[offline81]

Hello Everybody,

i am evaluating Omnifocus and have a question regarding the treatment of waiting fors. here is my setup. i use an @WAITING FOR context that is set to the on hold status.

so when planning a project i set up several actions, like:

create proposal
send proposal
wait for feedback re. proposal.

the first two actions would go to an @HOME or @COMPUTER context and the last one to the waiting for context mentioned above. the project should also be set so the SEQUENTIAL order.

now i am wondering why i see the last action at the wainitng for context. i would expect that i ony see it there, if the first two actions were completed.

what do i miss?

Thanks and best regards
Patrick

[Lucas]

I think you want to try setting the view filter to "available." Try searching the help for "Using the view bar to filter and arrange items".

[offline81]

hi Lucas and thank you for the reply.

setting the filter to available hides all actions in my waiting context because this context has the onhold status. what i want is only see the waiting fors that are relally the next actions. while being able to plan a waiting for i dont want to see the wating for until i finished the action needed before.

i hope this makes my intention more transparent.

Regards
Patrick

[Lucas]

Hmmm. I think I get what you are trying to do. At the end of a project you want to have a list of "waiting for" actions that aren't on your task list for you to do but that you can check up on later. So when you look at that list, you don't want to see stuff that you haven't really reached that part of the list.

My suggestion 1 to try would be to use Kurt's excellent "complete and await reply" script to only add those waiting fors when you deliver the product. But, it would be kind of a change to your workflow - you wouldn't be setting them in advance.

My suggestion 2 would be to have two waiting for contexts - one that is on hold and one that isn't. Put your last action in the active on hold context and set the project to be sequential. When you reach that point in the project, it will pop up and you can move it to the on hold context containing your stuff that your holding on.

[offline81]

Hi Lucas,

thanks for your advice. i can see that this workaround will work :-). however, i am confused why there is no straight way out of the box in OF for that. i migrated form outlook to OF. and the longer i am using OF the more disappointed i am.

the killer features i thought were master/detail data structure for projects and tasks as well as contexts and perspectives. the latter ones could easily be created in outlook as well. the advantage of OF was then the master detail view and the possibility to plan projects further and also use the sequential or parallel mode in projects. now i have to use for different actions different on Hold contexts. i dont think this is intuitive and easy to use...

sorry and best regards
Patrick

[Brian]

So if I understand what you're trying to do, you want there to be some period of delay between sending the proposal to someone and when you follow up with them.

Rather than a waiting-for context, I tend to use start dates to accomplish this. check off "Send Proposal", and when the subsequent action appears, just set the start date for "next week" or whatever works for your purposes.

A start date in the future will also cause the subsequent actions to become unavailable, with the added benefit that when that start date comes, the actions will automatically re-appear.

Does that help at all?

[whpalmer4]

Patrick,

are you sure you aren't creating a theoretical mountain out of a practical molehill? I've been using OF for a couple of years, with lots of actions in on hold contexts, and while I believe I understand your complaint, it just hasn't been an issue in my practice. Perhaps the difference is simply in how we use the tools.

I have a handful of on hold contexts:

Looking for
Waiting for
--Calls
--Email
--Mail
--<people>

A perspective that shows those contexts, grouped by due date and sorted by due date, showing remaining items

I typically work out of context mode, viewing available actions, grouped by start or due. I don't see those on hold items at all there, but they'll block progress beyond them in their project, of course. When I do see them is when viewing things in project mode (with remaining actions), typically when doing a review or focusing on a single project, or in my daily start-up process, which includes taking a look at the "Waiting and Looking" perspective mentioned above to get a reminder of anything I should be watching for. If I see that there is something I'm waiting for that is now overdue, I double-click on the action and get a new window focused on that project so I can see the whole picture and decide what needs to be done. I will see the overdue item even if the containing project hasn't gotten to it yet, yes, but I still most likely want to take some corrective action (example: I'm building a new disk farm, and I haven't finished designing the filesystem, but UPS hasn't delivered a drive when they said they would -- I'm going to want to find out why even if I'm not ready to use the drive!) I do assign a due date to most everything that is in one of the on hold contexts, and usually have the "no due date" group closed. I think that keeps items out of my active sight until there is need for attention while still allowing me to easily check up on them.

I was interrupted while writing this and Brian has contributed his piece in the interim. I notice that he has a completely different read on the situation (and that mine differs from Lucas' as well) and hope that between the three of us, we've at least straddled the target :-)