[Natdog]

Could anyone share the most elegant way to keep all my everyday work tasks from showing up overdue on the weekend? It's distracting.

[whpalmer4]

What I do is simply make 5 copies of the task, one for each weekday, with a start date so it doesn't show up before its day, and set to repeat weekly. I'll often put the weekday in the action name in parentheses just to help keep it straight if I miss a few days and have to reschedule them. Here's an example of the obvious thing (which ends up with unwanted repeats on the weekend) followed by my version. Note that in mine, the repeats are every 1 week, not every 1 day, and that the project is set to be parallel so that Tuesday's action isn't blocked by Monday's action from next week, as OmniFocus will insert the new action for Monday next week immediately after Monday's action of this week. Also, if you are viewing available or next actions instead of remaining actions, you won't see all the other days if you've set up start dates.



It's a bit more work to set up, but less work on an ongoing basis.

[Natdog]

Cool... well, sort of. I was afraid the answer would be something like this. I guess (once again) I've got my work cut out for me. I've got tons of these. Hopefully these seemingly endless gyrations are going to pay off once I pass the newbie phase and get everything set up and running smoothly.

Life Balance used to let me set up hours for my contexts (or "places" as they call them). My work and home schedules are pretty regular; so too are various weekly meetings with certain people. --I drop off my kids at school at the same time every day, the bank has late hours on thursday, yada yada...

So yeah, it's cool that my iPhone can suggest contexts based upon my current location, but it seems almost like a gimmick compared with something as seemingly straightforward as a context based on time. Last I checked, in addition to a GPS, the phone had a clock.

Ugh. Sorry if I seem grumpy. I do really appreciate the reply. It's a lovely workaround. But I'm beginning to worry that perhaps I'm trying to put a square peg in a round hole. And it bums me out because there is a lot that I really like about OF.

[whpalmer4]

Well, that's certainly not the only possible solution. Another is to download Dan Byler's Defer script. When you wake up Saturday morning and see all of those things that don't apply to the weekend, you click on all of them, launch the script and defer them until Monday.

I've also suggested time-based contexts, but I think that is a concept that hasn't occurred to enough people to reach critical mass.

[pjb]

Originally Posted by Natdog

Cool... well, sort of. I was afraid the answer would be something like this. I guess (once again) I've got my work cut out for me. I've got tons of these. Hopefully these seemingly endless gyrations are going to pay off once I pass the newbie phase and get everything set up and running smoothly.

It will get even better when you have Perspectives to show you what you need when you're at work and when you're not. There's been talk about tagging which would let you do things like have a task for a work context and a weekday, for example, but it's not there yet.

Originally Posted by Natdog

...schedules are pretty regular; so too are various weekly meetings with certain people. --I drop off my kids at school at the same time every day, the bank has late hours on thursday, yada yada...

These kinds of things should not be in OF, by my reckoning, but on your calendar, since they truly are regular things (except maybe the bank when it comes to locations and the iPhone, in which case I could not agree more with your request for time + location tags). You might need to check off that a meeting was held before you can move on to some next tast; think "had meeting" instead of "go to meeting".

[whpalmer4]

Originally Posted by pjb

These kinds of things should not be in OF, by my reckoning, but on your calendar, since they truly are regular things (except maybe the bank when it comes to locations and the iPhone, in which case I could not agree more with your request for time + location tags). You might need to check off that a meeting was held before you can move on to some next tast; think "had meeting" instead of "go to meeting".

I interpreted his comments differently. He's not interested in using OmniFocus to remind him that he has a meeting at 4pm on Thursday, but rather that on Thursday afternoons he's at the branch office and so it should show him tasks from the branch office context then. Or that there are phone calls that need to be made during a specific window each day, so show the calls that have that context in the list of available actions during those hours.

This can actually be accomplished right now with the aid of iCal. Put in a calendar event with an alarm that opens a URL of the form omnifocus:///perspective/perspectivename and you'll get a window opened up in OmniFocus displaying that perspective at the time of the calendar event.

[Natdog]

Yes whpalmer, that is what I meant but I wasn't clear.

I have tons of mundane little things I have to remember to stay on track. They generally always happen in the same places and during the same hours.

It's not that I need to remember to bring my kids to school (well, heh... I do but that's another story --iCal works fine for that LOL). What I need is to see, while I am there, that I need to drop off those forms, pick up the old moldy thermos, and, if i happen to see her, introduce myself to Billy's mom who happens to be production manager at MongoCorpGlobal.

