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Hi- I'm new to OF and have a question for the forum.

I spent several hours last night inputting projects, actions, etc.

Now I want to limit actions from these projects to what I want to do today. So I flagged 15 actions- and these 15 actions appear when hit the "Flagged" tab. (This seemed easier then setting "due dates" on everything, which are likely to change everyday depending on what gets done.)

So far so good.

Now, I'd like to reorder actions in this "Flagged" list, so I can work from top to bottom through the day. This seems like basic and necessary functionality.

What am I missing? Can this be done? Is there another approach that provides a similar functionality?

Any help would be very much appreciated.

Thank you!
 
Can't do it presently, in general. You can approximate it by rearranging the order of your projects, because the ordering of the tasks is first by order that the projects appear in your database, then by order within the project. That won't work if you want to do a task from project A, then a task from project B, then another task from project A, however.

I'm going to gently suggest that in practice this maybe isn't quite the issue that it seems to be. You've already decided that these items are what you are going to do today. If they have to be done in a particular order, an OmniFocus sequential project will show them as available only in that order, which leaves just sequencing of tasks from different projects. From a short list it shouldn't be too hard to make a good choice.

None of that is meant to say that it is unreasonable to want this feature! To add your voice to the crowd asking for the ability to reorder the flagged view, use the Contact Omni button under the gear menu to send a feature request (or bug report). This gets your request logged in the development database and you are guaranteed a response from an Omni support staff member within a business day or so. Forum posts might get you a response from me in a shorter timeframe, but I can't actually change the software, and if I could, there are a lot of other changes I'd make first :-) Omni uses the number of requests as one of the metrics in deciding what to do next, so it's in your interest to do that for anything you would like to see — just because someone else has asked for it doesn't mean you shouldn't ask also!
 
Thanks a lot for the helpful and quick reply.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by whpalmer4 View Post

I'm going to gently suggest that in practice this maybe isn't quite the issue that it seems to be. You've already decided that these items are what you are going to do today.
I use flagging to set up the actions I want to work in a day. Initially I thought I would want to put them in an order that I wanted to do them. But I've found that what I do is when I am ready to undertake an action I tend to look through the list and select which I want to work and it may not be the one that I would have listed as the most important.

Depending on the circumstances I may select based on the time it will take to do the action. If I only have 15 minutes until my next meeting I can only work an action that can be completed in 15 minutes or less. Other times I may look at my lists and my energy level will affect which action I'll pick up. Some I just may not feel up to tackling at that moment. Or I may feel that my energy is high so I'll defer those "easier" tasks until later and work the one that requires me to have the most energy
 
I appreciate the comments by whpalmer4 and Tedallen. However, I continue to find the need to reorder items in my action list for the day (which I've been compiling in the flagged folder).

An important benefit for me of creating lists is to reduce the psychological hurdle of getting everything done.

When I'm faced with a wall of 15 things in no particular order, that increases the psychological hurdle because all of a sudden I'm faced with 15 things every hour instead of just one thing at the top of the list.

If I can order my jobs for the day (even if I reorganize a bit during the day), and just work top to bottom, it makes things less daunting. That's at least what I find.
 
Sure, it'd be more convenient if you could reorder your flagged list. You can't, though, and to my understanding, changing that requires quite a bit of work. Given that, it seems appropriate to conclude that one more request for it isn't going to get it to the tipping point where Omni drops everything else, works around the clock through the holiday season and immediately implements it :-)

Now, one of my oddball notions is that when someone tells me they need something, either they need it now, or maybe they don't really need it. If they truly need it now, waiting for just about any vendor to provide it isn't a solution if they don't already offer it. At that point, the remaining choices are to re-evaluate the need, or find an alternate approach. I'll confess that I often suggest emailing feature requests to Omni expecting that the "unacceptable" workaround that may be initially rejected will be second nature by the time that the feature request actually bears fruit! Sometimes the workaround is such that one might expect to continue using it even after Omni provides a solution: RobTrew's Where in OF search tool is an example that comes to mind, as I doubt that Omni will want to offer such a complicated facility for everyone to use, but those of us who use its many offerings won't suddenly lose the need to do such complicated searches.

In that spirit, if you really think you need to work from an ordered copy of your list before Omni rolls out its grand UI revamp (which may or may not allow you to reorder the list), here's something else you can try:
  1. Make your flagged list
  2. Open up OmniOutliner (if you have it), or TextEdit (not as convenient, but it will do)
  3. Select all the flagged rows in OmniFocus, and drag them into a new document in the other app
  4. Rearrange the rows into the desired order
  5. Do them!
The rows created in this fashion are actually links to OmniFocus, and if you click on them, you'll open OmniFocus, generate a new window, and select the action in question which you can now tick off as completed, or look at the context, make notes, etc.

I sometimes use this tactic for taking notes about my actions and projects. For example, when I'm reviewing them all from a higher vantage point, it's easy to drag a project to an external list of projects that seem to be causing trouble, which I can refer to later, but don't need to disrupt my organizational scheme by making a folder of problem projects, for example.

Last edited by whpalmer4; 2012-07-17 at 09:23 AM.. Reason: Update link
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by whpalmer4 View Post
  1. Make your flagged list
  2. Open up OmniOutliner (if you have it), or TextEdit (not as convenient, but it will do)
  3. Select all the flagged rows in OmniFocus, and drag them into a new document in the other app
  4. Rearrange the rows into the desired order
  5. Do them!
The rows created in this fashion are actually links to OmniFocus, and if you click on them, you'll open OmniFocus, generate a new window, and select the action in question which you can now tick off as completed, or look at the context, make notes, etc.

I sometimes use this tactic for taking notes about my actions and projects. For example, when I'm reviewing them all from a higher vantage point, it's easy to drag a project to an external list of projects that seem to be causing trouble, which I can refer to later, but don't need to disrupt my organizational scheme by making a folder of problem projects, for example.
Is this functionality on the Mac? His request relates to the iPad app unless I'm mistaken :-)
 
Obviously, I failed to notice this was in the iPad forum! I must resolve not to repeat this error next year :-)

The reasons why you can't arbitrarily rearrange the contents of the flagged view apply to both versions, however.
 
 


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