[Xeijin]

Hi Guys,

I'm trying to create a series of checklists for work with the menial actions that I have to perform every morning when I go in to work (once a week). Each action is set to repeat every week, with a start time of 9am (start date was today's date but obviously changes each week it is repeated).

The problem I'm having manifests when I set a project to 'Sequential', and then use Context mode to check of tasks related to that project. Once I check off the first task the project disappears from view (I have my context mode set to group by project).

I went back into planning mode to investigate further and I'm finding that when I check off one of the next action, it creates the repeat for next week directly underneath (as it should) BUT this seems to be blocking it from moving on to the next task for the CURRENT week.

A screenshot to highlight this problem:



The currently completed "Unlock Phone" Has a start date of 20th March (today), the 'new' "Unlock Phone" directly underneath is the repeat ocurrence for 27th March (one week later) created when I ticked off the first one. The task that should represent the logical next action is "update teachers" also set for 20th March but this does not have the purple highlight it should do.

Anyone know why this is happening? Ideally if OmniFocus would put the repeated tasks at the BOTTOM of the project rather than directly underneath the original completed one this wouldn't be an issue.

[whpalmer4]

If you want your checklist to repeat as a unit, set the project to repeat, not the actions.

One thing to watch out for is that the checklist for the next week won't show up until you've marked everything complete (including the checklist itself(*)). If this might not always happen on time, you might want to have two identical checklists, set to repeat every 2 weeks, with one starting a week after the other. That way, the alternate week's checklist will become active on time, even if you didn't get every last action done from the previous week.

(*) There is a box in the inspector that you can check to have the project complete itself automatically when the last remaining action is completed. There is a corresponding setting in the OmniFocus preferences that turns this property on or off by default for newly created projects, too. Probably don't want it on by default for new projects unless you always fully plan them out before working them.

[Xeijin]

Thanks, just tried this and it works well. However, I may occasionally have to perform an extra, short-notice task one off task on some mornings which I may add to the project the night before. Judging by the behaviour it looks as though this task would be repeated as well once the others are ticked off, is there any way to get around this behaviour?

[whpalmer4]

Yes, there is, but in the end, you might reasonably decide that it is just as easy to delete the unwanted action!

Have a look at Curt Clifton's Populate Template Placeholders (MacSparky has a nice writeup here). You could make a template for your checklist project and just stamp them out like cookies. Changes you make to one will not affect the others, but changes you make to the template project will affect subsequently created copies. You wouldn't have the project repeat, but instead would have an action at the end of the template that reminds you to create the new checklist for the upcoming week. If you added a placeholder variable in the project name itself, you could have uniquely named projects for each one ("Morning prep, week of March 27").

It's a bit like killing a fly with a sledgehammer in some ways, but you may find that once you start using it, other applications for that functionality emerge. About 1/4 of my projects were generated this way!

[Xeijin]

Originally Posted by whpalmer4

Yes, there is, but in the end, you might reasonably decide that it is just as easy to delete the unwanted action!

Have a look at Curt Clifton's Populate Template Placeholders (MacSparky has a nice writeup here). You could make a template for your checklist project and just stamp them out like cookies. Changes you make to one will not affect the others, but changes you make to the template project will affect subsequently created copies. You wouldn't have the project repeat, but instead would have an action at the end of the template that reminds you to create the new checklist for the upcoming week. If you added a placeholder variable in the project name itself, you could have uniquely named projects for each one ("Morning prep, week of March 27").

It's a bit like killing a fly with a sledgehammer in some ways, but you may find that once you start using it, other applications for that functionality emerge. About 1/4 of my projects were generated this way!

Yes I guess I was being a bit pedantic, not going to kill me to delete those deleted tasks ;). Templates is an excellent idea and one I came upon in Koroush Dini's "Creating Flow with OmniFocus" eBook, but I haven't yet mapped out enough projects to see if a template-based approach would be effective.

Stellar advice as always though whpalmer, thank you.

[whpalmer4]

Originally Posted by Xeijin

Yes I guess I was being a bit pedantic, not going to kill me to delete those deleted tasks ;).

I find it slightly easier to leave the tasks in the completed project, and delete them from the new one. I've also gotten a bit lazier and started putting such one-off things in a miscellaneous project, appropriately marked with due/start dates or flags or whatever will get it done at the right time, and not repeating at all. Sometimes it doesn't even make it out of the Inbox...

[robertvance3]

I'm sorry if this is a silly question, but both your instructions and Curt's give the first step as copying the script to the folder ~/Library/Scripts/Applications/OmniFocus. But where do I create this folder? It never gives me an option to save it, so I'm not sure where this folder should even go. This is my first experience with AppleScript, so I don't want to screw anything up by creating the folder improperly. Thanks!