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How do I use "Waiting For" or "@waiting"? Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
not sure if there’s a way I can make the app do what I'd like here, but thought I'd ask.

I’ve got my perspective setup to show me what I need to be working on today. I have a task to call Joe and get some information from him. I call and leave a message with his assistant who will check with him and get back to me. I change the context to ‘waiting for’ because I've now done the action item I needed to do.

I’d prefer to not see this task remain in my actionable list. I’d like to see it drop off the main ‘to do today’ perspective and be accessible in a ‘what am I waiting on’ perspective. But without a smart folder paradigm that allows me to select which contexts to include, that ain’t gonna happen.

Is there some other attribute I could change on this task that would get it off my main view but still keep it as an outstanding item elsewhere?
 
You can set up a 'Waiting For' context, and then just put that action into the new Context. You can also use the Context inspector on your new context to uncheck 'Allows next actions'—that then means that any action in that context is never 'available' to be done by you. However, you can easily set up a perspective to look at your Waiting For context for a plain list of everything you're (er) waiting for.
 
thanks Richard.

tried that approach and it doesn't work for me because of a constraint artificially imposed to try to drive to a 'what's due only today' view discussed on another thread.

in the filter bar i have to use that selection for 'coming due', then set coming due to the shortest duration to not see all the other date categories (like next month, next week, etc....). the minute i use that functionality for that purpose (which i believe is not the natural and intended use of the 'coming due' feature), i now cannot select 'next actions' to eliminate the waiting for tasks.

but i think i found a way to handle it on the project side, which i don't like at all. i can create a 'waiting for' project and put its status 'on hold'. the task then stops appearing in my 'to do today' context perspective and i can create a new 'on hold projects' perspective to see what's in that project. but that means i have to take it out of its natural project, which doesn't make any sense.

this is one more reason why i do not like "well could you adapt such and such functionality to make it work" approaches. they always bite you somewhere else. not trying to cross topics on this thread, but we need the organic and natural ability to create a focused view in the context world that just shows us what's due today and prior without having to appropriate things like 'coming due' to make it happen.

give us context-based FOCUS functionality, OmniGroup!
 
This is something I do, and you might find it too cumbersome, but it works for me.

I created a new context called "Waiting For" and make it inactive. So, anything I assigned to it won't show up when I'm in the Active context mode.

If I need to move a task into this new context, I simply bring up the all context filter, and drag and drop it to the waiting for.

When I later get something I was waiting for, I just need to check this context, and I can review it periodically follow up.

I don't think this will interfere with your coming due filter as long as you are in the active context mode.
 
A couple ideas:

Set a "start date" and/or "Due Date" on your waiting task. That should keep it out of your perspective until such a time as you want to be reminded to review it.

To "focus" on multiple contexts, can't you just select those contexts and create a perspective displaying them? If you group by context, it's even easier, because you have, say, "Office" tasks as well as "Waiting" tasks all in one view, but with the Waiters below Office, and therefore visually de-prioritized.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by iNik View Post
A couple ideas:

Set a "start date" and/or "Due Date" on your waiting task. That should keep it out of your perspective until such a time as you want to be reminded to review it.

To "focus" on multiple contexts, can't you just select those contexts and create a perspective displaying them? If you group by context, it's even easier, because you have, say, "Office" tasks as well as "Waiting" tasks all in one view, but with the Waiters below Office, and therefore visually de-prioritized.
This is what I do in your situation. Add the Start Date column to your view so that you can quickly add a new start date with something like "tomorrow" and it'll disappear from your list until tomorrow.
 
Alternatively, if you have an action like "email bob about project" in @computer, make the next action in the (sequential) project "Bob - response re: project" in @waiting for. That way once you complete the email action the waiting action will be automatically activated and added to your waiting list. If you don't include that list in your "stuff to do today" perspective the actions won't show up in your list.
 
well I tried an idea above and discovered a bug I'll submit.

Created a context called “Waiting For”. In the inspector, unchecked it as ‘active’. The good news is that as expected it now disappears from the context pane under ‘available contexts’.

The bad news is, I have a perspective saved that shows me all my flagged tasks. apparently tasks in inactive contexts are recognized by OF as flagged, whether they are flagged or not (these tasks aren’t). So now my flagged perspective is ‘polluted’ with tasks that shouldn’t be there, and are actually almost the opposite of what my flagged tasks are.

So until this bug is fixed, that ain’t gonna work.

Gonna have to stick to using the project side of it, which works, but I don’t like for reasons stated above.
 
To me this discussion and some others are a result of the inability of the selection for perspectives to have booleans. I sent an email to the support ninjas on 4 December but am sure they have not had a chance to even think about if they like the idea or not. I have included the substance here. This is for me the biggest whole in the app now (other than not having an iPhone app. :-)

I have finally figured out what my issue is with getting perspectives the way I want them - I do understand about the option click for contexts to select a subset but that is limited.

I really would like two features however they are implemented from a UI perspective:

1. The ability to perform boolean operations for selection, e.g., show actions in task a AND task B that are in an @waiting context or @waiting AND @delegated.
2. The ability to sort results by more than one criteria - and very quickly without necessarily changing perspective. This is a bit orthogonal to the point above, but it would be helpful. One way might be with a "JTable" like control click.
 
Yep, agreed with the last post.

One of the big questions for me is, when the dust finally settles, how will Perspectives in OF compare with Smart Folders in iGTD2. And who will have the best iPhone integration.

By eschewing the Smart Folder concept (ala Mail or iTunes) and hitching their wagon to the View bar (not even sure what to call it), they’ve necessarily limited our ability to slice and dice what we see and how we see it. I’m already chafing at these limitations and wanting more power and flexibility.

In theory, iGTD2’s marriage of Smart Folders and tabs could be VERY powerful. I just wish their UI was in OF’s class. The more I use OF, the more I wish they had gone a different direction than the View bar, but I'm trying to withhold judgment until the app is in production.
 
 


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