[michaeltdoan]

I'm trying to use the "available" and "next actions" filters but it simply doesn't work for me on Mac, iPhone, and iPad or I can't figure out the logic behind it.

I have to medicate my twice a day, once in the morning and once at night. I have to do this indefinitely, so I set up a project called "Medicate dog" with no start dates or due dates, and no repeat.

In the Mediate Dog project I have two tasks: 1) Medicate dog - AM and 2) Medicate dog - PM. For task #1, I set a start date of 0:00 (24 hour format) today and a due date of 09:00 today. For task #2, I set a start time of 17:00 today and a due date of 23:00 today. Both of these tasks are set to repeat everyday. The context is set to "home".

I would expect to see, when I wake up at 07:00, that task #1 is a Next Action or an Available action. I would also expect that task #1 would be past due by 09:01 but still would show up when Next Action and Available actions filters are on. I would also expect to *not* see task #2 until 17:00.

As I write this, it's 19:30 hrs. I'm looking at my "home" context with the "Next Actions" filter on. I would expect to see Task #2 (Medicate dog - PM), but I see nothing. When I change the filter to "Available", I still see nothing. When I change the filter to "Remaining", I finally see Task #2 (which is colored orange which I believes that it's available to do).

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks in advance for shedding any light on this. Please please, I don't want to go back to Things, but this is driving me crazy!

[whpalmer4]

The issue is almost certainly that you've set up your project as a sequential project, but what you want is for it to be parallel. If you look at your project viewing remaining actions, you'll see that tomorrow's Medicate Dog - AM action is at the top of the list (because it was inserted just after today's Medicate Dog - AM action when you completed it). The Next Action is always the uppermost available action in the list — date and time only come into play when determining if that uppermost action is in fact available. Set the project to be parallel and it won't matter that the one at the top of the list has a start date of tomorrow, because it will look on down the list until it finds something that is available (or encounters the end of the list).

You can change the project between parallel and sequential by clicking on the pair of arrows that show up to the right of the project name. If the arrows are horizontal, it is parallel, and if they are slanted, it is sequential.

[michaeltdoan]

Thanks. Your advice did the trick. I guess I'll have re-read the manual to better understand sequential vs parallel.

[whpalmer4]

I think they work pretty much as one would expect — the tricky bit is that a repeating action has the next action inserted right there, not at the bottom of the list like one might initially expect.

An alternative way that you might have structured this particular scenario looks like this:



The project is set to run in parallel, and does not repeat.



The daily sequence repeats, and is sequential. The actions themselves don't repeat, only the sequence. The action group is set to automatically mark itself complete (and generate the next sequence) when you've marked off the last of the actions.



The weekly action is self-explanatory, I hope.



The main thing to notice here is the use of Start again vs. Repeat every. Start again schedules the next one to be whatever the repeat interval is after you complete the previous one. Think of getting a haircut — if you normally do that every 4 weeks, but this time you went 5 weeks, your next haircut is still reasonably scheduled for 4 weeks hence, you don't need to get it a week earlier. Repeat every schedules the next one to be the repeat interval after the previous one. Here a suitable model might be paying the rent — it's still going to be due on the 1st of the month even if you were a little late this time around. Note that if you have a Repeat every action that you don't get done on time, and you're so far behind that you didn't get it done until after the next one was due, when you mark it complete you'll immediately get another overdue action. So, if you went out of town for the weekend, and a friend took care of your dog (including giving it the meds), when you returned, OmniFocus would be scolding you about not having given the daily meds for Saturday, and if you checked off the sequence, it would immediately create a sequence for Sunday, which would also be overdue. In such a case, it might be easier/neater to simply adjust the dates so that they represent the next sequence (Monday).

[michaeltdoan]

Thanks, that was helpful.