[Greg Jones]

Originally Posted by Toadling

Greg/Malisa: Do either of you face similar situations? If so, how do you handle them with your external list formats?

I used to put a lot of support materials directly in OF, but the extremely poor sync times that I was getting with OF iPhone 1.5 made me change my thinking. I had to trim down my database as much as possible, so support materials came out. I expect that with 1.6, this would not be as much of an issue as it once was, due to the great sync time improvement.

I tried Evernote but I just could not get my arms around it. I can appreciate how others may love it, but I just could not make it fit for me. I've used Shovebox Mac/iPhone and for a light weight database it has a lot going for it. I still have it installed, but I don't use it as much as I once did. Currently I'm using a beta iPhone app that I cannot talk much about due to a NDA, but DEVONthink Pro users are going to love it. The combo works very well together, and DEVONthink Pro already integrates very nicely with OmniFocus and OmniOutliner Pro.

[Toadling]

@Greg: From your earlier post, it sounded like you were using plain text files to store lists of items like movies, books, etc. But from your more recent post, it sounds like you're using a variety of database apps. Do you use both or did I misunderstand your earlier post?

BTW, thanks for responding. It's always interesting to hear how others organize their systems. :-)

-Dennis

[viewpoint]

Wow, thanks to all for the great, thoughtful, organized posts. Much appreciated. whpalmer4, thanks for the screen shots!

How about a SAL with items under it, VS. a parallel project?

I've read on here how some people use a "msc" SAL for all the actual SINGLE actions. Some have multiple SAL items in a folder "Home: SAL #1" vs one SAL with all different the single actions listed.

Any comments/observations on this? Maybe I'm missing something obvious.

This is what has confused me w/OF. if it is a SINGLE action, why does it even have the possibility of items under it? Doesn't the very tem, "single action LIST" seem odd?

I have, any it seems most people on here, have a Home folder, a Work folder, and one or more other folders. With a Folder #1 Home: Home: SAL, Home:Project #1, etc
Folder #2 Work: Work:SAL, Work:Project #1 etc

[Greg Jones]

Originally Posted by Toadling

Do you use both or did I misunderstand your earlier post?

I use both, in tandem. Almost every text file on my system (Rich or Plain) was created in, or captured to, a DEVONthink database. DEVONthink is a pretty capable writing/editing environment when the formatting/annotation features of a Word processor are not needed.

[whpalmer4]

Originally Posted by viewpoint

How about a SAL with items under it, VS. a parallel project?

I'm assuming you mean a SAL that has action groups -- a SAL with nothing in it doesn't really merit discussion.

I've read on here how some people use a "msc" SAL for all the actual SINGLE actions. Some have multiple SAL items in a folder "Home: SAL #1" vs one SAL with all different the single actions listed.

Any comments/observations on this? Maybe I'm missing something obvious.

If you wanted to assert that "single action lists" are somewhat confusingly named, I wouldn't object.

The concept is not that actions in the list can only have a single step, though that may often be the case. SALs exist as a way to house actions which may not rise to the level of projects, as the current object model of OmniFocus doesn't allow you to have single actions in the project list. In OmniFocus 2, this restriction is apparently being removed. Very early on, there was no SAL concept, only sequential and parallel projects. You can see some of the evolution of the concept in this thread.

This is what has confused me w/OF. if it is a SINGLE action, why does it even have the possibility of items under it? Doesn't the very tem, "single action LIST" seem odd?

I have, any it seems most people on here, have a Home folder, a Work folder, and one or more other folders. With a Folder #1 Home: Home: SAL, Home:Project #1, etc
Folder #2 Work: Work:SAL, Work:Project #1 etc

Someone already had a trademark on "big bag of tasks", I think :-)

Again, the notion is that it is a collection of items which may be relatively independent of each other. For example, I've got a Photography folder. In it, I'll have projects for various things -- "Photograph holiday party at school" would have actions like "Pack flash equipment", "Back up raw images", "Publish processed images to class website" and so on. There are also going to be things that need to happen which aren't necessarily part of any given project, like rotating batteries, periodically exercising the shutters in less frequently-used gear, checking for new firmware versions, etc. Those sorts of tasks will end up in my Photography : Miscellaneous SAL. At some point in the future if I'm working on photography matters and want to spend some time keeping my house in order, so to speak, I can just select that SAL in the sidebar and there I've got my list of miscellaneous photography-related tasks from which to choose.

Another reason for using SALs is that some feel there is an fundamental difference between a project (a list of steps to achieve some outcome) and an area of responsibility (which may not have a final outcome). For example, we've got a small menagerie of pets. There are numerous actions which need to be done on a daily or weekly basis, some on a monthly basis, some on a yearly basis. There are some obvious projects, like "Get cat microchipped" (which requires finding the best place to have it done, filing some paperwork, making sure the records get updated, but in the end there is a distinct outcome), and some things which are clearly not projects, but need to get done ("empty litter box", "buy more cat food"). My organization is a folder devoted to pet-related topics, which includes both projects and a SAL or two. Some of us object philosophically to projects without outcomes and prefer to use SALs instead for such collections of ongoing tasks. Could those collections be implemented instead as parallel projects? In most cases, yes. But if implementing it with a SAL adds more value to your setup, why not?

