The Omni Group
These forums are now read-only. Please visit our new forums to participate in discussion. A new account will be required to post in the new forums. For more info on the switch, see this post. Thank you!

Go Back   The Omni Group Forums > OmniFocus > Applying OmniFocus
FAQ Members List Calendar Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read

 
TODAY Perspective does not show all todays Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
Hi,

My TODAY Perspective (which I have tweaked in several ways) does not show all todays actions,

and on top of that, doesn't show the DUE today actions:
Should not everything that is due today be started at least today?

And I saw there was an action with a start date: YESTERDAY, which also was not shown in the TODAY Perspective!
Should not everything that should have started yesterday, at least be started today?

So here I have a big question mark,
hope someone more experienced with OF can drop in, :-)

with best regards,
Omar K N
 
How do you have your TODAY perspective set ?

Is your Availability set to Next Action ? To show all tasks it would need to be set to Available or Remaining.
 
Hi Cypher,
I toggled both Available or Remaining, but I have several more START time: TODAY items,
So now I deleted the TODAY perspective altogether and I'll check on David Sparky's excellent OF video (pt.2) how he filtered the TODAY perspective.

BTW he calls it the Available Context
and it is on the MacPower Users videos for OF pt.2; at about 14:30 min.

OK I got this Perspective now, although Available Context includes actions that have NO START date,
how to get rid of those?

bw,
okn
 
the problem is if you set it to only show start today it won't show you the tasks you still have to do that you should have started yesterday or last week so I'm not sure how useful it would be.

I think the best compromise I can think of is to set the perspective to Group by Start. This should give you section headings of Start any Time, Start within the last year, Start within last month, Start Today... etc
Once that is showing collapse the Start Any Time section and then take a snapshot to update the perspective.

This will then show you all of your available tasks that had a start date set. Those without a start date will be hidden in the start anytime section and those with future start dates would be hidden by the Available filter.
 
This is exactly what I was looking for,
I'll check this out tonight,-
Thank you,

okn
 
In general, OmniFocus does not give you the tools you need to create a "today" perspective that doesn't either include some unwanted items, or exclude some that should be present, or both. Therefore, it is counter-productive to try to Nash that square peg into the round hole. Instead, make yourself a set of perspectives that give you the desired set of tasks, and rotate between them repeatedly as you work. I think it is safe to say that everyone wants to complete the tasks due today. Make a perspective that shows them. Use that perspective to clear them out as early in the day as possible. Use another perspective to grab the tasks which are most important, whether you use start dates, context, flags, or whatever to indicate that. Work those tasks after the immediately due tasks. If you weren't able to completely clear the due today list, check it occasionally throughout the day as you encounter different contexts, start dates/times tick by, 3rd parties respond, and any other gating factors are removed. If you're extremely productive and manage to clear both of the lists, look at upcoming due items. Check the overall list of available items by context. Depending on your method for utilizing context, doing so might be appropriate higher up in the list — I make some very narrowly defined contexts to cover tasks which I want to handle whenever the situation permits, but aren't always sufficiently important to merit a trip to that context. If I happen to find myself in that infrequently-visited context, I want to knock off any tasks there even if they aren't otherwise near the top of my usual lists, so I'm not forced to make another trip at some later date (which is probably more disruptive to my overall productivity than spending a little time now). I'm not likely to make a special trip to install some piece of software on my brother-in-law's computer (it can wait until the next visit), but if I do visit, I'll want to get all of those tasks done, temporarily elevating their urgency. That urgency evaporates as soon as I leave, so I prefer not to indicate it with start/due dates and flags.

The point is not to convince you that my method of selecting tasks should be yours as well, but rather to dissuade you from trying to find a Grand Unified Perspective. Switching between perspectives is easy (you can even give them toolbar buttons and keyboard shortcuts), so you should use as many as you need to find exactly the right tasks rather than restrict yourself to one which does a poor job.
 
I agree with the above, I have many perspectives which I switch between throughout the day. No one perspective does everything.

I start my day with a daily checklist perspective, this pushes tasks from three separate checklist projects which trigger at different times of the day. My morning checklist sets me up for the day. The perspective drip feeds the tasks to me one at a time as I work through them.

After my morning checklist comes my Waiting For perspective. I review all the things I'm waiting for and I can flag the ones I want to chase up today.

I then have a Due (unflagged) to show the important tasks I haven't flagged yet. I can quickly review this and flag the ones that I should or want to try to complete today.

I then switch into my Morning Meeting perspective. This lists agenda's for all the people I know I will come into contact with shortly at the morning meeting. This perspective also shows me tasks I have set to the relevant contexts, such as things I need to bring up in the meeting. Some of these tasks will be closed off during the meeting and others will be flagged for additional work today.

By now I'm two hours into my day and only now can I actually start work properly. So I switch to one of my two Flagged and Due perspectives. One shows me by due date, the other by context. I normally work from the context one now. Although I use the due date one to pick the oldest tasks where possible.

If I get all of these done, which doesn't always happen, I move on to my Due perspective to see if I can close out any of these. Some get flagged for tomorrow's important list, others will hopefully get done.

I then switch into my "flagged only" tasks to try and pick off any before they become due.

Towards the end of the afternoon I switch back to my checklist context to be presented with my end of workday checklist. This is again drip fed to me one at a time.

All of the above perspective's only focused on projects and tasks stored in my work folder. I have a separate folder for Home projects and tasks. As I'm leaving work I switch to one of my home perspectives. This shows me errands as well as tasks associated with family members etc. i.e. things I might be able to do on the way home.

Later in the evening I switch back to the Checklist perspective to follow my evening checklist. Here I do things such as review the day, check my calendar and flag tomorrows important tasks.

I also use several other perspectives throughout the day, and I also jump in and out of several context views as I see fit.

Last edited by Cypher; 2013-04-14 at 10:01 AM..
 
!!!
This is really well expressed ”stuff”, meaning toward a well balanced overall process (WBOP) in GTD, which - as you indicate - will take a while to get accustomed to.

Thank you guys,

with best regards,
Omar K N
(Stockholm, Sweden)
 
 


Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search
Display Modes


Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Due Today Perspective harringg OmniFocus 1 for Mac 8 2011-03-12 04:30 PM
Accomplished today Perspective lynnweck OmniFocus 1 for Mac 1 2011-02-18 12:31 PM
Due Today and Flagged in one perspective mikesheerin OmniFocus 1 for Mac 1 2008-12-06 08:27 AM
Perspective only to show Today Othon Leon OmniFocus 1 for Mac 4 2008-03-02 10:39 AM
How to show tasks completed today? alpha OmniFocus 1 for Mac 2 2008-01-08 02:34 AM


All times are GMT -8. The time now is 06:42 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.