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Quick Entry to Sequential Projects Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
I have a question regarding adding actions to sequential projects using Quick Entry.

For example, the project already has a number of remaining actions and, in the middle of some other task, you realise that you need to call someone about something related to the project and it is vital you do this before resuming with the project. The only way to add an item as the next action would be to navigate through the folder hierarchy to the project, add the action, then click edit to move it to the top of the list (or add the item directly through Quick Entry then navigate the folder structure to move it to the top). Either was, this is time-consuming and takes your mind away from the stuff you’re currently working on.

Another example; your next action is ‘Waiting for Jim to provide the quote’ and this is in the ‘Waiting For’ Context (naturally), when reviewing this context you decide you need to chase up on this with Jim but you know he is on leave until Thursday. You decide to add ‘Call Jim re progress of quote’ in the ‘Calls’ context, this will be added to the end of the project so you will have to do something about that now. An alternative would be to amend the Waiting for action to the Call action but that is just a workaround.

I know the obvious answer is to dump it in the inbox and deal with it later in a daily review but that’s not really the way I like to work.

How does everyone else deal with this?
 
When you're looking at some action that you've realized needs an additional action added as a [pre|co|post]requisite, bring up the editor/inspector, switch to the Info panel, and tap the curved arrow next to the project name and select Go to Project from the resulting popup. That will take you to the containing project. Tap the + at this point, choose New Action in "<project name>" and enter your action. Tap the Edit button and drag your new action to the desired spot. Tap Done.

Another possible approach, if you're good about keeping on top of overdue items: use quick entry to toss the new action in the inbox, but give it a due date/time of now, or some time before you're going to start working on the project to which it belongs. This will give you minimum disruption of your current activity, but still puts up a flag of sorts that the new action needs to be properly incorporated into the project. The assumption here is that when you finish up with the current activity, you'll have a look at the Forecast view (or at least the sidebar) and will notice the presence of an overdue action.
 
I'll try the due date tip whpalmer as I do keep on top of overdue items. To be honest, I didn't realise that unavailable due items would appear in other views like described, I though the unavailability of it would override all the other conditions.

Thanks for the tip :-)
 
I'm going to hedge my advice slightly since you mention unavailable actions. What I said is true for the iPad; an incomplete item with a due date which has passed will show up in the Forecast view regardless of its location in the database. However, on the Mac, the situation is a bit more complex, and a bit more care is required. There's no Forecast view (yet), and it is possible to make a perspective that would show some overdue Inbox actions but not others (the difference being whether or not a context was assigned).

The stock "Due" perspective does include the "No Context" bin, so the advice is fine for users who haven't done any tinkering with their perspectives. If you've done some tinkering, I would encourage a careful check to make sure you haven't created a potential blind spot (by omitting the "No Context" perspective, yet expecting actions with no context to be shown), as this is a case where a little knowledge might be dangerous :-)
 
I am using the iPad at work so your advice works just fine (tried it today). Thanks again :-)
 
 


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