Finally, I'm not aware of any place where an individual action can't be replaced by an action group ("putting things under it"). This allows structuring activities in ways that would be awkward otherwise. As an example, say I've got some orchids that need to be watered every week, and every 3rd time or so they also need to be fertilized the next day. This task lives in a SAL (it's not a project), and is structured with an action group that has two actions (watering the first week, watering the second week) with start dates followed by an action group (water the third week, mix orchid fertilizer, fertilize orchids) that also has start dates and a due date on the fertilizing step to make sure it gets done the next day. In theory, I could set up a bunch of different repeating actions that accomplished the same effect, but it would be more difficult to see the intended result and a headache to maintain.

Clearly, I find SALs to be useful constructs in OmniFocus! I guess that explains why I've got 38 of them at the moment :-)

[viewpoint]

I'm getting closer to understanding the OF way. I think. It seems there are four basic ways to organize information in OF. Assume a list of 4 things to do, that do not need to be done sequentially.

I've attached screen captures so you can see what I am describing in #1,#2,#3, #4

1)Parallel Project with 4 items
2) Single Action List with 4 items
(These two seem the same except for a different icon?)

3) a listing of individual Single Action Lists, in no folder
4) a Folder to collapse/show the SALs in #3

that last one #3 creates a long list in the sidemenu, easy to glace at, but maybe too much clutter for the side menu. Placed in a folder, they can be shown/hidden quickly. Where #1 and #2 need to be selected to see the contents inside.

Is there a practical difference or work flow difference between these ways ways? I understand that conceptually a "project" is more than one related physical action, where Single Actions are not dependent. But in the use of OF, aside from a different icon, is there any difference between these methods? If there is or isn't, how do you like to use/organize?

Thanks in advance, great forum participants!

[malisa]

I'm not going to tackle the whole post, but I'll tackle this part.

Originally Posted by viewpoint

1)Parallel Project with 4 items
2) Single Action List with 4 items
(These two seem the same except for a different icon?)

These are only different when using the Next Action Status Filter.

If the Status Filter is set to Remaining or Available, the display would be the same. (All black, lavender, and blue tasks would show). But if the Status Filter is set to Next Action, then only ONE very NEXT action would show in a project (lavender) and ALL the actions would show in a SAL (blue).

As for the other options, the only thing I'll say is that when I devise things on the desktop that I think are beautiful, with nicely organized hierarchies of folders...they drive me nuts on the iphone, so I go back and often flatten them out.

If you are going to be using desktop and iphone versions, try your structure on both before you totally fall in love with it.

[whpalmer4]

If you are using both iPhone and desktop, whether to have a single SAL or a collection of them will depend somewhat on whether you expect you'll want to look at the SALs individually very often, or whether you're going to want to view them as a group more often. On the iPhone, it isn't convenient to pull up a view that shows all of the actions in SALs #1-4 simultaneously -- you would need to build a perspective, and I don't think you could do it on the fly. On the desktop, you could just click on the ones you wanted in the sidebar.

[macula]

Originally Posted by whpalmer4

One more addition: instead of "not blocked by a start date" in the SAL cases, it should read "not blocked by a start date or an incomplete prior sequential action" because it is possible to have action groups in SALs, and if the action group is sequential, the first action blocks subsequent actions from being considered available or next actions.

Now that's something I'd never crossed my mind in the few weeks of OF usage! Action groups in SALs!

What's the difference, conceptually, between a project and an action-group-within-a-SAL?

When would you use the former and when the latter?

[whpalmer4]

If you look up to one of my earlier posts in this thread, I give an example dealing with watering and fertilizing some orchids where I use an action group in a SAL.

I don't like projects that don't have endpoints, or that have endpoints like "Take care of the cat until it is dead" :-) For such open-ended "projects" I prefer to use a SAL, possibly with some action groups. For me, the difference in behavior regarding next action vs. available between parallel projects and SALs is inconsequential, in large part because I don't make much use of the next action view. Your mileage may vary, of course.

Sometimes I'll have an ongoing activity where I'll choose to set it up as a repeating project because I may want to put it on hold or otherwise treat it like a project or because I think there is some reason to have the active or completed chunks live separately. An example that comes to mind is a pair of projects to change the ceiling fans to run in summer or winter mode. They aren't symmetrically placed in the year, so having them as separate projects allows them to be reviewed on their own schedule. Most of the year I don't need to be reviewing the project, but once the appropriate season rolls around, I'll review it more often to make sure it is getting done (I've got a lot of ceiling fans, and some of them need a ladder to be changed, so the whole project doesn't usually happen at once). Because OF allows me to set both the date of the next review and the review period, I can arrange for those projects not to show up in my reviews until such time as I might actually be doing them. I couldn't do that if I squashed them together into a single SAL or a single project.

Stay tuned for more obscure OmniFocus tips :-)