[Paul Hoadley]

Hello,

I'm collecting quite a few singleton tasks with no project. What's the easiest way with the current UI (r87967) to show these tasks? I can't find them at all in project view. In context view, they're grouped by context, which isn't quite what I want---I just want a list of my singleton tasks, much as I can get a list of tasks in any project in project view. No doubt I'm missing something quite straightforward.

[Wild Rye]

I've been creating catch-all projects such as "Errands" or "Chores" to collect these types of tasks. Things like reminders to check my tickler, update my status report, wipe the mud off my shoes before coming in the house...

[Paul Hoadley]

Originally Posted by Wild Rye

I've been creating catch-all projects such as "Errands" or "Chores" to collect these types of tasks. Things like reminders to check my tickler, update my status report, wipe the mud off my shoes before coming in the house...

Thanks for the reply. Good workaround.

Surely I'm just overlooking something with my original question, though? How can I show tasks that have no project?

[rish]

Originally Posted by Paul Hoadley

Thanks for the reply. Good workaround.

Surely I'm just overlooking something with my original question, though? How can I show tasks that have no project?

The way I use my single tasks is that I've created a parallel project by the name Single Tasks and I've put all my single actions in it. Hope this helps!

[coconino]

By definition, an action which is not part of a project will not show in the project view. There's a clue in the name of the view! ;)

More helpfully, the workarounds suggested are good. I'd only add that when I've been entering actions which at first seem not to be part of a project, on further consideration I've seen that they do belong to a higher order outcome, the result being that I have had few project-less actions.

Project-less actions show up in context view, under their appropriate context—which is where I reckon they should be.

(Actions which have neither project nor context stay in the in-box after clean-up. This is good behaviour too, in my book.)

[Paul Hoadley]

Originally Posted by coconino

By definition, an action which is not part of a project will not show in the project view. There's a clue in the name of the view! ;)

Evidently that's the case, but I guess one of the questions I'm asking is whether that is the most desirable behaviour. Calling it "project view" is somewhat arbitrary---it could just as well be called "task view", and projects just happen to be the way we group sets of related tasks.

Originally Posted by coconino

More helpfully, the workarounds suggested are good.

They're certainly reasonable workarounds, but given that singleton tasks are creatable at all, my original question remains: how can I get a list of them?

Originally Posted by coconino

I'd only add that when I've been entering actions which at first seem not to be part of a project, on further consideration I've seen that they do belong to a higher order outcome, the result being that I have had few project-less actions.

Fair enough, but it just doesn't seem unreasonable to me that a task can exist without a containing project. All I want to know is how to find them.

Originally Posted by coconino

Project-less actions show up in context view, under their appropriate context—which is where I reckon they should be.

I noted that in my original post, and I agree that context view is one of the appropriate places to find any task, singleton or otherwise.

I can only assume that the answer to my original question is that I simply can't get a list of tasks without containing projects.

[coconino]

Originally Posted by Paul Hoadley

I can only assume that the answer to my original question is that I simply can't get a list of tasks without containing projects.

A fair assumption, sure. However, I wouldn't be surprised to find eventually that some support for singleton actions gets implemented in OF. As others have said elsewhere in this forum, whereas OF is inspired by GTD (via kGTD) there is no law which says the GTD methodology—itself developed in an entirely different medium—must be applied slavishly to OmniFocus.

[Paul Hoadley]

Originally Posted by coconino

A fair assumption, sure. However, I wouldn't be surprised to find eventually that some support for singleton actions gets implemented in OF. As others have said elsewhere in this forum, whereas OF is inspired by GTD (via kGTD) there is no law which says the GTD methodology—itself developed in an entirely different medium—must be applied slavishly to OmniFocus.

I don't understand your resistance to what I'm calling "singleton tasks". Are we having a terminology mismatch? I have Allen's book open in front of me: "[A project is] any desired result that requires more than one action step." This directly implies that (a) it's conceivable I might need to do something that requires exactly one action step, and (b) that wouldn't be called a "project", nor would it be part of one. I don't mind what we call them, but "singleton tasks" are part of Allen's approach, and they're creatable in OmniFocus (in that I can create a task without a project). All I want to be able to do is find them.

[coconino]

Originally Posted by Paul Hoadley

I don't understand your resistance to what I'm calling "singleton tasks".

I'm not resistant, just pointing out that if—by the DA definition—a singleton task is not a project, then to expect it to show in a view called "Project view" is like asking the proprietor of "Just Cheeses" why he doesn't sell ice-cream.

I can see quite clearly the usefulness of showing single-action tasks, but it wouldn't fit under Projects if the role of this view is following David Allen's methodology precisely. I don't have any problem with Omni including such a feature but putting it under Projects is a kludge as far as canonical GTD is concerned.

[Paul Hoadley]

Originally Posted by coconino

I'm not resistant, just pointing out that if—by the DA definition—a singleton task is not a project, then to expect it to show in a view called "Project view" is like asking the proprietor of "Just Cheeses" why he doesn't sell ice-cream.

Why are you ascribing this expectation to me? In my original post, I simply observed that "I can't find them at all in project view". It was more of a statement of fact to suggest that I had certainly tried looking around the UI. All I want is a list of singleton tasks—I'm really not too bothered where the list eventually resides.