Hi! I've read all of the posts in this thread now and it shifted from being about having multiple contexts to meta-tags which is not the same.

I'm pro multiple context and I think it is absolutely in the spirit of GTD to have them if that makes the choices of what you physically can do be less.

The thing with GTD is that there is as I understand it more than one type of contexts but we treat them as the same category to simplify things.

There are:
Physical place contexts like: @home @work @kitchen
Physical tools needed contexts like: @computer @phone @online
Mental strengh needed context like: @high energy @can be done in my sleep
Time constraints contexts like: @takes <15 min @takes <60 min

Which leads some of us to have contexts that looks like this:
@work - with high energy - time to complete less than 15 min
(no the names are less lengthy for real, but I want you to be able to follow how I see it)

I'm an alpha-tester for OF and I do love it and I do use the hierarchical structure for contexts now. But it would be the best out there if I could assign multiple contexts instead of making long combined ones.

It made sense to have just one category of context when there wasn't a database-tool for handling GTD but now I think it is ok to have combined contexts.


/tomas

[SpiralOcean]

There is a way to work with notes & tagging right now.

Example:
I need a tag for interns.

In the notes field, I create my tag...
•Intern

Then in the search box, I enter •Intern

All tasks with the •Intern tag will show up!

The bullet point, •, is a convention used to make the word unique. You can use any symbol you want to, or even no symbol.

It would be better to have a field/column for tags that auto-completed and still use the search field, and I haven't tested using And/Or with the search box so you may only be able to search out one tag, but this is more than I have ever had!

Nice work OmniFocusians.

[markbrown00]

Originally Posted by SpiralOcean

There is a way to work with notes & tagging right now.

Example:
I need a tag for interns.

In the notes field, I create my tag...
•Intern

Then in the search box, I enter •Intern

All tasks with the •Intern tag will show up!

The bullet point, •, is a convention used to make the word unique. You can use any symbol you want to, or even no symbol.

It would be better to have a field/column for tags that auto-completed and still use the search field, and I haven't tested using And/Or with the search box so you may only be able to search out one tag, but this is more than I have ever had!

Nice work OmniFocusians.

Perhaps combine this with textexpander or typeitforme...for fast tagging

[whalt]

LifeBalance solved this whole problem rather elegantly in that each context that was created also had check list of other contexts that were inclusive in it. This was not a rigid hierarchy mind you but more like defining overlapping sets. So say you had these contexts.

Work
Home
Car
Phone
Laptop
Email
Internet
Library

You could place Phone inside of Work, Home and Car. You could place Laptop inside of Work and Home. You could place Internet inside of Laptop and Library. That way when you just wanted to concentrate on phone calls you could click on it and just see phone calls but if you were at Work, Home, or in the Car you would also see phone calls in your availability list because Phone was included in all of them. Same way for Laptop except it would only show up at Home or Work and when you selected it you would still see those things in Internet and Email. When you were doing research at the Library you would also have access to the Internet so your Email items would also show up there.

Granted this arrangement made more sense when used with their Palm app since this type of overlap might be difficult to duplicate with OF's iCal based PDA syncing but it still seems like the right metaphor compared to the rigid slice and dice hierarchy imposed by OF's current context scheme.

Here's a screen capture of the relevant LifeBalance interface.

[SpiralOcean]

Life balance did not solve this problem.
You could still only have one context per item.
OF allows you to have nested or inclusive contexts as well.
If you have a Home > Calls context
and you select Home
You will see all items in Home, Calls and in Home > Computer

The heart of the problem is a person will need more than one context for certain items.

One example is creating a list of things I need to do, but also have them available for an intern at the drop of a hat, without keeping duplicate tasks.

Another example is creating a list of things I need to purchase, but want to research first before purchasing, at the same time I need to be able to present a list of equipment needed at the drop of a hat.

There are other examples listed in this thread that would be a good use of tagging.

OF shows me the results of a search, in effect providing me with another filter that I can use for tags such as the ones mentioned above.

LifeBalance does not have this ability.

[whalt]

Originally Posted by SpiralOcean

Life balance did not solve this problem.
You could still only have one context per item.
OF allows you to have nested or inclusive contexts as well.
If you have a Home > Calls context
and you select Home
You will see all items in Home, Calls and in Home > Computer

The heart of the problem is a person will need more than one context for certain items.

One example is creating a list of things I need to do, but also have them available for an intern at the drop of a hat, without keeping duplicate tasks.

Another example is creating a list of things I need to purchase, but want to research first before purchasing, at the same time I need to be able to present a list of equipment needed at the drop of a hat.

There are other examples listed in this thread that would be a good use of tagging.

OF shows me the results of a search, in effect providing me with another filter that I can use for tags such as the ones mentioned above.

LifeBalance does not have this ability.

