[whpalmer4]

Originally Posted by abates17

Personally, I think that David Allen is a little too absolute when it comes to GTD rules. For example, why does OmniFocus show tasks that are overdue? According to GTD, you should only set a due date when the task MUST BE completed by that date, and is worthless after that.

You're misreading him, if you're referring to pp. 40-41 of Getting Things Done, the 'No More "Daily To-Do" Lists' block. I quote:

"Second, if there's something on a daily to-do list that doesn't absolutely have to get done that day, it will dilute the emphasis on the things that truly do."

He's talking about why writing a daily to-do list is a bad thing, not about why due dates in GTD would be bad. He then goes on to state:

"The way I look at it, the calendar (emphasis mine) should be sacred territory. If you write something there, it must get done that day or not at all. The only rewriting should be for changed appointments."

Nothing at all about next action lists.

If you have some other reference that suggests he disapproves of due dates on the next action list, I'd be interested to see it.

[wilsonng]

Originally Posted by abates17

Doing the dishes will always be more important than alphabetizing my DVDs, so I would like to make sure that “Doing the dishes”*bubbles up to the top. And since GTD task lists are not sorted in any particular order, why not allow some extra information to sort by? Sure, I could scan the entire list and see what tickles my fancy at a certain point in time, but why not save myself some time and have more-important tasks near the top?

Personally, I think that David Allen is a little too absolute when it comes to GTD rules. For example, why does OmniFocus show tasks that are overdue? According to GTD, you should only set a due date when the task MUST BE completed by that date, and is worthless after that. So if OF is strict GTD, it should hide overdue tasks. But it doesn’t. Why? Because OF is MORE FLEXIBLE than strict GTD. Adding priorities is another way that OF could be more flexible and more useful to more people.

OmniFocus gives you the ability to drag a task up or down the list. This gives an implied priority status. In sequential projects, I have to do step 1 before proceeding to step 2. In parallel projects, the higher up a project or task, the higher priority it means to me.

But I agree with the post from "A To The B". I place all my low priority projects in my Someday/Maybe folder. Most of my active projects/tasks are taken out of Someday/Maybe Folder, I switch status from "On Hold" to "Active" and it becomes my medium priority projects - not urgent but important. Any Active projects that are urgent and important are immediately flagged. Then I can switch to my "Flagged" perspective to see the flagged tasks/projects.

I have three perspectives:

The first perspective is called "Low Priority". It is a project/planning perspective that shows just the Someday/Maybe folder.

The second perspective is called "Today" (aka Medium priority or all active projects). This shows a context perspective with all my active projects.

The third perspective is called "Urgent". This shows a context perspective with all flagged items.

The Urgent perspective lets me block out all the someday/maybe items and focus in on all the flagged items. These are my urgent things to do.

It took a while for me to break away from the ABC priority or High/Medium/Low priority but I think I have the hang of it now. It takes time to break out of the high/medium/low priority. I know because I've been there with years of working with my old Franklin-Covey Dayplanner. It just never felt right. I had a bunch of A priorities but I always ended up doing B's and C's.

So just sit back, wait for OmniFocus 2.0 with this much-rumored tagging system and be done with it.

[abates17]

Originally Posted by wilsonng

I place all my low priority projects in my Someday/Maybe folder. Most of my active projects/tasks are taken out of Someday/Maybe Folder, I switch status from "On Hold" to "Active" and it becomes my medium priority projects - not urgent but important. Any Active projects that are urgent and important are immediately flagged. Then I can switch to my "Flagged" perspective to see the flagged tasks/projects.

…

It took a while for me to break away from the ABC priority or High/Medium/Low priority but I think I have the hang of it now.

You didn’t break out of the ABC priority scale; you just found a complicated, roundabout way to implement it, using folders, statuses, and flags! I don’t see how you can describe your convoluted process of setting what are essentially priorities on one hand, then turn around and say, “See, OmniFocus doesn’t need priorities!” on the other.

[wilsonng]

I beg to differ. It's just a matter of not using ABC labels or High/Medium/Low labels assigned to tasks. As David Allen says, you will "trust" your system to the point that you won't need ABCs.



