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Feature request: Estimated time in iphone app Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
Hi guys - I currently thrash OF to within an inch of its life, managing a busy team of 10. I use the mac application heavily, along with the iphone app.

I use the phone to do a lot of processing of stuff in the inbox on the way to and from work. I know roughly what proportion of non-meeting time I need to leave free from "planned" work for the left-field stuff that comes in each day. However what I hate is that, having done all that processing on my phone, I then need to go back to the mac app on my desk and add in the estimated times. That's duplicating time, which is exactly what OF and GTD is all about eliminating. So please can we have a means of entering an estimated time in the iphone app? For me it's becoming a MAJOR flaw.

Otherwise it's all fab!!!

g
 
I'm pretty sure we have a feature request open on the ability to add/edit estimates on the phone; if you email the support ninjas they can vote that up on your behalf, or enter a new feature request if there isn't one in the development database. Thanks!
 
Hi there!
I am missing this feature a lot as well. I actually quit entering the time, because I can't use it on my iOS-devices (which I use a lot for choosing my next action).
I am a little surprised that it's not implemented for two reasons:
1. It doesn't seem to be a very elaborate feature (e.g. compared to the perspectives) - or am I a bit naive about just adding a further field to db and views?
2. You're very strict about GTD (e.g. not offering multiple contexts - very sad!) - but this is a rather integral part of GTD. I think David Allen suggest to choose one's next action by context>energy level>time>pay-off..

Please, don't get me wrong. I really appreciate your work. OF is a very reliable and efficient software (complex). Hence, I am wondering, why this feature has been left behind for so long?

Best!
Mathias
 
While duration support would be simpler to add than multiple contexts, it does require reworking the UI for two products (would need to support it on the iPad as well), documentation needs to be updated, etc. As a long-time software engineer, I can attest that many times writing the code was a rather small component of the work required to bring out a new feature! A bit frustrating for everyone...

You do already have the duration information in your database on the iPhone, and you can make some use of it with perspectives. You cannot view it directly or edit it, however.

To make use of the duration estimate field, you need to make a perspective on the Mac that shows actions in context mode, and sorts, groups, and/or searches based on the duration estimate. I've got a perspective I call "Quick Dash" which shows available actions grouped by context, sorted by due date, and selects only those with a duration estimate of 5 minutes or less. Another potentially useful format would be available actions grouped by context, sorted by duration, with duration estimate of 1 hour (which gets everything with an estimate of 1 hour or less) and another one which has the duration estimate of > 1 hour (which gets everything else that has an estimate).

If you make one of these perspectives, but find that the context you are looking at has too many items from which to choose and you really need to know which items have an estimate less than 40 minutes (or any other value that Omni doesn't provide), there's a way to do it that requires a bit of advance planning. Make a handful of actions on the Mac with duration estimates that will give you suitable values. Make sure the name clearly labels the duration attached! Park them somewhere out of the way, with start dates in the future. Now when you need to look at that list and need to draw a line after all of the actions of 40 minutes duration or less, you just change the context of your "yardstick" action of 40 minutes duration and clear the start date. Now, if you have multiple actions of exactly 40 minutes duration, you don't know whether your "yardstick" action is going to be first, last, or in the middle, so if you are concerned about that possibility, perhaps make your duration values for the "yardstick" markers be 1 minute more than advertised. Still not perfect, but the duration estimate probably isn't, either!
 
 


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