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How to prioritize today's tasks? Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
Just needed to say a hearty "Amen" to what you posted. Hopefully Omnifocus will add this soon. Just a "Drag & Reorder" option is all we're asking. (We're too busy to click on due dates, etc.) We did all the necessary inputting on the front end. We're talking "Today", so in reality we're ready to get things done.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by keynotes View Post
Thanks for the reminder about David Allen's view of task calendars. I reread that section and agreed with every one of his points... yet I'm still compelled to schedule and reschedule my tasks the old fashioned, frustrating way! It's time for me to learn and implement a proper GTD system rather than come to it and try to force it to do the very thing it's designed not to let me do.

I agree. It's so hard to break old habits when they have become part of our makeup. It takes a long time to transition over to a different way of looking at things from a different perspective.
 
One additional way to prioritize your list is to assign both date AND time to the task in the start date field. Then when you create a perspective for "Today" with the availablility filter set to "available", the tasks will not show up until the time has passed for them to appear and the list will remain in order when they do appear. If you do not complete a task and the next day rolls around, the list will still be in order from the previous day. If you want to rearrange them, it is as simple a putting a new time in the start field. I learned this from David Sparks who has an outstanding productivity book "Paperless". It is available in itunes.
 
Thank you for these suggestions, Tom! I'm exploring the Paperless book now...
 
I have been using an AppleScript that selects an action name and copies it to the clipboard and then removes the priority number and puts another priority number back in. It only works on one task at a time and I am trying to get it to do this to multiple selected tasks. I am however stuck and wanted to know if anyone knew how to combine these two scripts together?

This lets me prepend text to the start of all the select actions. So I am trying to not only prepend a new action priority at the start of a task but also remove the old priority quickly on all the selected actions.

Whpalmer4 helped me with this before.

Code:
--Prepend text to select actions
--http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?p=101754#post101754

tell application "System Events" to key code 49 --Spacebar which causes OmniFocus to duplicate task and mark as complete
delay 0.3
property prependText : "[Dropped] "

tell application "OmniFocus"
	tell front document
		tell document window 1
			set theActions to selected trees of content
			set theActionCount to count of theActions
			if (theActionCount > 0) then
				
				--set actionPrepend to prependText
				
				repeat with actionCycle from 1 to theActionCount
					set actionName to value of (item actionCycle of theActions)
					set name of actionName to prependText & name of actionName
				end repeat
			else
				display alert "No content selected!"
			end if
		end tell
	end tell
end tell

Here is the code that works on one action at a time

Code:
(*
	try
		set modifierkeysPressed to true
		repeat while modifierkeysPressed
			set modifierkeysPressed to (do shell script "/Library/Scripts/checkModifierKeys") is not "0"
			delay 0.2
		end repeat
		
	on error
		display dialog "You do not have 'checkModifierKeys' installed. "
	end try
*)

tell application "OmniFocus" to activate

--this makes it jump to the next field if it is in a field or go to the first one to clear it out so we always start from the action name.
delay 0.4
tell application "System Events" to key code 48 --Tab 
delay 0.2
tell application "System Events" to key code 53 --Esacape
delay 0.2
tell application "System Events" to key code 48 --Tab
delay 0.2
tell application "System Events" to keystroke "c" using {command down} -- Copy to clipboard





--http://macscripter.net/viewtopic.php?pid=163971#p163971


--set omniFocusAction to the clipboard
delay 0.3

set _text to (the clipboard)
do shell script "<<<" & quoted form of _text & " sed -E 's/\\{[0-9]+\\} //'"

set the clipboard to the result


(* Old way but works
			set theBarNumber to the clipboard
			set the clipboard to (characters 1 through 5 of theBarNumber) as text
		*)

tell application "System Events" to keystroke "v" using {command down}
tell application "System Events" to key code 126 using {option down} --Up arrow
tell application "System Events" to keystroke "{1} "
I am trying to combine them to something like this but am stuck!

Code:
--Prepend text to select actions
--http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?p=101754#post101754

tell application "System Events" to key code 49 --Spacebar which causes OmniFocus to duplicate task and mark as complete
delay 0.3
property prependText : "{2} "

tell application "OmniFocus"
	tell front document
		tell document window 1
			set theActions to selected trees of content
			set theActionCount to count of theActions
			if (theActionCount > 0) then
				
				set actionPrepend to prependText
				
				repeat with actionCycle from 1 to theActionCount
					set actionName to value of (item actionCycle of theActions)
					
					--I need to some how get the action name fist and then do the shellscritp and replace the action name with the result
					set name of actionName to actionPrepend & name of actionName --I don't quite understand how this line is working
					do shell script "<<<" & quoted form of actionName & " sed -E 's/\\{[0-9]+\\} //'"
					
					--set the result to theNewPriority
								
					
					
				end repeat
			else
				display alert "No content selected!"
			end if
		end tell
	end tell
end tell
 
I moved this post over to the OmniFocus Extra's forum:
http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthre...566#post128566
 
There are lots of people who feel very strongly that priority is a critical missing feature of OmniFocus (disclaimer: I am one of them). For context/discussion on if/when priorities should be added to OF I recommend the ongoing thread - http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=3836.
 
Thank you reesd
 
Sorting the projects is prioritizing the actions. That is how I do at least.

I have three basic folders which are today, this week, and someday/maybe. At the end of each day, I move projects between the today and this week folders. I then sort the projects, a.k.a. prioritize them, and either work down the project actions or in context mode. It's very easy to get a nice small list of next actions by context this way. It's also the easiest way to focus in on just today's tasks.

BTW, the today folder is in the This Week folder. So, I can see just today's stuff or everything for the week. I made corresponding perspectives for this was well.

I also use start a due dates, but if you use them all the time, just like flags, you spend a lot of time changes dates to hide things and flags to filter. I found just creating a folder called Today and working in there allowed me to both prioritize and to focus in on specific projects.

Last edited by danvtim; 2014-01-23 at 01:13 PM..
 
One thing you could do - although its kludgy - is to enter different times of day in the Due Date column (1am, 2am, 3am, etc) and sort by time.

OR ... export just today's tasks to OmniOutliner, make each Task a separate Item in the outline, and then drag and drop them into whatever order you like.
 
 


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