[Rob Forsyth]

After >5 years with Life Balance on various Palm devices I'm getting up to speed with OF on iPhone. There's much to like, but also a certain amount of adjustment required to familiar ways of working. I wondered what experienced "switchers" would emphasise?

My starters:

1. The use of start dates instead of lead times. I made extensive use of the ability to individually assign lead times in LB as a way of filtering tasks. Start times are I guess in theory more flexible (though I found it easier to intuit "two weeks" rather than have to specify a precise day). One benefit of the OF approach is the avoidance of artificial "due now" alarms. I used to make extensive use of the "due by" date (with a short lead time) as a way of postponing a task to be revisited in a few days time. Putting the start date back a few days has the same effect without generating lots of screaming red overdue

2. The whole parent-child task thing that I see is extensively discussed elsewhere here, with tasks with children behaving as neither project nor bottom level task. It's taking some getting used to!

Any other changes of philosophy/use anyone would emphasise?

[curt.clifton]

Originally Posted by Rob Forsyth

(though I found it easier to intuit "two weeks" rather than have to specify a precise day)

You can use +2w to specify a start date two weeks hence. For more date tips see this thread.

One thing I missed initially when switching from LB was the use of Places to collect multiple contexts. Perspectives fill that niche in OF. You can save a perspective with just the available contexts for a place selected. For example, my Home Actions perspective includes these contexts: Home, Phone, Briefcase, Mac. It excludes Campus and Errands.