I see no reason why I should need to do anything to see that list if I know it's going to be Tuesday at 8:45 am. I should just be able to just open my list and see my stuff. Instead I'm fumbling about, trying to remember which perspective is going to work best for this. Do I want to see "next" or "remaining"?. Oooh look... cool. There's a hardware store nearby and I need nails. Meanwhile there goes Billy's mom, driving off --probably giving my competitor a ride to work.

During the week I need help remembering stupid stuff --lots of it (like "refill humidifiers" so the instruments don't go out of tune). Same with home. But when the weekend comes up and I start seeing lots of overdue flags for stuff I can't do it makes the concept of overdue items sort of meaningless.

The extra step of running a script just isn't me (not that I don't appreciate the tip. I do!). I'm going to sit down and copy my repeating stuff so it shows up weekly as you suggested. I guess that will work. A lot of it I can probably copy and paste in blocks. But there's a lot of little stuff and it's going to be tedious work... work that I've already done, and done again.

So again, thanks. I too shall submit a feature request. The nice folks at Omni are getting to know me I'm afraid. Probably as the guy that whines a lot. Have you used OF long? Have they been responsive to suggestions? Do they update, improve frequently?

[Brian]

Originally Posted by Natdog

I see no reason why I should need to do anything to see that list if I know it's going to be Tuesday at 8:45 am. I should just be able to just open my list and see my stuff. Instead I'm fumbling about, trying to remember which perspective is going to work best for this. Do I want to see "next" or "remaining"?. Oooh look... cool. There's a hardware store nearby and I need nails. Meanwhile there goes Billy's mom, driving off --probably giving my competitor a ride to work.

Personally, I have my phone set to always show me "remaining" actions; I prefer to see the list of items I added to OmniFocus for my current location even if I can't do some of them right now.

I don't mind bringing the context list for my current location up myself, but I can see how that would be handy if my schedule had less variation. On the flipside, though, it would really annoy me if I deviated from the planned schedule and my phone was showing me the wrong task list...

We do have feature requests on time-based contexts in the dev database, as well as repeat types that exclude the weekends. By emailing the ninjas and letting them know you need them, it helps bump them up the task list. (In general, we try to add the things that the most folks have let us know they need first.)

Originally Posted by Natdog

The nice folks at Omni are getting to know me I'm afraid. Probably as the guy that whines a lot.

Now I think you're being too hard on yourself - when someone lets us know what they need to make the app better, they're doing us a favor. :-)

Originally Posted by Natdog

Have they been responsive to suggestions? Do they update, improve frequently?

Does "we try to be" count as an answer? :-)

[Natdog]

Personally, I have my phone set to always show me "remaining" actions; I prefer to see the list of items I added to OmniFocus for my current location even if I can't do some of them right now.

That is sometimes the case for me as well, but more often there is just such a large pile of stuff for me to sort through that it all becomes sort of meaningless. Not to beat a dead horse, but I think some kind of prioritization might solve this for me. I am probably using OF to keep track of a lot of things most people don't need to. I probably also have to refine my use of contexts, etc. although I do now have quite a few (as well as nested contexts). But it just feels overly complicated. Sorry, this may be a rant for another thread.

I don't mind bringing the context list for my current location up myself, but I can see how that would be handy if my schedule had less variation. On the flipside, though, it would really annoy me if I deviated from the planned schedule and my phone was showing me the wrong task list...

Fair enough. Although wouldn't it be no more difficult than choosing a context, just as one often does now anyhow?

By emailing the ninjas and letting them know you need them, it helps bump them up the task list.

Oh yeah. I've been all over that :-) That's why sometimes I feel like a whiner. Just to be crystal clear: that's my own baggage ;). Nobody has ever even slightly done anything to make me feel like a PITA. Thanks for the encouragement.

Does "we try to be" count as an answer? :-)

Absolutely. I guess given that you (I assume) work at Omni, I may have put you in a bit of an awkward position. I was meaning to poll the users. But FWIW, the consistently positive, helpful, and thoughtful communications that I have had with every one of you is one of the main reasons why I'm still toughing it out with OF. By asking that question, I guess I was doing a bit of a reality check to see if my intuition was correct. I'm definitely hoping for some changes. But I do admit I have a lot to learn and I'm feeling somewhat hopeful. Thanks man. -Nathan

[eurobubba]

Originally Posted by Natdog

Cool... well, sort of. I was afraid the answer would be something like this. I guess (once again) I've got my work cut out for me. I've got tons of these. Hopefully these seemingly endless gyrations are going to pay off once I pass the newbie phase and get everything set up and running smoothly.

Maybe you could group all your repeating tasks in a single-item list, or make them sub-tasks of a parent task. Then you'd only have to make five copies of the parent item and set those to repeat weekly, not every individual task.