[BwanaZulia]

I cannot believe this conversation is still going on.

I have read all his books (multiple times), listened to hours of his podcasts, his other CDs and recordings and it always comes down to priority being something that is way to flexible to capture in a tool.

Why is this so hard for so many people (or so few) to comprehend?

Priority changes, day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute. To spend all your time, capturing, updating, changing and setting priority would be the total opposite of productive and getting anything done.

There is a system you could look into, GPD (Getting Priority Done).

BZ

[wilsonng]

Yes, it's a tired subject. I'm also pretty amazed that this thread is still active. I'm guessing it could be attributed to the fact that there are people who are using OmniFocus as a to-do list program for a semi-GTD methodology. As David Allen has stated, we have to adapt GTD to fit our own personality. We adapt the tools we have adopted to fit our needs.
OmniGroup is promoting this on their OmniFocus page:

OmniFocus is designed to quickly capture your thoughts and allow you to store, manage, and process them into actionable to-do items. Perfect for the Getting Things Done® system, but flexible enough for any task management style, OmniFocus helps you work smarter by giving you powerful tools for staying on top of all the things you need to do.

So I guess we can't blame folks for trying to add "priorities" to OmniFocus. There will be folks who view priorities as essential to their "GTD" hybrid system.

If priorities are added to OmniFocus, I hope there's a way to hide the priority column since I'll never use it. I'm assuming that OmniFocus 2.0 will have tags or some other mechanism to handle the priorities desire that some folks are having. So we'll have to take a wait and see approach for now. The OmniFolks did say that they're eager to see OmniFocus 2.0 in 2010. So I guess they'll find a way. They have been logging user requests and forum requests for priorities and are investigating ways on how to add priorities into OmniFocus 2.0.

I agree with BwanaZulia's quote of David Allen that priorities are so fluid that it would be impossible to capture, track, and update in any given moment. But there will be a portion of the OmniFocus users who thinks they can. To them, I say "good luck." If if works for them, more power to them.

[A to the B]

Originally Posted by BwanaZulia

I cannot believe this conversation is still going on.

I have read all his books (multiple times), listened to hours of his podcasts, his other CDs and recordings and it always comes down to priority being something that is way to flexible to capture in a tool.

Why is this so hard for so many people (or so few) to comprehend?

Priority changes, day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute. To spend all your time, capturing, updating, changing and setting priority would be the total opposite of productive and getting anything done.

There is a system you could look into, GPD (Getting Priority Done).

BZ

+1...

The task is either a crisis and needs to be done NOW before anything else or it isn't. If it's a crisis, don't waste time fiddling with productivity pr0n. Get it done.

Or... Flag it for HIGH, leave it alone for MED, send it to someday/maybe for LOW.

Stay strong Omni Group. Priorities are not needed.

[Robbie1702]

Hi there,

I understand the sighs of those who support David Allen and think that prioritisation is so flexible it would take too much time to manage with a tool.

I've tried DA's methods and they just didn't work for me (as seemingly many - considering this topic is still around). For me there are just too many tasks that slip through my radar when I don't have a proper system to prioritise them. This doesn't have to be filigrane prioritisation. Just 'brackets' of importance would suffice.

But DA supporters, don't worry there is a solution that would make both parties happy without ruining OF and this would simply be 'tagging'. [Similar to how Things does it in fact....] You can add a P1 to P5 tag, a high medium or low tag - you can customise your prioritisation system just as you like and then use OF's fantastic perspectives to work with the tags.

I think OF promised us this for some next release in the future. In fact, 'tagging' could also solve the 'waiting problem' I have: (just tag an action as 'waiting' and you can create a perspective for tasks you are waiting for without disrupting their location or content).

The question is: When, finally, is OF going to release this revolutionary software?! I've been waiting for this ever since I bought OF a year ago... My productivity just seems stifled without the promised functionality. It's 2010 now guys! OF can you please give us some guidelines on when in 2010 the new software is going to be released?! Don't leave us in the dark like this... Is it more like January 2010 or more like December 2010?

