, a sub-project for each session

I lean towards A, but I'm wondering whether this is just a cosmetic matter or if there will be consequences in terms of how items get sorted in different views (both on the Mac and on my iOS devices).

Thanks for any help!

[whpalmer4]

One consideration is that A allows you to use all of the OmniFocus tools for managing each big chunk of work separately, whereas B does not. You can't review individual sub-projects (aka action groups), you can't put them on hold or drop them, and you can't filter them from view in the way you could if you made each independent unit a project. Of course, if you've already published a syllabus saying that you're doing XYZ week 13, maybe that flexibility isn't available to you.

OmniFocus also does a bit of implicit prioritization by the ordering of material in the sidebar. Might be easier to take advantage of that with individual projects rather than rearranging the innards of a big project. If you got in a jam, you could pull out the projects for various parts of your courses to put them up at the top, which you couldn't do if you've gone with action groups.

What are you teaching? I want to have suitable examples if I need to illustrate something — no point in referring to chapters in an art history book if you're teaching VLSI design :-)

[Christian]

Option A with the addition of a single action list under each of the three folders to capture the unplanned/little stuff that will likely occur (buy new pencil, see student for coursework review, take that student out on dinner because she is 21 and hot, etc.). That kind of stuff.

[rickdude]

Those were very useful answers. Thanks a bunch. I'll opt for A, because I anticipate needing all those tools you mention. I might pass on the "take that student out for dinner"-type of task, though!

[Christian]

Originally Posted by rickdude

Those were very useful answers. Thanks a bunch. I'll opt for A, because I anticipate needing all those tools you mention. I might pass on the "take that student out for dinner"-type of task, though!

There the man sits right next to the source and then he is all morally stable ;)

[DrJJWMac]

FWIW, my teaching workload is set up somewhat as below ...

Teaching - top level Folder
- MTS 501 - course Folder
-- Course Administration - Project (single action list)
-- Topics - top-level topics Folder
--- Structure - specific topic Folder
---- Arrangements - Project
----- Plan of Attack - Group of Actions
----- Content - Group of Actions (parallel)
------- Supplemental Ready - Group of Actions (sequential)
--------- define supplemental reading
--------- copy supplemental reading
--------- post supplemental reading
------- Topic Overview (sequential)
--------- Draft (parallel)
----------- create topic outline
----------- create reading notes
----------- create topic outcomes
--------- finalize draft overview
--------- post draft overview
------- Lecture Notes (parallel)
--------- collect older lecture notes
--------- ... (others)
------- Homework X
------- Capstone X
----- WrapUp
----- Evaluations
---- Imperfections - Project
---- Characterization - Project
--- Phases ...
...
- CHE 658
...

It follows Option A.

HTH

--
JJW