[chriswitt]

Hi everyone.

In the left side column, there appears either the orange or red number of upcoming or due tasks. I like seeing this number, both in OF and in my menu bar, as it reminds me to get back to work when I get distracted. It also reminds me to look at contexts/perspectives that I'm not currently working in.

As suggested in the Advanced video of using OF, I only use the Start Date, and have been leaving Due Date empty. For the most part this works for my particular workflow, but I admit I miss seeing those numbers.

I don't suppose there is a way to display something along the lines of "Number of Tasks Available" as numbers next to the contexts is there?

I wouldn't mind using the available & due dates, but it just seems like double-work to me. I do things when they become available; there is no strict Due date for the things I work on, otherwise I put them in my calendar.

When I started using OF I just used the Due Date field, but found the whole Available Items and Overdue Items confusing and frustrating because I don't practice strict GTD, and my things are Not overdue; just Due.

Anyway, not seeing those numbers bugs me enough to ask if there is another way to see what tasks are available next to the context.

Any other hints or tips are of course welcome.

Thanks!

[SpiralOcean]

I'm with you Chris. I go back and forth between using Due Dates. Now I'm using them again to help give the actions some sort of sorting order.

The danger of using due dates is distinguishing between something that is really due, and something that has a 'soft' due date. I'm back on the due date wagon. I can group my projects by due date and see what projects are due this week, this month, next 3 months and next 6 months. I just have to work into my weekly review to change due dates of projects that are not hard due dates and also not due.

Anyway, Curt has created a widget that shows you available actions by contexts.
http://www.rose-hulman.edu/~clifton/software.html

I looked for the thread about this but gave up trying. :-)

His widget shows exactly what you are wanting... number of available actions in context.

I haven't used it as much for this reason: just because I have a lot of actions in a context, doesn't mean that's where I should focus. I have thought about this widget to help me clean up old actions and focus on a context. Maybe at some point I'll go back to focus on contexts with the most available actions, in which case Curt's widget is invaluable. For now, I'm back to the due date concept.

Enjoy the widget.

[chriswitt]

Nice to hear I'm not the only one who might benefit from this! I've emailed my request for an option to display Available tasks. Maybe we'll get lucky and have it as an option at some future date.

Thanks for the widget link - it certainly addresses this request! I just wish it was displayed on the desktop or in the application somewhere. Not that I'm complaining - I'm definitely glad to have it!

Thanks,

[SpiralOcean]

By turning on Dashboard Development mode you can display any widget on the desktop:

To turn on dashboard development mode:
Download Tinker Tool:
http://www.bresink.de/osx/TinkerTool.html

Open TinkerTool -> general section
select Enable Dashboard Developer Mode.

Then activate the dashboard
drag the widget
while still holding the widget from the drag (you haven't release the mouse button yet)
hit the f12 key to close dashboard.

The widget will now be in the desktop.

I think Curt's widget is set to grab data when the dashboard is activated. If it's in the desktop, it won't grab updated data from OmniFocus.

To manually refresh the widget
click on the widget to select
hit command + R

[LizPf]

Originally Posted by SpiralOcean

By turning on Dashboard Development mode you can display any widget on the desktop:

Wow! Thanks, Spiral, for mentioning this.

I love my PowerBoook G4, but it doesn't have enough RAM. So I turned the Dashboard off a while back, and used Konfabulator (Yahoo-purchased Widget Engine) to display small stuff. But Konfabulator stopped working for me, and the Yahoos at cussie service can't help.

I hope this lets me turn dashboard widgets into Desktop ones, so I can keep the Dashboard off.

... later ....

It does work! And if I keep the minimum number of widgets open, it doesn't eat too much RAM. Thanks!

The only problem is that the widgets are in the top window layer on my desktop, so they hide other windows. Oh well, cant be perfect.

--Liz

[jklymak]

I second this suggestion, except I use start and due dates to give myself a range of times I think I'll work on something. I push the due date back w/o guilt much of the time...

My needs would be met if the status-sort had in addition to "remaining", "due soon" etc an entry for "started". Seems odd to not have it as a display option. Or am I missing something?