[abates17]

Originally Posted by BwanaZulia

I cannot believe this conversation is still going on.

I can’t believe that you’re still complaining that people want a feature which, if implemented, will be transparent to you.

Originally Posted by BwanaZulia

I have read all his books (multiple times), listened to hours of his podcasts, his other CDs and recordings and it always comes down to priority being something that is way to flexible to capture in a tool.

Priority changes, day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute. To spend all your time, capturing, updating, changing and setting priority would be the total opposite of productive and getting anything done.

That is oversimplifying to an extreme. No one spends “all their time”*changing and setting priorities, any more than you spend “all your time”*setting contexts, creating next actions, and reviewing tasks. Priorities do NOT change all the time. This statement is ludicrous on the face of it.

Doing the dishes will always be more important than alphabetizing my DVDs, so I would like to make sure that “Doing the dishes”*bubbles up to the top. And since GTD task lists are not sorted in any particular order, why not allow some extra information to sort by? Sure, I could scan the entire list and see what tickles my fancy at a certain point in time, but why not save myself some time and have more-important tasks near the top?

Personally, I think that David Allen is a little too absolute when it comes to GTD rules. For example, why does OmniFocus show tasks that are overdue? According to GTD, you should only set a due date when the task MUST BE completed by that date, and is worthless after that. So if OF is strict GTD, it should hide overdue tasks. But it doesn’t. Why? Because OF is MORE FLEXIBLE than strict GTD. Adding priorities is another way that OF could be more flexible and more useful to more people.

[whpalmer4]

Originally Posted by abates17

Personally, I think that David Allen is a little too absolute when it comes to GTD rules. For example, why does OmniFocus show tasks that are overdue? According to GTD, you should only set a due date when the task MUST BE completed by that date, and is worthless after that.

You're misreading him, if you're referring to pp. 40-41 of Getting Things Done, the 'No More "Daily To-Do" Lists' block. I quote:

"Second, if there's something on a daily to-do list that doesn't absolutely have to get done that day, it will dilute the emphasis on the things that truly do."

He's talking about why writing a daily to-do list is a bad thing, not about why due dates in GTD would be bad. He then goes on to state:

"The way I look at it, the calendar (emphasis mine) should be sacred territory. If you write something there, it must get done that day or not at all. The only rewriting should be for changed appointments."

Nothing at all about next action lists.

If you have some other reference that suggests he disapproves of due dates on the next action list, I'd be interested to see it.

[wilsonng]

Originally Posted by abates17

Doing the dishes will always be more important than alphabetizing my DVDs, so I would like to make sure that “Doing the dishes”*bubbles up to the top. And since GTD task lists are not sorted in any particular order, why not allow some extra information to sort by? Sure, I could scan the entire list and see what tickles my fancy at a certain point in time, but why not save myself some time and have more-important tasks near the top?

Personally, I think that David Allen is a little too absolute when it comes to GTD rules. For example, why does OmniFocus show tasks that are overdue? According to GTD, you should only set a due date when the task MUST BE completed by that date, and is worthless after that. So if OF is strict GTD, it should hide overdue tasks. But it doesn’t. Why? Because OF is MORE FLEXIBLE than strict GTD. Adding priorities is another way that OF could be more flexible and more useful to more people.

OmniFocus gives you the ability to drag a task up or down the list. This gives an implied priority status. In sequential projects, I have to do step 1 before proceeding to step 2. In parallel projects, the higher up a project or task, the higher priority it means to me.

But I agree with the post from "A To The B". I place all my low priority projects in my Someday/Maybe folder. Most of my active projects/tasks are taken out of Someday/Maybe Folder, I switch status from "On Hold" to "Active" and it becomes my medium priority projects - not urgent but important. Any Active projects that are urgent and important are immediately flagged. Then I can switch to my "Flagged" perspective to see the flagged tasks/projects.

I have three perspectives:

The first perspective is called "Low Priority". It is a project/planning perspective that shows just the Someday/Maybe folder.

