[davisre]

How is everyone dealing with action groups? I use them to organize complex projects, and to take advantage of their parallel/sequential toggle, but I find that they linger after I'd like to be done with them. Since they don't have contexts themselves (except a default context that's applied to children), they don't show up in context view where I could check them off. And they aren't automatically completed when the last child is completed.

These uncompleted groups that have only completed children don't block next actions, so there aren't necessarily any ill effects, but when I go to planning mode I often see a bunch of boxes that haven't been checked off, even though, to me, they're done.

I understand why projects work this way. OF forces you to complete a project explicitly, by design, but I don't see the value of doing that for action groups, when OF happily lets you move past them to the next action.

Is there a good reason that OF doesn't automatically mark them as completed when the last child is completed?

[sprugman]

For the same reason as projects -- you may not have fully planned the group. You just have to get used to reviewing the project in project view and checking off any completed groups....

[davisre]

Originally Posted by sprugman

For the same reason as projects -- you may not have fully planned the group.

Then again, maybe I have, and OF even assumes I have by letting the action that immediately follows the group to become the next action once the group's actions have been completed.

Originally Posted by sprugman

You just have to get used to reviewing the project in project view and checking off any completed groups....

Annoying. I do check them off at review time in planning mode, since I don't have any choice, but I've always liked thinking of the two modes as planning and doing, and this is something I can't do in context mode.

I suppose another alternative is to ignore them. I.e. don't check them off, because why bother? Then it's just a matter of training my eyes to ignore the unchecked boxes. Heh.

[davisre]

By the way, checking them off at review time also means the completion date will be set to the review date instead of the date that the group was actually completed.

[curt.clifton]

There were extensive discussions over the summer on how to deal with action groups when all the children are completed. The current behavior is very much a compromise, chosen to avoid checking off groups that aren't fully planned while not blocking projects.

I have a script, Verify Next Actions Exist, that I run in my morning review. It flags the action groups without remaining children. This lets me decided whether to check off the group or come up with the next action to move the group forward.

[Young Daniel]

Would it be possible to have an option to have an action group/project auto complete when there are no children left?

[davisre]

Originally Posted by curt.clifton

There were extensive discussions over the summer on how to deal with action groups when all the children are completed. The current behavior is very much a compromise, chosen to avoid checking off groups that aren't fully planned while not blocking projects.

I have a script, Verify Next Actions Exist, that I run in my morning review. It flags the action groups without remaining children. This lets me decided whether to check off the group or come up with the next action to move the group forward.

Thanks for the script, Curt. I believe that discussion happened just before I started using the alpha, and I couldn't remember why it landed the way it did.

[Schimmi]

Hi!

Here is another vote for another handling of uncompleted groups.

I am often in the situation that I complete an action and then realise that I might have forgotten to fill up the action group with remaining actions. Then there are basically three options:

• wait for the next review (Which might take a week or so. Then I basically forget the project for this week.)
• go into project view and search for the action group. This is complicated because I cannot use the Switch feature anymore to get it automatically focused.
• undo the completion and use the Switch feature. This contradicts the meaning of completion, as the action is completed in fact. And I only unclick it because I need it as reference for the action group to focus it in the project view.

My proposal would be to add a implicit "Group Foo completed" action for a group, or make a group without available action into an action itself. This has been proposed before and I think it's what many people will want and expect.

I think the review of projects is very important in GTD, but making it the only way to solve this group problem can slow down your progress a lot (several days until the next review) or it makes you extra work to check the group manually (if you remember that it was not complete yet).

The argument that the preference pane should not be filled up is a good one normally. But it is already so full and I don't see why this kind of option would not be important enough to be put it there. It breaks the workflow considerable and makes OF unconfortable in those cases. That should be reason enough.

Moreover notice that there is already a "Projects & Action Groups" section there. A whole section for only one option. The group option would at least justify the use of this separate section in this dialog ;-)

Schimmi