Sorry for all the background info but I don't know how else to ask this question without giving you all of my info. I apologize for the length and if it is confusing!
I don't have a due date for every single item in Onmifocus, there are a lot of items that I know I need to do this week, some this month, some longer term, some today and some do actually have due dates. So, the only way I knew to keep all of these items in order was with single-action lists that I created myself. (If I just sort by due date then there are a lot of items that are higher on my priority list that just get lost in the shuffle because they don't have a specific due date.) So I have one single action list for "Follow up" items, one for "Today" one for "This Week" one for "This month" and so on. Within each of those I have lots of single items, some of those single items have children. So the only way I can sort those by due date is to go to context mode and Group by Project and then sort by due date. When I do that it at least keeps all of my "today" items together, etc. But when I do that I lose the hierarchy of any items that have children, the children are just lost among the other "today" items and they get confusing. So then I started making sure that any child item gets a context tag with the name of the parent items. So then in context mode I change it to group by project and sort by due date and I make the context column visible so I can at least see who the children belong to, but they are still not listed together because they are sorted by date and have different due dates. So what I think would help is if I could go to context mode, group by project, then sort by context, then sort by due date within that context. I haven't found a way to do that.
Rather than having single action lists for Today, This Week, etc I could just make those contexts but I don't like context view that much. In context view I could set Today, This Week and those as contexts and group by context and see those as separate lists, but then when you are looking at that you can't add children under any actions, and any actions that do have children show up as a whole separate list (because I gave them a different context to keep them with their parent item.) and you can't see inbox items in context mode. You can see "No context" items but if you have tons of those (which I do) then any inbox items I create without a context will be lost there.
Is this making any sense?I guess I am struggling for organization between projects and contexts and one of my main problems is that not everything has a date. I would be glad to share some screen shots of my items with someone if that helps but I didn't want to post them just yet for all to see here.
Maybe it would be helpful to have a priority level tag with lettering hierarchy for items without dates? Or maybe allow me to select "this week" as a date option?
Thank you in advance for any help!
I don't have a due date for every single item in Onmifocus, there are a lot of items that I know I need to do this week, some this month, some longer term, some today and some do actually have due dates. So, the only way I knew to keep all of these items in order was with single-action lists that I created myself. (If I just sort by due date then there are a lot of items that are higher on my priority list that just get lost in the shuffle because they don't have a specific due date.) So I have one single action list for "Follow up" items, one for "Today" one for "This Week" one for "This month" and so on. Within each of those I have lots of single items, some of those single items have children. So the only way I can sort those by due date is to go to context mode and Group by Project and then sort by due date. When I do that it at least keeps all of my "today" items together, etc. But when I do that I lose the hierarchy of any items that have children, the children are just lost among the other "today" items and they get confusing. So then I started making sure that any child item gets a context tag with the name of the parent items. So then in context mode I change it to group by project and sort by due date and I make the context column visible so I can at least see who the children belong to, but they are still not listed together because they are sorted by date and have different due dates. So what I think would help is if I could go to context mode, group by project, then sort by context, then sort by due date within that context. I haven't found a way to do that.
Rather than having single action lists for Today, This Week, etc I could just make those contexts but I don't like context view that much. In context view I could set Today, This Week and those as contexts and group by context and see those as separate lists, but then when you are looking at that you can't add children under any actions, and any actions that do have children show up as a whole separate list (because I gave them a different context to keep them with their parent item.) and you can't see inbox items in context mode. You can see "No context" items but if you have tons of those (which I do) then any inbox items I create without a context will be lost there.
Is this making any sense?I guess I am struggling for organization between projects and contexts and one of my main problems is that not everything has a date. I would be glad to share some screen shots of my items with someone if that helps but I didn't want to post them just yet for all to see here.
Maybe it would be helpful to have a priority level tag with lettering hierarchy for items without dates? Or maybe allow me to select "this week" as a date option?
Thank you in advance for any help!
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