[jdh]

I use parent and sub-contexts for this to some degree....

I have an "Errands" context that contains contexts for Grocery Store, Pharmacy, etc. Most things I tend to buy in only one generic place (I don't necessarily label my Grocery Store as a specific grocery store, but rather just any Grocery Store I happen to be at).

Items that can be done anywhere, or in more than one place, go into the parent context ("Errands"), while items that are more location-specific land in their appropriate sub-context.

As an aside, I find getting too store-specific creates more confusion than it solves.... If I can't find something I want at the grocery store I'm at, it's no harm to just leave it unchecked until my next grocery trip. Ergo, things like "Grocery Store" and "Convenience Store" would likely all fall into "Grocery Store" in my world. On the other hand, tasks like "Buy Milk" (ie, routine staples) tend to go into the "Errands" context so they're combined with my general errands and not just store-specific trips (in other words, I may need to stop off somewhere and buy milk when running other errands, but not necessarily specifically going to the Grocery Store).

In OF on the desktop, I simply select the "Errands" context and I see everything in the sub-contexts right htere. I can group by context if I want to separate them out logically, but they're still shown on the same listing.

When viewing this on the iPhone, I can easily move up and down, rather than laterally, to see those things that are sub-context specific as opposed to more generic. It saves a step, and of course you can still see the subcontexts listed from the parent context with the number of available items shown in each.

If you had a lot of different grocery/food stores that you bought specific items at, then you could just nest one level deeper: Grocery Stores could have additional sub-contexts for store-specific items.

I do similar things with my Calls contexts (sub-contexts for business and personal), and some of my "Household" tasks as well (based on location or situation within the house).

While not ideal compared to multiple contexts, it's not an unreasonable workaround.

[Christopher]

Originally Posted by algol

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.

Perhaps rethinking what your contexts are might help. For example, if you want to research something, and that research can be done at the library, at home, or wherever you have a computer, then make a context "research" and use Perspectives to filter.

[Young Daniel]

I had solved my problem of multiple contexts using perspectives...but because there are no perspectives in the iphone app, I thought multiple contexts would be the solution. Would the better solution be to incorporate perspectives on the iphone as oppose to the multiple contexts approach?

[joelande]

Originally Posted by Christopher

Perhaps rethinking what your contexts are might help.

Perhaps giving multiple contexts to those of us who want them might help.

[steven]

Originally Posted by joelande

Perhaps giving multiple contexts to those of us who want them might help.

I am SERIOUSLY, mang.

I can always count on popping by this thread once a month to see:

1. request for additional descriptor fields

2. response that original poster is somehow "doing it wrong"

3. someone (occasionally me :-D ) chiming in with a frustrated "hey, there are legit arguments for adding additional fields"

4. response by devs saying "hey, chill, we TOLD you guys it's coming in a later version"

5. GOTO STEP 1

Note: this is posted in good humor. omnifocus is transcendentally utile for me - totally love it - but it continues to need this ability: Create a task tagged somehow with "web" and "research", or "Joe Smith" and "phone call". (no "comments" field work-arounds allowed!)

anyway, god bless us all! (and how future-amazing is OF iphone + OF leopard? sickly!)

[CorgiGirl]

Great assessment!

There is a very strange intolerance on this board to how GTD should be used by each and every person. The main point behind GTD is to NOT spend time belaboring how to GTD. It is simply about getting more done – and in the way that works best for you. Most people think and learn differently. Some learn by reading. Some learn better by a visual interpretation. Some learn better by hearing, some by doing. Does this mean suddenly everyone sheds their own inherent learning and thinking patterns just because they are using OF? Of course not, OF is only a tool, and should allow for the flexibility for each person to customize their own experience to be the most productive for themselves.

In the boards overall, I see many legitimate software issues, sometimes even bugs, posted, which then are addressed by other members as "errors in thinking," or "well that slight variation in thinking means you are not a true GTD follower." It's actually crazy and frankly really irritating. But hey, that's my opinion.

So on that note, I too, vote for multiple contexts –*plus the ability not to use them for the folks who work better in single-context mode.

[Christopher]

Originally Posted by steven

I am SERIOUSLY, mang.

I can always count on popping by this thread once a month to see:

1. request for additional descriptor fields

2. response that original poster is somehow "doing it wrong"

3. someone (occasionally me :-D ) chiming in with a frustrated "hey, there are legit arguments for adding additional fields"

4. response by devs saying "hey, chill, we TOLD you guys it's coming in a later version"

5. GOTO STEP 1

Note: this is posted in good humor. omnifocus is transcendentally utile for me - totally love it - but it continues to need this ability: Create a task tagged somehow with "web" and "research", or "Joe Smith" and "phone call". (no "comments" field work-arounds allowed!)

anyway, god bless us all! (and how future-amazing is OF iphone + OF leopard? sickly!)

Did I suddenly get very old, or is he talking in his own language? :)

[steven]

Originally Posted by Christopher

Did I suddenly get very old, or is he talking in his own language? :)

Are those the only two options?

Not my own language; just casual slang:

1. "I am SERIOUSLY" - South Park's rapscallion Eric Cartman. (used since season 6 in 2002)

2. mang - a long-time term of familiarity, derived from the latino pronunciation of "man"; popularity bump from 1983's movie "Scarface".

3. "chiming in" - now here, you see, I wasn't actually referring to emitting a bell-like sound. I was referring to "breaking suddenly and unwelcomely into a conversation to express agreement or voice an opinion."

4. "hey, chill" - to calm down; relax.

5. GOTO

6. future-amazing - okay, I did make this up, but it's just a hyphen.

7. "sickly!" - a derivation of "sick", which came from the 30 year-old "ill". These all probably came from the root slang concept of "bad meaning good".

I'm not really in any particular "jargon club"; that's just how I (textually) express myself. I can also write quite dryly, as you no doubt realize if you've stayed awake to the end of this post.

also: more optional omnifocus fields!

[Toadling]

Originally Posted by steven

Not my own language; just casual slang...

All I can say is: wow, you really know your slang. Nice bit of follow-up research there. :-)

-Dennis

[bnz]

I would like to present a scenario that happend to me yesterday. I am pretty new to GTD and while i have the book, actually reading it is still on my todo list ;-) I hope that the single context people could tell me what i was doing wrong. The place where i work has moved to a new building this week (it is Saturday when you read this). On monday, i need a certain room to be ready, but there are no chairs in it yet. On thursday, i accidentally found out the person, lets call him Paul, who was responsible for making a call to make it happen. In my todo list, i associated an action "Check that the new room is ready" with the new building as context. When i actually checked it, i added a note to this action that the chairs are still missing. Friday morning, i asked Paul again whether he knows something new about the missing chairs and he said that he forgot to make the call - i did that without looking it up in Omnifocus. Friday evening, he came by the office to say goodbye. I knew there was something i still wanted from him and told him to wait for a second, because i wanted to check in Omnifocus what it is. However, i wasn't able to find what it is, because there were still too many items on that list and the existing action context was associated to the building rather than the person. Therefore, i didn't ask him about the chairs. Now, i would think that the easiest way to have this issue fixed would have been to just add a second context "Paul" to this item. I could imagine that i could have added a second action "Ask Paul for the chairs" and have associated it with "Paul" as context - would this be more appropriate? Or how would you have solved this scenario?