[sirvivian]

To assign priority to Projects you can use the Focus feature in OF combined with Perspectives. Simply select the projects you consider to be priorities by holding down the Command key and then click Focus. I do this to save a new perspective called "Priority Projects". You could potentially have several Priority Project perspectives.
I also use flags separately to concentrate on what I want to get done today. I have created a perspective, which strips out all the other info in the OF window like the toolbar, sidebar and view. It's great for ploughing through my list of priority actions for the day.

[peterlemer]

Originally Posted by sirvivian

To assign priority to Projects you can use the Focus feature in OF combined with Perspectives. Simply select the projects you consider to be priorities by holding down the Command key and then click Focus. I do this to save a new perspective called "Priority Projects". You could potentially have several Priority Project perspectives..

Do you have a way to make this dynamic? IOW if you need to add a new priority or remove an existing one, do you need to rebuild a new focuslist from the library each time?

My current PIM is MORI, which allows me to create custom fields, and I have a simple one which allows me to set priorities from 1-9 and sort accordingly. this is extremely dynamic. Can I set up OF in a similar way?

peter

[BwanaZulia]

(getting suckered into this...)

Again, priority and energy level are just not concrete enough to capture. What might be a hard task today when you write it down (EX: Start big report @ Computer - HIGH ENERGY) might be easy to do after a day or two of thinking about it.

Same thing with priority. A priority for any task can change day to day, minute to minute. You have no idea what the future state of the project or task will be when you right it down.

BZ

[curt.clifton]

Originally Posted by peterlemer

My current PIM is MORI, which allows me to create custom fields, and I have a simple one which allows me to set priorities from 1-9 and sort accordingly. this is extremely dynamic. Can I set up OF in a similar way?

A future version of OF will include custom meta-data fields that will let you do exactly that. In the interim, some people use the estimated time column as a meta-data column.

[peterlemer]

Command-Focus doesn't seem to work on single actions. This isn't the best way for me to assign priorities. Is there a workaround?

peter

[sirvivian]

Peter, I didn't make if very clear in my original post. You command-click to select multiple projects. Then, when you've chosen the projects you want to be in your Priority Perspective, you separately click "Focus" in the toolbar. If you don't have Focus in the toolbar, you can easily add it by ctrl-clicking on the toolbar and choosing "customize toobar"

[peterlemer]

BZ - I make a distinction between priority and energy level.
I'm very much an 'african time'* person - and I like to look ahead and see priorities lined up, like holes on a silly golf course.
I'm not very good with setting dates - I'm self- employed and work from home, and often find that I float into different projects as others make demands, or as I feel like it.

[peterlemer]

sirvivian - thanks for persisting :-)

How can I use your method on single-actions?

peter

[sirvivian]

Peter, as far as I know using the "Focus" option only lets you focus on individual projects or folders. So you can't choose individual tasks to include in your "priority" perspective. Alternatively, I would suggest making use of flags. And as Curt said, soon you will be able to add whatever meta data you like in a separate column.

[mitchm]

I completely disagree that priority is too nebulous to record. While it may be the 4th factor in the GTD decision process, once you are in a context, know your time available, and know you energy level - you need to decide which of those 100 tasks that fit the current criterea to do! I might have a high energy right now and am at my computer ready to work, and have a list of 100 30 minutes tasks. How can you possibly do that without recording some sort of priority?

If priorities change over time, then reprioritize! Prioritizing is an essential part of managing your life and time. Perhaps your list is small enough that you can glance at the whole thing and pick out the top priority ones, but mine is not.

Incidentally, I just found a solution that pretty much solves this problem for me. I can tell you, priorties make a HUGE difference in the usability of OmniFocus. Look at the solution (and my longer rant) here:

http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=11529