[sdennett]

It would be useful to be able to take a list (tasks, projects, etc.) and rank them through the process of making one-to-one ranking decisions. The end result is a ranked list. This can be useful when you have a number of non-dependent tasks within a project, or unrelated tasks that have the same priority.

This feature would be unique to OmniFocus. The only "organizer" that I know of which has had it is the old DOS brainstorming program MaxThink. However, you can see a modern implementation for the Mac, List-Queue, at http://mindfulsystems.com/.

This is probably not a version 1.0 feature, but I'd like to second the request to be able to automatically adjust priorities as LifeBalance does. Even if you don't implement the "balance" model, it would be nice to have the priority of a task rise as its due date gets closer.

It would also be nice to be able to assign an "expiration date" to tasks, so that the ones you never complete (presumably because they don't really matter) could either be deleted or archived to a "someday" folder.

Or, as someone else suggested, task priorities might be adjusted within a context based on project priorities. For example, if you have two phone calls to make (the "phone calls" context), OmniFocus would list first the one which supports the higher priority project.

Thanks for being willing to listen to all these requests, given that OmniFocus isn't even done yet!

Steve

[bluebaltic]

It would also be nice to be able to assign an "expiration date" to tasks, so that the ones you never complete (presumably because they don't really matter) could either be deleted or archived to a "someday" folder.

That is a very interesting idea. I like it! But, I also might worry (fail to trust the system) if I didn't have a handle on things and this happened automatically. It may be better to have that "failure" continue to glare at me in my list for awhile before I sent it off to slumber in a someday folder.

I really like the sounds of automatic prioritization through ranking. I think I'd kill for it, to be frank. I'd be more than happy to give up any manual prioritization system for an automatic prioritization by dragging in a list.

[snarke]

"Expired" is definitely on my list of features for the task manager I was afraid I'd have to write for myself since no product was close enough to actually work for me.

An Expired task would simply be marked as such in some obvious way, saying, in effect "Well, you didn't get this done in time, so now it's pointless. Just check me off or delete me; no point in trying to do me now."

For example, right now on my task list there's an item "Get tickets for 2007 Evergreen A Cappella Festival." The festival starts Oct. 16. I want a due date of the week before, because I need the tickets before I go, and have to have time for them to come in the mail or whatever. But if I don't get them by the 20th, then it's too late; the event is now over, and this task will have expired.

Another example is putting up my Christmas lights. That task is due the week before Thanksgiving. But if I don't get it done by the 16th, it's expired, since I'll be leaving town for the holidays on that day.

Being able to hide Expired tasks in some views or having them sort to the bottom means I can check the list without them cluttering up the view when I'm trying to figure out what's next. I'll actually deal with them when I'm planning out the day (maybe moving the event back for next year, or figuring out an alternative thing to do...)

[jasong]

I agree an "expires on" date could be useful for circumstances where I've added a real drop-dead date to the item (I know, they should all be "drop dead dates" or not have dates on them).

I would hate to see OF tell me that I should make *this* phone call instead of *that* one based on some artificial priority that may not even be accurate at the time I'm looking to make calls, or for which I don't honestly have the energy to do.

No matter how important a call is, if I'm dreading doing it, I'm going to postpone it until I can't anymore (and maybe longer).

[Frosty Crunch]

To me the one-to-one ranking seems a bit much. Can't you drag project items into different orders now?

Although you could choose not to use such a feature, it seems to me that it would be one of those slightly obsessive things that you'd do to procrastinate doing actual work, so it would backfire in a productivity application.