I've used the Franklin-Covey A1, A2, B1, C1 priority scheme and it didn't work. It may be simple but it didn't work. So I've been there.

My Someday/Maybe folder holds all my "C" projects. That's not convoluted. We all have someday/maybe projects that aren't urgent nor important. It's a wish list of things we'd like to do. So all of my "C" priority or low priority projects/tasks are stored there. I don't see how complicated, convoluted, or roundabout that can get.

If I want to take something out of the backburner, I put it into my Active folder and set the status to Active. The Active folder holds a list of my Medium priority or "B" priority projects. These are the on-hold projects that I decided to work on this week. That's not convoluted, difficult or roundabout.

If there is something truly urgent, it's a simple matter of flagging a project or task. This becomes the A priority or High priority project/task. Not difficult at all.

I'm suspecting that you're not taking full advantage of perspectives (views).

I have my High priority view showing my flagged (High priority or A priority) tasks.

My default view shows all the next actions of my active projects and tasks. This is the Medium priority or B priority tasks view.

My Low priority or C priority view focuses on my Someday/Maybe folder.


I fail to understand how this becomes convoluted.

But I respect your desires for ABC. I suspect, perhaps, that you want a long list view showing your High, Medium, and Low priorities. But you lose OmniFocus' advantage of focusing in on your overall task management duties.

What is truly boggling is that classic time management/task management systems still teach the ABC priority system. So what many people are arguing about is that there is no need to "label" something as high, medium, low or ABC because if you trust your system, you won't need these labels.


In the beginning, I clung on to my ABC system but I have evolved to the point where I can trust my system and understand what is high, medium, and low priority.

[ksrhee]

I do not find arguing or debating about "labeling" very helpful in the discussion thread. Whether you want to call something ABC, H/M/L Priority, Urgent/Important, etc., to me is a really personal preference in terms of individual work flow and system. Who am I to say your ABC is worse then my HML?

One thing I do and it seems like many people need is a way to categorizes tasks, be able to manipulate them and maintain them, and finally be able to view the categories of tasks- whether it be project, context, priority, importance, etc. etc.

Thus, some people might find Life Balance, Things, or OF more helpful based on their needs for categorization.

OF is very close, but I don't think it's quite there yet. I believe 2.0 will address most of the concerns expressed by folks here.

[abates17]

Originally Posted by wilsonng

If I want to take something out of the backburner, I put it into my Active folder and set the status to Active. The Active folder holds a list of my Medium priority or "B" priority projects. These are the on-hold projects that I decided to work on this week. That's not convoluted, difficult or roundabout.

Okay, fine, it’s not “convoluted,” but it’s still a priority system. Therefore, you can’t tout your system, yet simultaneously bash those who want explicit priorities.

Originally Posted by wilsonng

But I respect your desires for ABC. I suspect, perhaps, that you want a long list view showing your High, Medium, and Low priorities. But you lose OmniFocus' advantage of focusing in on your overall task management duties.

Honestly, I really want something like what Life Balance does, where priorities are based on a sliding scale, and the priority rises as a task approaches (or goes past) its due date. If I have twenty regular tasks that need to get done around the house, I would much rather know which one has been done least recently, so I can focus on that (if I want to).

Originally Posted by wilsonng

In the beginning, I clung on to my ABC system but I have evolved to the point where I can trust my system and understand what is high, medium, and low priority.

THAT! THAT is the part that annoys me! When people say, “I used to be like you, clinging to my outdated priority system, but now I am evolved so I don’t need it.” Yes, I understand not basing everything around priorities, but I also understand that they can be used—just like contexts, energy, or next actions—as one aspect of the decision-making process. I’ve been using Life Balance with GTD for quite a while, and it works, even with priorities. I wish people would understand that some of us want priorities, and not because we “just don’t get it.”

[wilsonng]

Originally Posted by abates17

Okay, fine, it’s not “convoluted,” but it’s still a priority system. Therefore, you can’t tout your system, yet simultaneously bash those who want explicit priorities.

c'est al vie..... I wasn't touting.... I was exploring. By sharing ideas in this thread, we can learn from other people's setup and see if we can incorporate it into our own system. In the discourse of this thread, I'm re-evaluating priorities and wanted to hear other people's setup. So, please don't get fired up. It's just a discussion - not religion or politics.

