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How do you manage those tasks not date sensitive Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
Hi,

I'm interested on knowing from all of you, how do you manage those tasks that don't really have a deadline, and they can start pretty much anytime you can get to them.
For example: "Organize garage"

I mean it's start date could always be today of course, but there is no deadline, at least I don't want to put one on it.
Is there a way to manage those kind of tasks? It is a next action but not bound to any date really.
Is there a way to have them show always in the today in the forecast, would I want that anyway?

Let me know please how you manage those kinds of tasks, I'm a new user on omnifocus and would like to get up to speed on best practices within it.
 
In forecast I only have a limited number of my available next actions. There will be those that have an absolute deadline that must be achieved which have a due date. There are the repeating tasks that need to pop up to begin on a date. (For 30 + years garbage day was always Monday. 3 years ago we moved to a home where garbage day is Thursday and I still need the reminder of when to haul it out to the curb.)

The 3rd broad area I use start dates for is to put a project or next action off until a certain date. It serves as a tickler. If a project's next action has a start date in the future and you are looking at your available actions, that next action will be hidden and won't bother you until the date it's supposed to start.

Most of my next actions do not have a date associated with them. They appear in a context list that I choose to look at and I can then select the next action I want to do.

I had both an "Organize garage" next action and a "Organize work room" next actions earlier this summer. I didn't have a date on them, because there isn't any deadline to get them done. Both just appeared on my "Home: chores" context along with others. One Saturday just felt like the day to do it and I cleaned and organized the garage. (I should, perhaps, but didn't make it an annually repeating event)

The Organize work room task was on my list of next actions for a while and then I decided that I was not going to be cleaning and organizing that work room in the basement during the summer. So I then put a start date of sometime later this fall (probably November). I don't have to worry about that anymore. It doesn't appear on my next actions list. But when the weather gets bad and working outside isn't as attractive, it will one day pop up as a next action to start. I'll pick it up on my weekly review and decide what to do about it.
 
@Tedallen
And how do you organize Folders/Projects/Single-action lists for that kind of tasks?

I am always interested about others way of getting things done.
 
My method comes from Mark Forster's Do-it-Tomorrow (DIT) version of task mangement called the Closed List.

http://www.biromt.com/products/dit/h...osed-list.html


I have a single-actions list called "Active Tasks" for miscellaneous tasks. This single-actions list is set to "Active." I also have another single-actions list called "Tasks (On Hold)" to store all the other tasks that I would like to do someday but not this week. This single-action list is set to "On Hold" status.

During my weekly review, I move single actions between the "Active" list and the "On Hold" list.

The weekly review serves as my tickler reminder. I don't want to or need to reset the start date of each task to some arbitrary date in the future. This is lower maintenance for me.

When I go to the Review perspective, I can see both single-actions list and determine whether I should move between the "Active" and "On Hold."

I also use the same idea for projects.

During the weekly review, I usually set three to five projects to "Active" and set everything else to "On Hold." I know that I have limited capacity to do things. It is better to focus my energy towards the three to five projects (also known as Big Rocks of the Week). If I try to spend my precious energy doing one task on twenty active projects (do a little of this and a little of that), I won't be really making any progress. Multi-tasking is a huge myth that does not really work in today's world.

I will make considerable progress just putting all of my energy into the three to five Big Rocks. Focus is the important part of getting to all those tasks that are not date sensitive.

Context mode will show tasks that belong only to Active projects. All projects and single-actions list that are set to "On Hold" will not be seen in context mode when you have the Availability filter set to "Next Action" or "Available."

So I'll be completing tasks on the three to five Big Rocks and hopefully successfully close a project. Then I can activate another "On hold" project.

Last edited by wilsonng; 2012-10-17 at 11:46 PM..
 
I use flags and start dates to organise tasks that are non time critical. Works well for work and non work projects. By creating perspectives that show only flagged items, you can review tasks based on whether you want to complete them soon.

In your example, 'organise garage' could be an action associated with project 'home organisation' and context 'garage'. Your new perspective could include all contexts that can be completed when you are at home. Call it 'Home'. If you then create a new perspective called 'Home+', this could include only those actions from 'Home' that are flagged.

During your weekly review, you then simply flag or unflag actions as required and use the appropriate perspective to manage what actions you actually want to achieve.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by wilsonng View Post
My method comes from Mark Forster's Do-it-Tomorrow (DIT) version of task mangement called the Closed List.

http://www.biromt.com/products/dit/h...osed-list.html

Just wanted to say that is a great idea and one I am going to implement. I've got a pretty good handle on projects but all those single items kept building up.

Last edited by Brian; 2012-12-04 at 02:48 PM.. Reason: reduced the amount of quoted material to increase readability
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by denrael View Post
Just wanted to say that is a great idea and one I am going to implement. I've got a pretty good handle on projects but all those single items kept building up.
I second this! Implementing now!
 
 


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