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How to deal with "waiting for" actions and really unavailable actions Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
I tried to ask this in the Omnifocus for mac forum, but I think this is the right place, so I try to ask this again here, to have a suggestion or a best practice.

Like many others, I have contexts for people I interact with, and contexts for "waiting for" actions, mostly for the same people, with the "on hold" mark.
I also set up perspectives that shows me every action which I need to do with the people, so for example I have a perspective called "Serena" that includes actions from context "People : Serena" and from context "Waiting for : Serena".
The problem is that I need to include every "remaining" actions in the perspective, otherwise I would not see the "waiting for" actions, but this way the perspective shows me also the actions I have assigned to Serena that aren't still available, for example because they aren't the next actions in a sequential project.
I can't figure out how to set up the perspective to show me just the actions that I need to see, since all those actions for OF are simply not available, so... do you have any hint to solve this issue?

Bye,
Francesco
 
One suggestion: don't put your Waiting For:XYZ contexts on hold.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by whpalmer4 View Post
One suggestion: don't put your Waiting For:XYZ contexts on hold.
Hi whpalmer4, nice to talk with you directly, I've read a lot of your posts :-)
I tried what you suggest, it seems the only logical solution, but of course in that way all the projects with a waiting for action will results active instead of stalled. I guess I have to try it for a while and decide which is the lesser of two evils.
Is this the way you use waiting for contexts?

Bye,
Francesco

Last edited by magobaol; 2010-07-26 at 12:04 PM..
 
I currently have mine set to be active. I've done it both ways, and there are skilled practitioners in both camps. As you say, try it both ways, and see which works best for you. I seem to flip between the two every time this discussion comes up :-)

If you want a quick way to check items in an on-hold context to make sure they would be available if not on hold, bring up a context view that shows them. Select the specific items you want to check. Now click the Focus button in the toolbar (or View->Focus on Selected Projects, or control-cmd-F), and then switch the view to project or planning mode (View->Planning Mode, or cmd-1). You'll only be viewing the projects that contain the items you had previously selected, and you can judge whether or not you should be working those actions.
 
If you know that someone you are waiting for is not going to respond before some future date, and would like that project to be shown by the Stalled project filter, set a start date on that action which is blocking progress on the project. The project will still be active, but if there aren't any parallel paths to be worked, the future start date on that blocked action will cause it to be caught by the Stalled project filter.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by whpalmer4 View Post
If you want a quick way to check items in an on-hold context to make sure they would be available if not on hold, bring up a context view that shows them.
Hi whpalmer4,
I'm not sure this check is right for me: my trouble is that I have "On hold" contexts, and should disable the "On hold" status, marking them active, as you suggested, but I still want some way to "hide" them from my available actions.

I think I can live with the fact that the projects would be active instead of stalled, but I really need to hide the waiting for actions from my "next action" list, since I have anything to do with them.

I use start date for future actions, but as a manager I have several projects delegated to other people that I check during my daily review: this projects are active, and I need to check them regularly, in order to decide if I want to ask people for some advance status update, so I can't use Start date in this case.

I think the only solution could be if Omni could consider "On hold" status on the actions differently from a generic "Not available" actions.

Bye,
Francesco
 
 


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