[MJK]

Originally Posted by Toadling

Actually, I think David Allen suggests that "hard landscape" items (appointments, meetings, and other items that must happen at a specific date/time) go into your calendar and everything else goes onto your action lists.

It seems some people see only OmniFocus as their "trusted system", but I think David Allen intended the "trusted system" to be a collection of these tools (i.e. action list, calendar, reference files, possibly a tickler file, etc.).

-Dennis

This is definitely possible and if you follow GTD, you surely know that people understand it differently when they read the book again and I've only read it once so far. This is actually why I said "the way I understand it". I have read about it elsewhere for a long time and all, but the point is that you understand it differently at different times.

And regardless, I don't think anyone who is serious about productivity could say that using iCal is efficient. The interface needs a lot of work to make it work fast and while it looks pretty, adding new items is not near the level of OmniFocus.

This is kind of my point, I want an efficient way of adding and maintaining my actions and this is exactly why I would like to be able to add and maintain my life in OmniFocus, but sync it over to other useful tools like a calendar.

I'm sure you get what I'm going for :)

As a side note, I currently use flags in OmniFocus to mark my "hard landscape" items. Probably not the best way of doing it, but it works.

[chinarut]

Ken, thanks for the ptrs to those articles - u gave lots of food for thought!

I am doing my best to keep this discussion focused on the day-specific next actions and realizing it's difficult to understand its need without additional context...

I am actively fusing the best of both GTD and Mission Control together using OF as my platform. Please kindly chime in on this thread if you wish to comment on Mission Control.

I'd like to make an attempt to get rid of the significance of the battle between:

1. what is shared in regards to keeping your hardscape "clean" and free of items that don't have to be done on a specific day. I agree, there is merit to this.
2. a Mission Control inspired school of thought which states your calendar and commitments are one at the same. By relating to your calendar as your word, you make outcomes happen in reality by putting a series of 1 or more accomplishments in your calendar.

therefore, the ability to denote a next action as a calendar item is now seen from two different (but related) perspectives:

1. only a handful (if any) of one's next actions will be scheduled. some (if any) projects may have a next action on your calendar (ie. a meeting).
2. most (if not all) of one's next actions will be scheduled. most (if not all) projects will have a next action on your calendar as a commitment to complete it in time, in reality, as a future.

This is how I can best describe both sides of the spectrum and how such a feature would be useful regardless of which side you are more biased towards.

Without such a feature being implemented, I do not believe it is practical to go with #2 - thus I fall off the Mission Control horse quite often. this is where OF has the opportunity to come save the day :)

I am taking on my 2nd week of my evaluation in a more GTD-centric manner (#1) and look forward to finding a nice middle ground!

[brianogilvie]

Originally Posted by chinarut

...a Mission Control inspired school of thought which states your calendar and commitments are one at the same. By relating to your calendar as your word, you make outcomes happen in reality by putting a series of 1 or more accomplishments in your calendar.

I'm not sure I get this. Do you put your accomplishments in the calendar AFTER you have accomplished them, as a kind of a time log, or do you put things in your calendar BEFORE you accomplish them, as a means of inducing yourself to do them? The rest of the post implies that it's the latter. But how do you deal with emergencies, interruptions, or the fact that tasks often take longer than you think they will?

[chinarut]

brian, I saw your other post and debating whether to shift this part of the conversation there.

I'll reply here for the sake of continuity and to further clarify the 2 key applications of day-specific next actions I am eluding to.

Originally Posted by brianogilvie

Do you put your accomplishments in the calendar AFTER you have accomplished them, as a kind of a time log, or do you put things in your calendar BEFORE you accomplish them, as a means of inducing yourself to do them? The rest of the post implies that it's the latter.

you are correct - the latter!

Originally Posted by brianogilvie

But how do you deal with emergencies, interruptions, or the fact that tasks often take longer than you think they will?

very insightful. I have run into this issue and learned to do a few things:

1. create accomplishments around nothing
2. create space between blocks (ie. usually 15 min)
3. create accomplishments to do with the unknowns, unexpected (they are inevitable so you might as well acknowledge they are going to happen!)
4. schedule as much time as intuitively you feel makes you peaceful (this works great when you are dealing with transportation - in my case train schedules in Tokyo which are amazingly accurate but clearly don't take into account your own humanity getting to the train station!)

that said, I don't claim to have everything figured out - I just get that traceability from any declared accomplishments in my calendar to OF (and vice versa) would be very much appreciated so thanks for helping me keep up this conversation! :)

[chinarut]

ok - now that my eval is over and I've made a commitment to OF (yeay!) - I thought I'd comment on this feature request further.

I started to experiment further with attaching dates using OF and found with the Growl integration, it was a lot more pleasant to get visual reminders and it was also nice to see next actions shift in colors from purple, to orange, to red - not to mention the colored bubbles that show up in the left-hand pane - must have really pleased my right brain :)

All in all, I was better able to keep to David Allen's suggestion to reserve the use of one's calendar for actions that must happen on a specific day than in the past. I also discovered because OF has features to encourage and facilitate the weekly review process, it is easier to catch those actions that go stale and are not moving (opposed to getting lost in "the cloud" in the past and just going plain numb!)

That said, I don't have an immediate need for this feature and would still like it to be on your backburner. I can see a more rigid "hard landscape" in my future but not now.

be good to hear other thoughts.