The second perspective is called "Today" (aka Medium priority or all active projects). This shows a context perspective with all my active projects.

The third perspective is called "Urgent". This shows a context perspective with all flagged items.

The Urgent perspective lets me block out all the someday/maybe items and focus in on all the flagged items. These are my urgent things to do.

It took a while for me to break away from the ABC priority or High/Medium/Low priority but I think I have the hang of it now. It takes time to break out of the high/medium/low priority. I know because I've been there with years of working with my old Franklin-Covey Dayplanner. It just never felt right. I had a bunch of A priorities but I always ended up doing B's and C's.

So just sit back, wait for OmniFocus 2.0 with this much-rumored tagging system and be done with it.

[abates17]

Originally Posted by wilsonng

I place all my low priority projects in my Someday/Maybe folder. Most of my active projects/tasks are taken out of Someday/Maybe Folder, I switch status from "On Hold" to "Active" and it becomes my medium priority projects - not urgent but important. Any Active projects that are urgent and important are immediately flagged. Then I can switch to my "Flagged" perspective to see the flagged tasks/projects.

…

It took a while for me to break away from the ABC priority or High/Medium/Low priority but I think I have the hang of it now.

You didn’t break out of the ABC priority scale; you just found a complicated, roundabout way to implement it, using folders, statuses, and flags! I don’t see how you can describe your convoluted process of setting what are essentially priorities on one hand, then turn around and say, “See, OmniFocus doesn’t need priorities!” on the other.

[wilsonng]

I beg to differ. It's just a matter of not using ABC labels or High/Medium/Low labels assigned to tasks. As David Allen says, you will "trust" your system to the point that you won't need ABCs.



I've used the Franklin-Covey A1, A2, B1, C1 priority scheme and it didn't work. It may be simple but it didn't work. So I've been there.

My Someday/Maybe folder holds all my "C" projects. That's not convoluted. We all have someday/maybe projects that aren't urgent nor important. It's a wish list of things we'd like to do. So all of my "C" priority or low priority projects/tasks are stored there. I don't see how complicated, convoluted, or roundabout that can get.

If I want to take something out of the backburner, I put it into my Active folder and set the status to Active. The Active folder holds a list of my Medium priority or "B" priority projects. These are the on-hold projects that I decided to work on this week. That's not convoluted, difficult or roundabout.

If there is something truly urgent, it's a simple matter of flagging a project or task. This becomes the A priority or High priority project/task. Not difficult at all.

I'm suspecting that you're not taking full advantage of perspectives (views).

I have my High priority view showing my flagged (High priority or A priority) tasks.

My default view shows all the next actions of my active projects and tasks. This is the Medium priority or B priority tasks view.

My Low priority or C priority view focuses on my Someday/Maybe folder.


I fail to understand how this becomes convoluted.

But I respect your desires for ABC. I suspect, perhaps, that you want a long list view showing your High, Medium, and Low priorities. But you lose OmniFocus' advantage of focusing in on your overall task management duties.

What is truly boggling is that classic time management/task management systems still teach the ABC priority system. So what many people are arguing about is that there is no need to "label" something as high, medium, low or ABC because if you trust your system, you won't need these labels.


In the beginning, I clung on to my ABC system but I have evolved to the point where I can trust my system and understand what is high, medium, and low priority.

[ksrhee]

I do not find arguing or debating about "labeling" very helpful in the discussion thread. Whether you want to call something ABC, H/M/L Priority, Urgent/Important, etc., to me is a really personal preference in terms of individual work flow and system. Who am I to say your ABC is worse then my HML?

One thing I do and it seems like many people need is a way to categorizes tasks, be able to manipulate them and maintain them, and finally be able to view the categories of tasks- whether it be project, context, priority, importance, etc. etc.

Thus, some people might find Life Balance, Things, or OF more helpful based on their needs for categorization.

OF is very close, but I don't think it's quite there yet. I believe 2.0 will address most of the concerns expressed by folks here.