What an interesting set of responses! I'm (a) looking for something much more complex than OF, (b) looking for something much simpler, (c) trolling, (d) thinking different. My one-word responese: no, no, no, yes.
Some elaboration.
Regarding, contexts, I don't quite see why that matters, but here you go:
-> Review notes for today's class. (Office Computer)
->-> Edit notes as necessary. (Office Computer)
->-> Prepare in-class slides. (Office Computer)
->-> Prepare in-class handouts. (Office Computer)
->->-> Photocopy handouts. (Copy Room)
->-> Prepare homework assignment. (Office Computer)
->->-> Photocopy homework assignment. (Copy Room)
->-> Make list of demonstration equipment needed. (Office)
->->-> Locate demonstration equipment. (Stockroom)
->->->-> Setup and test demostrations. (Lecture prep room)
-> Grade papers. (Any)
->-> Record grades in roster. (Office Computer)
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If I understand my GTD, its philosophy expects you to “check off” the parent last, otherwise it's “just” a To Do list, which DA/GTD frowns on.
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Yes, but in my understanding of GTD, "parents" are projects (or subprojects), not actions. Where OF is going wrong is by blurring this distinction. (Note that Ken Case said that this would be fixed in another thread, by making "parent actions" more like projects, which is a Good Thing.) In my model, "parent" actions aren't buckets that contain other actions (like the current parent actions), they are just regular old actions! Their "parenthood" represents something completely different than in the current paradigm. They get checked off when completed just like any other action.
I think I have the GTD philosophy; I just want OF to reflect it better. I agree that projects get checked off last after all the actions in them are done. That's exactly what I want! What I also want is a more flexible dependency model for actions than OF currently has (as far as I can tell).
Quote:
If you want to post a specific reason about how OmniFocus isn't working... then post it, and we will see if either:
1. There is something you haven't thought about.
or
2. There is an enhancement that is needed in OmniFocus.
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Quote:
Can you give a minimal example of something that can be expressed in your proposal but not in OF?
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I'm definitely open to the idea that I'm not using OF properly, or that I don't understand it! Here's what I want in OF that I don't know how to get:
I'm in context mode (showing all contexts!), grouping by date, sorted by date, showing "Available" actions. For the example project above, I want to see exactly two actions "Review notes" and "Grade papers". After I complete "Review Notes" I now want to see six actions (all now available), "Grade papers" (still not done), "Edit notes as appropriate", "Prepare in-class slides", "Prepare in-class handouts", "Prepare homework assignment", and "Make list of demonstration equipment". How do I set up a project so that I get that behaviour in OF today? I don't think I can.
Curt, I of course don't mean to tell you how to organize your projects, or teach your classes! But I will draw one distinction, between ordering of actions and dependency of actions. It's still not clear to me if your items are truly dependent or if you just want or need to do them in a certain order. My parent/child model is meant to express true dependency, not ordering. So if your items are truly dependent 20 levels deep, that's a definite problem for displaying my model (not necessarily insurmountable---I haven't thought about that case). But I would note that OF can filter by order via the difference between "Next" and "Available" actions. If I were expressing your list (for me) and trying to get the effect that (I think) you want, I wouldn't make a 20-deep list. My list would be ordered but shallower, and then I would filter by next action so that I only saw the top item on the list. Does that make sense?