[laura]

I'm amazed that this debate still goes on a year later now. I thought I'd check in and wow.

Efficiency is getting a lot of things done.
Effectiveness is doing the right things.

When I work in a reality where every day I have too many things to do, I am not going to be very effective by employing silly tactics like doing all the easy, short things first. Fear of prioritization is odd to me. It seems it's better to have a plan that you can change than go have no plan at all.

I need prioritization. I fake it with the blank column that I have in the right-hand side of OF -- which I think might be a remnant from an early alpha release -- which has a 10-digit number for every single entry. I can change the number and sort by that column, and there, I can at least fake having an effective task management system.

I wonder how much of the back and forth in this thread is simply because it doesn't take much time to reply, so it ends up at the top of many GTD lists. Not important, but certainly easy and quick, right? ;)

[whpalmer4]

Originally Posted by laura

I'm amazed that this debate still goes on a year later now. I thought I'd check in and wow.

Efficiency is getting a lot of things done.
Effectiveness is doing the right things.

When I work in a reality where every day I have too many things to do, I am not going to be very effective by employing silly tactics like doing all the easy, short things first. Fear of prioritization is odd to me. It seems it's better to have a plan that you can change than go have no plan at all.

I need prioritization. I fake it with the blank column that I have in the right-hand side of OF -- which I think might be a remnant from an early alpha release -- which has a 10-digit number for every single entry. I can change the number and sort by that column, and there, I can at least fake having an effective task management system.

I wonder how much of the back and forth in this thread is simply because it doesn't take much time to reply, so it ends up at the top of many GTD lists. Not important, but certainly easy and quick, right? ;)

What do you envision a prioritization scheme giving you that you don't already have? It seems to me that you've already got some tools you can use for this, even if we don't include your mysterious 10-digit number column. You've got the binary flag - flag individual actions or flag whole projects, and you can easily spot those actions in the scrum when looking for the next action to do. There's also that time estimate field, which could be used much like your 10-digit number (and unlike your 10-digit number, can be filtered by perspectives) if you don't need to filter or sort on duration. You could still keep notes on duration in the notes field.

I'm curious how you manage your prioritization scheme. How often do you update priorities? How many priority levels do you find you need? Do the top-priority items at any given time tend to be the next actions from a bunch of different projects, or a large number of sequential actions from a small number of projects? Do you want to completely block lower-priority actions from sight until all of the higher-priority actions have been handled?

I'm a little mystified by multiple-priority systems, because back in the days when I had to prioritize what I worked on from the pile of way too much stuff, it was pretty much impossible to get agreement from all the affected parties on what was really the highest priority, and my binary prioritization scheme worked well. Everything was classified into two states: "this needs to be done yesterday or the world will come to an end", and "this needs to be done yesterday or the world will come to an end (or so you would have me believe, but I know you're full of it)". Generally, the only clue the requester had as to which priority it was assigned was whether or not it ever got done :-)

How often do you get all the high priority stuff cleared out such that you can work on low priority stuff? It just seems to me that if one only works on high priority items and has a continual influx of new tasks, anything more than a level or two down in the hierarchy should really be assigned to some other person, unless the priorities are always being shuffled.

Looking back over the last 1/3 of this discussion thread, my impression is that there are people asking for a priority system, but not making it clear to me as an interested bystander what the essential core of that which they want is. Frankly, if you've got X requests for an ill-defined feature, and about X-3 ideas of what it should look like, there will be a lot of unhappy people unless the designer is really, really good and can come up with the core idea that makes everyone happy...either it will get done in a fashion that best suits the designer, or not at all...

[laura]

A - Absolutely must get done today
B - Should be done today
C - Would be nice if done today

A flag system does not handle that, as it's only binary.

As for what we're all talking about, Franklin-Covey has been around a while. Call it "ill-defined" if you want, but GTD is the new kid on the block, and I have to say that being on the receiving end of a GTD practitioner is an experience of urgency but not necessarily importance.

Call me persnicketey for wanting more functionality than a glorified laundry list of tasks. Some of us can actuall evaluate tasks and know which ones are the most important for the day, and not based on how long they take (which strikes me as a ludicrous idea).

It just seems to me that if one only works on high priority items and has a continual influx of new tasks, anything more than a level or two down in the hierarchy should really be assigned to some other person, unless the priorities are always being shuffled.

Ha! I would submit that this would be important data then. After all, if you take the alternative and are constantly doing all the little tasks that come in, you aren't getting the important things done. If that doesn't matter to you, wonderful. Me, I need more, and I guess my investment on this app was wasted in the battle against dogma.

[Ken Case]

As I recently mentioned in the Tags thread, our plan all along has been to allow people to create their own columns of metadata, which they can use however they want: with generic tags, or with specific columns for priority, people, etc. (We have this capability in OmniPlan, OmniOutliner, and OmniGraffle.) We just didn't have time to do it for 1.0, and we won't for 1.5 (which has to focus on synchronization so it can be ready to synchronize with the iPhone).

Hopefully in 1.7.

[Eric Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by Ken Case

As I recently mentioned in the Tags thread, our plan all along has been to allow people to create their own columns of metadata, which they can use however they want: with generic tags, or with specific columns for priority, people, etc. (We have this capability in OmniPlan, OmniOutliner, and OmniGraffle.) We just didn't have time to do it for 1.0, and we won't for 1.1 (which has to focus on synchronization so it can be ready to synchronize with the iPhone).

Hopefully in 1.2.

We're now up to 1.5, and it seems there's still no metadata...so still no prioritization. Will we need to wait for 2.0?

[whpalmer4]

Originally Posted by Eric Schoenfeld

We're now up to 1.5, and it seems there's still no metadata...so still no prioritization. Will we need to wait for 2.0?

1.5 is really 1.1, renamed. So far the only way in which they have departed from what they said they would do regarding the contents of upcoming releases is in the numbering of the latest release, and it's still a 1.x release so no one has had to fork over any extra cash. Planning for what will be in 1.6 seems to be under way.

[Eric Schoenfeld]

Thanks for the reply. Ok, will try to be patient. Hopefully, either this will be added to omnifocus so I can buy it, or else igtd will get another version out, before I drown in my poorly organized to-do list!

[Weasel]

Originally Posted by Ken Case

As I recently mentioned in the Tags thread, our plan all along has been to allow people to create their own columns of metadata, which they can use however they want: with generic tags, or with specific columns for priority, people, etc. (We have this capability in OmniPlan, OmniOutliner, and OmniGraffle.) We just didn't have time to do it for 1.0, and we won't for 1.1 (which has to focus on synchronization so it can be ready to synchronize with the iPhone).

Hopefully in 1.2.

Question:

I'm just testing 1.5 and I can't see any metadata.

Is this not yet implemented?
If so when is it going to come?

Thanks!

[Toadling]

The post you referenced is pretty old. OmniFocus 1.1 was actually released as OmniFocus 1.5 (there never was an actual 1.1 release). I have no inside information, but I suspect any features originally planned for a 1.2 release have been retargeted for a 1.6 or 2.0 release.

-Dennis

All of our company uses iGTD. I have been looking to migrate them to OF (or Things) but the lack of the good old 1 to 5 prioritisation that we have become accustomed to in calendars, CRM software and even peoples note pad lists is the only reason we are waiting.

When the developers add in a sortable Priority column (with optional display set in the preferences) we will buy a licence for everyone in the company and migrate them from iGTD.

I don't see the problem, technically it is not difficult, it is not unconventional, it needn't be either seen or compulsory for those that don't want it and we'll pay for the feature - everyone wins.

Just posting so that I can keep informed on when this will be implemented seeing that so many others have requested it too.