Well maybe Lifebalance doesn't solve the problem for you the way you would like it to but I think my point is still valid that the inclusive contexts ability of LifeBalance was far different than the hierarchical contexts of OF. In OF you have to make weird subdomains like Work>Computer, Home>Computer and then figure out which one your task should go in where as in the LifeBalance solution you would just put it in Computer and it would show up in both places. Yes, you could make Computer>Work, and Computer>Home instead but then everything you do at home is seen as some variation on Computer and what if you want to set up similar relationships for say, Phone. My point was that LifeBalance could handle that complexity and OF can't.

I still think that the examples you give could be handled by just such a scheme since in theory you should be able to reproduce any tagging system with this sort of categorical multiple inheritance by simply creating a new context that also includes the other disparate contexts within it. LifeBalance contexts can contain other contexts and context hierarchies in a non exclusive manner which OF can not do. In other words each new context has the potential to become a new perspective on the already existing contexts. It's taking your many-to-one relationship and simply inverting into a one-to-many to achieve the same result although granted this may take more organizational gymnastics than a straight tagging system.

Tagging is fine by me as long as I can see those relationships graphically and it doesn't just turn into a tag soup. I'm not arguing to bring back LifeBalance just that OF might pick up a few tricks from previous apps. I think we both agree that the current implementation of contexts in OF leaves a bit to be desired.

[SpiralOcean]

Originally Posted by whalt

In OF you have to make weird subdomains like Work>Computer, Home>Computer and then figure out which one your task should go in where as in the LifeBalance solution you would just put it in Computer and it would show up in both places.

I don't understand your point here.

In Life Balance, I would also put a task in Work>Computer & Home>Computer, because I do not want to see my work items at home, and do not want to see my home items at work.

The problem with life balance is there is not hierarchy... and before every context at work, I had to type out work-computer, work-calls. At least in OF, I can just type calls and it is magically separate under work.

In LB, if I wanted to see all Computer items, I could create another Computer context and include my Work>computer and my Home>Computer, but I would never do this. I don't want to be using my own time to work on work items. And I don't want to be distracted at work and see my personal items. They aren't paying me for working on my personal items.

The LB inclusion... was an idea... but I found there weren't many instances where it was really useful.

The only time I used inclusion was for Errands. Because I was out and about driving around, I could see my Home>Errands & my Work>Errands at the same time if I wanted to.

Originally Posted by whalt

Yes, you could make Computer>Work, and Computer>Home instead but then everything you do at home is seen as some variation on Computer and what if you want to set up similar relationships for say, Phone. My point was that LifeBalance could handle that complexity and OF can't.

I don't even know why anyone would ever have a category called Computer>Work and Computer>Home. How would that work for the rest of the contexts?

How long have you used Life Balance?

Originally Posted by whalt

Tagging is fine by me as long as I can see those relationships graphically and it doesn't just turn into a tag soup. I'm not arguing to bring back LifeBalance just that OF might pick up a few tricks from previous apps. I think we both agree that the current implementation of contexts in OF leaves a bit to be desired.

Okay... now that is something we both agree on. I don't want the tag soup either.

But with your assessment of LB vs OF, I respectfully do not agree with.

The difference between LB inclusion and OF hierarchical is minor.

Let me preface to say, I've been using LB for about 5 years, and have done things with it that are only dreamt of in your philosophy.

I have run into the edge of the ocean with place inclusion, and far off in the distance could see the shimmering promise of what tagging could do.

All I can say is... an entire world opens up when tagging is allowed. But it has to be a structured tagging, otherwise, it can get messy.

Whether or not you ever hit that wall may depend on the type of job you have and how you are working with other people. Tagging allows the flexibility you need to quickly bring up lists of things for other people, or if the environment changes rapidly you can adapt with it.

Some of the examples are... having lists of things to do for interns while still having the items on a list for me to do, without duplication.

Having a list of equipment for me to purchase that I can show my boss at any time, while I am still researching equipment to purchase, without duplication.

Having a list of tasks for a vendor when they show up to fix their equipment, but that are also assigned to me to work on, without duplication.

The OF search function, that shows you all results, is the closest I have ever had to solving those aforementioned issues. And it does a great job, I just have to remember my tags.

If the contexts were more tag oriented... I wouldn't have any duplication of contexts. Right now I have duplicates of all my contexts at work and at home. If I could tag contexts, I wouldn't need those duplicates.

If I could tag contexts, then I could attach peoples names to things... that way I could have tasks for when I see someone in person, or at a meeting or if I am sending emails.

[Ken Case]

First off, thanks everyone for your discussion on this, and especially for providing some concrete examples of what you're trying to do!

Originally Posted by SpiralOcean

Some of the examples are... having lists of things to do for interns while still having the items on a list for me to do, without duplication.

Having a list of equipment for me to purchase that I can show my boss at any time, while I am still researching equipment to purchase, without duplication.

Having a list of tasks for a vendor when they show up to fix their equipment, but that are also assigned to me to work on, without duplication.