Honestly, I really want something like what Life Balance does, where priorities are based on a sliding scale, and the priority rises as a task approaches (or goes past) its due date. If I have twenty regular tasks that need to get done around the house, I would much rather know which one has been done least recently, so I can focus on that (if I want to).

I thought you would stick with Life Balance if it offers you what you really want?

From my understanding of GTD, we use the Weekly Review to self-edit and review our tasks/projects.

When something is truly due or overdue, you either have to:

1. Light a fire under your butt and get it done.

2. Delegate it to someone else.

3. Re-evaluate the task/project and see if it is still significant and whether you truly want to get it done.

4. Delete the task/project if it is no longer significant.

5. Put the task/project on hold and into Someday/Maybe folder. Let it simmer for a while and come back to it later.


I don't know if a computer scale can tell me that I have to get something done. I use the Weekly Review to evaluate myself and truly define what I want to get done or not get done. If something has been sitting on my task list for a long time without any action being taken, it's definitely time to re-evaluate that task/project. I've found that being hard on myself during the Weekly Review helped me trust my system.

THAT! THAT is the part that annoys me! When people say, “I used to be like you, clinging to my outdated priority system, but now I am evolved so I don’t need it.” Yes, I understand not basing everything around priorities, but I also understand that they can be used—just like contexts, energy, or next actions—as one aspect of the decision-making process. I’ve been using Life Balance with GTD for quite a while, and it works, even with priorities. I wish people would understand that some of us want priorities, and not because we “just don’t get it.”

OmniFocus 2.0's rumored tagging system will let you have it your way. I've seen some people use the duration field as a way to label priorities. Put the number 1 for High priority, the number 2 for Medium priority, and the number 3 for low priority. It's a workaround but at least it's something until the tagging system comes.

THAT! THAT...

This is why I have entered into this discussion. I (as well as many forum readers) are looking at what other people are doing and seeing if we can take something from this discussion and other discussions. I never said that my system is perfect and I'm bashing other viewpoints. My system (and other people's systems) are constantly evolving. I know my OmniFocus/GTD setup has definitely changed since the time I bought this program.

Please don't get fired up and call the bomb squad. We're all in this together. Like everyone else, we are all holding our breath waiting for OF 2.0.

[SpiralOcean]

Moving projects to different order will change the priority of it's actions in the contexts.

[abates17]

Originally Posted by wilsonng

I thought you would stick with Life Balance if it offers you what you really want?

Life Balance is really great with priorities: It has a sliding scale for priorities, priorities based on the parent task, priorities that adjust based on the due date…it’s a really elegant system. However, it’s not great at capturing data, the desktop application is abysmal, it doesn’t automatically work with clippings from Mail, it doesn’t have an integrated review system, and so on. Given the two, I would rather see OmniFocus take on those features from Life Balance than the other way around.

Originally Posted by wilsonng

I don't know if a computer scale can tell me that I have to get something done.

If you have tasks where the priority changes based on due date (and a list that is sorted by priority), then you can know that tasks that are higher up on the list are more important. If the order of tasks doesn’t matter, then I would rather have a list sorted by priority than an unsorted list.

I use the Weekly Review to evaluate myself and truly define what I want to get done or not get done. If something has been sitting on my task list for a long time without any action being taken, it's definitely time to re-evaluate that task/project. I've found that being hard on myself during the Weekly Review helped me trust my system.

Originally Posted by wilsonng

OmniFocus 2.0's rumored tagging system will let you have it your way.

Personally, I would much rather see something like Life Balance’s priority system, which goes far beyond tagging and simple A/B/C priorities. But given how long it has taken to even get tagging implemented (and the pushback on that), I doubt that a more complicated priority system will ever be implemented. Oh well. I guess I’ll have to stick to using two different GTD applications.

[Lucas]

Originally Posted by SpiralOcean

Moving projects to different order will change the priority of it's actions in the contexts.

I agree. I think people have a difficult time with this idea, though.