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I've had OmniFocus for awhile and have had trouble getting traction with it. Giving it another go.

Can I nest projects?

For example, I need to create a project called “2008 Taxes”.

That, in turn, needs to have projects underneath it like “Business Taxes” and “Personal Taxes”.

Then Personal Taxes might need a project underneath it like “input investment statements into Quicken”.

How do I do this? If I create a project and drag it onto another project, it looks like it just turned into a task.
 
You can nest projects. Although I don't think OmniFocus calls them nested projects. They call them action groupings.

The dragged projects you describe, are actions until they have children actions. Then they turn into action groupings (nested projects).

I use nested projects frequently. When I get to an action that I can't move foreword on because it needs other actions done to complete it, I create child actions, a nested project.

Working in OmniFocus becomes a way of thinking, brainstorming and learning.
 
Another approach would be to make a folder for the 2008 Taxes, which contains a number of related projects, such as data collection/entry, filling out the personal return, etc. If your business return was due at a different time of the year, would you want it to be in the same project?

You can "nest" projects with action groups, as described, but there are a few things to note. Action groups don't show up in context mode (the included actions do, of course), so there is somewhat lessened visibility compared to using a separate project. Also, an action group that has all of its actions completed but hasn't been checked off will not block subsequent actions in a sequential project. That may not be an issue, but it is not necessarily what one would expect. On the flip side, if you make a complicated structure with a bunch of action groups, sequential and parallel, you do get to control the sequencing/dependencies in a fashion that is somewhat inconvenient with the multiple project approach. With the latter, you'd have to put in some Waiting For actions in appropriate places (or use start dates) to make sure one project didn't start or advance past a synchronization point before the other had reached that point. For example, you wouldn't want to go too far down the path of filing your personal return before you'd gotten all of your tax statements showing income.
 
thanks guys.

So the basic summary is that there are no nested projects in OF. We can do action groups but they will not show up in the project list and will be somewhat treated like actions, but not always in the way one would expect.

Ah well. I’d prefer the ability to create sub projects, but will work with what I've got. Thanks again.
 
 


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