These all sound like great use cases for tagging actions, though I don't really think that's directly related to contexts. (None of those sound like contexts to me, just different tags.)

Originally Posted by SpiralOcean

Right now I have duplicates of all my contexts at work and at home.

Rather than duplicating all your contexts for work and home, have you thought about using folders in your project list and focusing on one folder or the other? That's how I have my projects organized (into top-level folders like Omni, Family, and Personal), and I find this a lot more convenient than duplicating contexts.

In addition focusing on folders, you can also create perspectives which group arbitrary collections of projects or contexts. Between the two, you have a lot of flexibility in how you group your actions. (Maybe perspectives should also save the current search, which would help you remember which tags you've used for what given your current approach of putting tags in your notes?)

Originally Posted by SpiralOcean

If I could tag contexts, then I could attach peoples names to things... that way I could have tasks for when I see someone in person, or at a meeting or if I am sending emails.

I've been putting all these in my "Agenda:Person" contexts, because my needs are relatively simple: I don't need to track whether my contact is on the phone or in person or whatever. (I just do a little mental filtering when I look at those agenda items, i.e. skipping past a compensation discussion unless I'm in a one-on-one meeting.) What other contexts are you using for actions associated with a person?

(Please note that I'm not trying to dictate that you should do things my way, I'm just trying to show you some of the patterns I'm using that you might not have found yet, and to make sure I understand the things you're trying to do that I might not have considered yet.)

Thanks again, everyone, for your great feedback in this thread!

[SpiralOcean]

Originally Posted by Ken Case

Rather than duplicating all your contexts for work and home, have you thought about using folders in your project list and focusing on one folder or the other? That's how I have my projects organized (into top-level folders like Omni, Family, and Personal), and I find this a lot more convenient than duplicating contexts.

Interesting... I do have my projects grouped into folders for work & home, but didn't think about using that to filter out my tasks and get rid of all my duplicate contexts. I'll look into that. Thanks for the suggestion.

Originally Posted by Ken Case

In addition focusing on folders, you can also create perspectives which group arbitrary collections of projects or contexts. Between the two, you have a lot of flexibility in how you group your actions. (Maybe perspectives should also save the current search, which would help you remember which tags you've used for what given your current approach of putting tags in your notes?)

I haven't fooled around with the perspectives that much. Sounds like a solution for memorizing searches... or in my case, tags. Hopefully there will be a way to name the perspective at some point?

Originally Posted by Ken Case

I've been putting all these in my "Agenda:Person" contexts, because my needs are relatively simple: I don't need to track whether my contact is on the phone or in person or whatever. (I just do a little mental filtering when I look at those agenda items, i.e. skipping past a compensation discussion unless I'm in a one-on-one meeting.) What other contexts are you using for actions associated with a person?

It's the mental filtering I want to get away from. If I am constantly mental filtering, I go numb to the entire list. I went numb to my list with the last application I was using because it was so much work to try and make it work GTD style. Too much mental work & filtering. The point of the filters & GTD is... do the thinking before hand, then crank on action items.

I don't track if someone is on the phone or not. But if I have a need to talk to a vendor about their product. I have it in a calls context. They show up on a surprise visit. I'm not going to think... hmm... I'll go to calls to see if there is anything to talk about. I might think... is there anything to talk to this vendor about, and go to the vendor tag I have set up, that would show me things I need to email, call about, problems I'm having with their product, and talk about in person. But if they don't show up for a surprise visit, when I am going through my calls context, I'll call them about that item.

The preceding item is an extremely simple example to show a point. If a person is in a job, where there are 10 vendors for 20 different products you are supporting, and that's just working with the vendors. Then there are coworkers. Using one Agendas context for everything becomes more work than it is worth.

I haven't been using agendas because with agendas I would need my list mobile to make good use of it. Currently, I can't take my OF list into most meetings, because it is on my desktop computer. If someday the iPhone has OF on it, then Agendas would become useful because the list would become mobile.

I use contexts as what I am going to do. Tags, I use to become flexible. When the situation changes drastically, I can't sit there for 10 min and tell the person in front of me, hold on let me check my agendas, no that's not where it is, let me check my emails, no... hmm... no where is that task item.... ahh here it is... but I know there was another one somewhere... hang on.

Instead of,

Rob, I'm glad your here, there are a couple things we need to talk about... give me a second, okay, first... blah blah blah...

[SpiralOcean]

Originally Posted by Ken Case

Rather than duplicating all your contexts for work and home, have you thought about using folders in your project list and focusing on one folder or the other? That's how I have my projects organized (into top-level folders like Omni, Family, and Personal), and I find this a lot more convenient than duplicating contexts.

Just moved the data around (beautiful that I can select multiple items in a context and just drop it over to it's new context. Oddly enough, I've never been able to assign a context to multiple items in a previous application.)

The focus is working beautifully. Thanks for the suggestion. I was able to get rid of half of my contexts.