[whpalmer4]

Originally Posted by brianogilvie

I don't think there is any alarm support for To Do items, either in iCal or MobileMe. You can get the list of To Do items in MobileMe, in the Calendar module, by using the gear menu.

There is alarm support in iCal. If you check the "due date" box for a To Do item, then you'll be given the opportunity to set up a notification. Viewing the website, I haven't noticed any notification attempts with the test cases I've set up for both To Do and event entries. Inspecting the To Do entry on MobileMe, I don't even see provisions for an alarm.

I did miss the To Do stuff under the gear menu, thanks for pointing that out. I was a bit surprised that Apple seemingly hadn't provided that, as half-hearted as it is...I was concerned that LiquidEngineer was planning to use something that wasn't there, but I'm happy to be wrong about its absence! Rereading LE's post, it appears that no new information was imparted by our subsequent discussion, although we apparently each learned something :-)

[brianogilvie]

Originally Posted by whpalmer4

There is alarm support in iCal. If you check the "due date" box for a To Do item, then you'll be given the opportunity to set up a notification.

Thanks for pointing that out! I tried it just before making my last post, and I could have sworn that no notification option appeared, but I just tried again and it did. My mistake. Or perhaps a bug, since I have restarted my computer in between.

[EricW]

Pardon if this is off topic and feel free to suggest I boot it to another thread.
Some of the discussion here is around similar issues I'm having in refining GTD, reconciling it with Covey style structured time and getting clear about contexts as opposed to the tools I use in contexts such email. The classic @email is actually not working because its for me it's for a tool.

Question is What to define as contexts in Omnifocus so that I can see and action them in iCal as Calendars or Calendar Groups.

Physical Contexts: Places I work

Office
Home
Home Office
Out

Tools/Things I do: These are action types not contexts and go in the Action Name

Calls/Phone
Email
Writing
Research
Reading
Meeting

Routines: The first two below are planning ideals. How I choose to structure time. The second two are sort of regular projects that generate activities. Probably best as Omnifocus folders.

Standard Day
Standard Week
Standard Month
Standing Commitments

Types of Activity: Categories of Projects to keep in balance. Question is are they Contexts or Project Groups

Strategic Projects
Improvement//Development Projects
Operational Routines
Maintenance Routines
Communications doesn't quite fit. Responding to communication and communicating are perhaps part of each of the other four above.

Musings
The cascading order of deciding on the next thing I do is:

Where am I. Context
What are the activities needed to progress to due dates.
What types of activity do I need to be working on to maintain the balance of the categories.

It's the last question that is perplexing. Are types of activity contexts and how do get them where I can narrow the focus in iCal.

Any suggestions ?

[Lizard]

Those routines could be projects or contexts, perhaps. If "Maintenance Routines" is a fixed list of tasks that doesn't vary from one maintenance cycle to the next, it should probably be a repeating project. If "Maintenance Routines" means "once in a while we shut down the machinery and do all the fix-up it needs" then maybe it's a context, especially if you say things like "Next time we do maintenance, we should recalibrate the framistan."

[EricW]

Hi Lizard
Thanks for chiming in. How did you know we run a framistan kerflurgarator !
Had a chat with a friend this morning who has made dot project into what he wants.
Thinking about the business and the standard day we concluded for him that time allocated to Customer Contact or Web dev etc were not unlike contexts. eg now I have my Web Dev hat on I'm in this mental space which is a context but also a block of time in the day.
So its sort of coming down to blocks of time for Strategic Activity, Development Activity, Improvement, at the Office are three contexts.
Likewise time devoted to Maintenance might be recurrent running of updaters, major clean ups but also maintenance of relationships without a particular instrumental outcome.
So if I want to make sure I'm devoting some time to that I need it as a context too I think.
Home Office - Work Offices raises its head very much in tune with this thread. There are some things I can only do at home say where the development machines are and some at either. Duplicate Activities at the cost of some redundancy would have to be the way to go to have them appear in both contexts.
Two questions then.
Does OF provide for recurrent Projects ? (I can probably look this up)
Second question:
I have another thread with no response on Changing Contexts.
So far I think its a process of:

Change the names in OF
Check there's no orphaned tasks
Change the names in iCal (and on the Treo)
Realign the correspondences in the Sync prefs
Sync and hope for the best

Any gotchyas you can see in this ?

[Lizard]

Yes, you can create repeating projects. They can repeat based on when you did them last, or on a fixed schedule.

I really don't know the iCal syncing well enough to comment on that one. (I actually saw the other thread and shied away from it.) Perhaps email omnifocus@omnigroup.com to get a response from our knowledgeable ninjas.

Guys,

I've just installed OF. It was love at first sight. Just what I needed (and looked for) for organizing my PhD thesis work.

But... After the "second sight", honestly, beeing unable to assign to multiple contexts makes virtually impossible to organize my work - there are really lots of things and ideas to develop that really are in multiple contexts.

And this is it... I am not buying OF, only - and really only - because I will be unable to assign to multiple contexts.

I really hope this will change in a next version!

Alberto.

[Gardener]

Do you have any interest in providing examples? As a relatively new user of Omnifocus, I'd like multiple contexts, but so far I'm living OK without them. So I'm curious in both directions: (1) whether it might be possible for Omnifocus to work for your data anyway somehow and (2) the details of another case of needing multiple contexts.

Gardener

[Toadling]

Yeah, Gardener posts some good questions. Without some examples, it's pretty hard to make any suggestions.

Also note that Omni Group has stated that a future version of OmniFocus will include optional metadata columns that can be used for a variety of things, that presumably includes tagging or multiple contexts.

So if you can find some way to get along without multiple contexts now, it may payoff in the long run.

As an aside, I used to think I needed multiple contexts, but the more I used the current system, the more I realized it wasn't really necessary for me. In fact, I've come to appreciate simplicity of a single context, both in adding new items and in trying to find and work with them later. Of course, your situation may differ.

-Dennis

[Young Daniel]

Just thought I'd chime into the discussion. MY opinion on multiple contexts has changed since getting omnifocus on my iphone. When I go grocery shopping, I would like tasks for "convenience store" included in my "grocery store" context. However, if I am only at CVS I do not want my entire grocery list showing, only my "convenience store" tasks.

The work around I have is to use both contexts when I'm grocery shopping, which is less efficiant then having a "convenience store OR grocery store" label for context that lists that task in both locations.