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Mirroring tasks/Changing color of flagged tasks Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
Hi guys - I've been and avid GTD'er for the past 2-3 years and just decided to make some big tweaks that required me to make the jump from Toodledo to Omni for 3 or 4 very basic (but important) differences. I almost have it where I want it but had a few quick questions - which I'm sure may have been asked before so please excuse me. I was wondering if there was any way to:

1. Create a mirror duplicate of a task so that if I check the task as complete in one folder it also marks as completed in the other folder. I know some of you may not see the reason why I should have an item listed twice but I do actually run into some tasks which would be best list twice so this would actually be very helpful to me.

2. Change the text color of flagged items. I'm sure this has been asked before but I couldn't find the answer. Toodledo USED to do this but unfortunately they stopped for whatever reason. I'm not sure if there's an option or script out there somewhere to do this in OF to make them stand out a bit more.

My issue is....I understand the whole next action concept and there having to be one next action per project but that doesn't necessarily I want to focus on it when breaking down my daily/weekly tasks to focus on. There are of course some projects that I can only work on when I have more time available to me, so I'd like to...a) flag all the items that need my attention per any given week or time period and then b) create a next action filter/folder of some sort that can further break them down for me to focus on for the next day (if that makes sense). Being that I'm new to OF, I'm not really familiar with all of it's settings - do any of you have any ideas?

Thanks for your help!

Edit: I almost forgot....is there also any way to set my "someday" and/or "pending" folders, etc so that there is no next action. Naturally there shouldn't be.

Last edited by OmniFocused; 2011-09-20 at 07:24 PM.. Reason: Added question
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by OmniFocused View Post
1. Create a mirror duplicate of a task so that if I check the task as complete in one folder it also marks as completed in the other folder. I know some of you may not see the reason why I should have an item listed twice but I do actually run into some tasks which would be best list twice so this would actually be very helpful to me.
No direct way to do this. You can make a link in the note of one that points to the other. Select the destination action, do Edit->Copy as Link, paste into the notes field of the other one. Now you can click that link and be taken to the other action. You're on your own for remembering to do this, but it makes it a bit easier (you could have a subsequent action to the first one that is something like "check off mirror action, see notes field"). Clear as mud? :-)
Quote:
2. Change the text color of flagged items. I'm sure this has been asked before but I couldn't find the answer. Toodledo USED to do this but unfortunately they stopped for whatever reason. I'm not sure if there's an option or script out there somewhere to do this in OF to make them stand out a bit more.
Unfortunately, no. You have limited styling control over action names (see the Styles tab in the Preferences) but it doesn't include styling flagged actions. If you think that would be useful, use Help->Send Feedback to send in a feature request (also the best way to send in any bug reports).
Quote:
My issue is....I understand the whole next action concept and there having to be one next action per project but that doesn't necessarily I want to focus on it when breaking down my daily/weekly tasks to focus on. There are of course some projects that I can only work on when I have more time available to me, so I'd like to...a) flag all the items that need my attention per any given week or time period and then b) create a next action filter/folder of some sort that can further break them down for me to focus on for the next day (if that makes sense). Being that I'm new to OF, I'm not really familiar with all of it's settings - do any of you have any ideas?
Not entirely sure what you are asking for here, but I would suggest looking at context mode, grouping by project, selecting next actions which are flagged. Create a perspective if you find it to be useful.
Quote:
Edit: I almost forgot....is there also any way to set my "someday" and/or "pending" folders, etc so that there is no next action. Naturally there shouldn't be.
A few ways you can do this. One is to select the folder in the sidebar, then right-click or control-click and choose Dropped from the resulting popup menu. Nothing will show up in your active lists. Unfortunately, unless you show all projects in the sidebar, your someday and pending folders will be invisible. Not an ideal solution.

Another way is to put all of the projects in those folders on hold. Now you can still see them if you view Remaining projects in the sidebar, which makes it easier to drag and drop things there. They still won't clutter up your active tasks view in context mode. You can put numerous projects on hold (or back in action) at once by selecting the group in the sidebar, then bringing up the inspector and changing it for all. Or right-click or control-click and choose On Hold, Active, etc.
 
Thanks for the quick post Palmer....that pretty much answers my questions, so I guess we can just about close this thread:) A bit bummed that I can't changed the font for the flagged items but I think I'll take your advice and shoot them an email - with all the custom settings/preferences, I'm kind of shocked that that's not already an option, it just seems like it would make sense. In regards to the next action items...what I was trying to get at was - I don't necessarily like that every project HAS to have one next action (and only one). I know it's getting a bit outside the traditional GTD approach, which might be my problem, but I would like to choose whether to define the next actions for each project myself. In my mind, some projects have 2-3 next actions that I need to be focusing on, while others shouldn't really have any just yet. But I guess that kind of goes back to putting projects on hold - thanks for that btw, that's a nice help - I'm surprised I didn't run into any such solution while fishing around online. Thanks again - have a great rest of the week, go get things done!
 
You do get to choose which action is the next action — just move that action to the top of the project. A project you don't think should have any next actions sounds a lot like a project that is either on hold, dropped, or scheduled for a future start.

As for styling flagged options, I think between the flag icon at the end of the row and the ability to filter flagged actions, the developers feel they've got it covered. Can't say I've ever felt like disputing that view...
 
 


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