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Would you please help me to understand the purpose of context for projects?

Especially in 'No contexts' of 'Contexts' view.

As I understand context is an action oriented attribute. Projects usually include actions that require different contexts. So usually context for a project would not be relevant.

Contexts for projects may be helpful if I would like actions put into certain project to automatically acquire certain context attribute. Does such feature exist in OmniFocus by the way?

Context for a project may be considered as a summary of project actions' contexts. But it is not created automatically if all actions of the project or most actions of the project have similar contexts.

Besides in 'Context' view 'No Context' option shows projects without context attribute. When I go to 'Context' view I expect to work with actions, it could be actions grouped into projects, but not projects themselves.

If this is a necessary feature could I at least turn off the showing of uncontexted projects in 'Contexts' view?
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by makesense View Post
Would you please help me to understand the purpose of context for projects?

Especially in 'No contexts' of 'Contexts' view.
Most projects won't have a context assigned, so they'll show up under No Context. This probably isn't so useful when you're trying to look at a Contexts list (in which case just click on "Contexts" in the sidebar to exclude everything which doesn't have a context), but it's very useful if you're trying to look at everything which is coming due this week, or everything which has been recently modified or completed, etc.

Quote:
If this is a necessary feature could I at least turn off the showing of uncontexted projects in 'Contexts' view?
As noted above, you can hide everything with no context by clicking on Contexts in the sidebar.

You can also hide everything which is unavailable by setting your View->Availability Filter to "Available", which is how I usually look at my context lists. (In that case, you'll only see projects show up once all of their actions have been completed, in which case that's probably a fine time to either check them off or add more actions.)

Finally, you can simply select "View->Hide Parent Items in Context Mode" if you simply want to hide all projects and groups.

Hope this helps!
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken Case View Post
in which case just click on "Contexts" in the sidebar to exclude everything which doesn't have a context)
I see the following problem here:

I will have a lot of project without contexts. I will also have a lot of actions without contexts. It will be difficult to follow actions in Context View mixed projects without context. And I will not be able to hide all 'No Context' items as I still need to see my actions.

I would love to be able to turn off the showing of uncontexted projects in Context View.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken Case View Post
but it's very useful if you're trying to look at everything which is coming due this week, or everything which has been recently modified or completed, etc.
I will think about it, thank you.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken Case View Post
You can also hide everything which is unavailable by setting your View->Availability Filter to "Available", which is how I usually look at my context lists. (In that case, you'll only see projects show up once all of their actions have been completed, in which case that's probably a fine time to either check them off or add more actions.)

Finally, you can simply select "View->Hide Parent Items in Context Mode" if you simply want to hide all projects and groups.
Yes, this can help at some point. But these are extreme solutions for me.

On a review stage I would like to be able to see all the actions with groupings (incl. actions with no context and not available). This is not a focused approach but I'm sure I will use it often to estimate overall position.
 
I too am confused about having my no context actions mixed with the no context projects. I am having a hard time getting around this feature, although I have been using OF for years. How do I separate the no context actions from the no context projects when scanning this list? Seems to me this will take some time if the project list is long, which it is.
 
To re-quote Ken.

Filter by available.

You will not see projects in the no context list, unless the project has no actions.

If you see projects in no contexts, complete or add actions and they will disappear from the no contexts.

Last edited by SpiralOcean; 2010-09-10 at 05:42 AM..
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by SpiralOcean View Post
To re-quote Ken.

Filter by available.

You will not see projects in the no context list, unless the project has no contexts.

If you see projects in no contexts, complete or add actions and they will disappear from the no contexts.
Filtering by available won't let you work with the remaining part of the database which is equally important.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by makesense View Post
I see the following problem here:

I will have a lot of project without contexts. I will also have a lot of actions without contexts. .
Hm... I think you might want to avoid having Actions without Contexts. In the context of this application (sorry) "Context" indicates the indispensable setting in which an Action can be completed (Phone, Home, Computer, Internet, Grocery store, etc.). If you cannot think of the indispensable setting for the completing of a give Action, it will be difficult to bring yourself to do start and complete the Action.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by imlad View Post
Hm... I think you might want to avoid having Actions without Contexts. In the context of this application (sorry) "Context" indicates the indispensable setting in which an Action can be completed (Phone, Home, Computer, Internet, Grocery store, etc.). If you cannot think of the indispensable setting for the completing of a give Action, it will be difficult to bring yourself to do start and complete the Action.
I'd better have another item in options or in filter.

I'm happy for you if you always can and want to waste time to assigning contexts.

I have a project oriented action workflow and not contexts. I do things when they become yellow and red (time for action according to calendar) and not when context becomes available. I can do most of my actions at any given moment so I'm still priority and importance oriented and not place or way-of-doing oriented.

Most of my actions are work related and at work I have several contexts to do any action and I have 6 means to communicate, delegate and monitor almost everything. I usually don't know what will be the most appropriate way to assign the context time- and resource-wise before it is almost time for action. I wished my actions would be like do homework or buy ice cream - but they are not.

I find myself to never use contexts in OmniFocus when performing actions. Maybe that is because I'm used to another workflow in Excel spreadsheets which I used for ToDos for ages, maybe I'm not a fan of GTD, or maybe I don't like contexts of OF particularly. Because when I used Things I used contexts window (often multiple contexts).

On the other hand I have a lot of actions and projects - so I don't want to waste those seconds to assign contexts which are almost useless for me.

Much more important for me to hide projects (having no actions at all, no next actions or no available actions viewable in accordance to filter) as my tree is big.

Last edited by makesense; 2010-11-27 at 09:28 PM..
 
I have one project, staff scheduling, where the context doesn't really matter but when I sit down to working on the schedule I'll use whatever contexts are called for (laptop, work, phone, etc) and work OF out of Project mode with a dedicated perspective. Now this project may be more regimented than your work flow but I have start dates to keep future months invisible. The Project Filter is Active, the Availability Filter is Available. If there is an actionless project (Month) appearing with grey type in the action list it is because there are future Remaining actions for that active project (which is a good reminder that there will be more to do there). If I switch the Availability Filter to Remaining then I see what's on my plate to get done in grey type.

I do use Contexts for everything, but rely on default contexts as much as possible. If you don't, then just be sure to the preference to clean up the inbox without requiring a Context.

Could you use start and due dates to convey your yellow and red info?

There's nothing intrinsically wrong about OF working out of Project mode if that is how you are working in your head.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by makesense View Post
I'd better have another item in options or in filter.

Most of my actions are work related and at work I have several contexts to do any action and I have 6 means to communicate, delegate and monitor almost everything. I usually don't know what will be the most appropriate way to assign the context time- and resource-wise before it is almost time for action. I wished my actions would be like do homework or buy ice cream - but they are not.
If this is the case, then maybe in your particular circumstance you are taking too granular a view of what a context needs to be. Maybe those six means to communicate, etc. need to be abstracted into one meta context that captures the whole thing. Then if you apply it, it's more than just a placeholder. Instead, it captures the actual reality of what it is to deal with those tasks.

It's kind of the reverse of a person who does all of their work inside the computer. In that instance, having a context called "computer" isn't very helpful. Maybe you need a context for each piece of software you use, or as in my case, two contexts called computer on-line and computer off-line.

It seems to me that if it takes too much thought to assign a context, then probably more thought needs to be put into the context definitions (i.e., they are are either too granular or not granular enough).

I did some reading at Merlin Mann's 43 Folders where he talked about contexts and how to define them. I found that very helpful back in the early days of the Omnioutliner GTD solution that was the precursor to OF.

I mostly just moved those same contexts over to OF when I bought it.
 
 


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