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today status - feature request Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
Quote:
Originally Posted by watchit View Post
I don't have anything backwards... the fact is the app treats each one quite differently.
Sorry, maybe I mis-inderstood.
I thought you were trying to use start dates to create a "Today" list. As Brian said, start dates and due dates serve very different purposes but if you are trying to make a "Today" list you can mis-use either start date or due date to get a list that is almost what you want, but not quite. Reason being that they aren't designed to be used this way.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by henry View Post
Today lists are a form of prioritisation. You're saying that these items are more important than anything else based on some arbitrary measure which may not be valid when you come round to doing the task. There may be a perfectly valid reason why you CAN'T do the task when the time comes, but you will feel bad about not being able to do it.
Also there may be other tasks that you are able to do but they won't get done because they aren't on your today list.
aren't all lists by definition a form of prioritisation in that they exclude all things not on them? the arbitrary measure is that i want to do today items today, and want to have quick access to a coralled list of those actions.

i don't feel bad about not being able to do something on my today list, and having a today list doesn't prevent me from doing things which aren't on it (in fact many things not on the list get done anyway since no list is biologically exhaustive). the today list is not a very rigid thing in my world, but it's something i can refer to when i get distracted.

this is simply a memory aid. david allen suggests that ultimately, intuition is the deciding factor in where one's focus should go at any point in time (all other things being equal eg available resources/context), and the today list for me is simply an informal and quick memory aid for noting the results of that intuitive process.

in a similar way, software such as concentrate and vitamin r helps me to stay on track for periods of time even when i have decided what to do next.

we're talking real world idiot-proofing for those of us like myself with more monkey mind than zen-like powers of concentration...

whatever the pros and cons - and i have yet to see any cons to having a today feature, i want a today list, i use it in things, and i want it in OF! ninjas have been alerted. it's only a matter of time!

Last edited by elektroglide; 2010-06-16 at 08:49 AM..
 
I don't think there's enough demand for a separate menu item,

Brian,

We are not asking for a separate menu item.
In Preferences>Stlye>Status-Based Styles, the default is four Statuses - Blocked in gray, Due Soon in orange, Overdue in red, and Completed with strikethrough.

I look at my calendar every morning for that days schedule. I would like to include Omnifocus in that daily habit. I need a status with associated color for an item before it is too late and Overdue, but later than just Due Soon. Due Soon could be yellow, and Due Today amber. A tickler file is basic GTD stuff, this feature needs to be incorporated in Omnifocus.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by elektroglide View Post
we're talking real world idiot-proofing for those of us like myself with more monkey mind than zen-like powers of concentration...

whatever the pros and cons - and i have yet to see any cons to having a today feature, i want a today list, i use it in things, and i want it in OF! ninjas have been alerted. it's only a matter of time!
I think that's more the way that things works and not really the way that OF works. One thing that you might try is to combine flagging with grouping by context in context mode. Then you can say ok I'm going to do the stuff in this context first this context second etc. Does that make sense?
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by emiron View Post
I don't think there's enough demand for a separate menu item,

Brian,

We are not asking for a separate menu item.
In Preferences>Stlye>Status-Based Styles, the default is four Statuses - Blocked in gray, Due Soon in orange, Overdue in red, and Completed with strikethrough.

I look at my calendar every morning for that days schedule. I would like to include Omnifocus in that daily habit. I need a status with associated color for an item before it is too late and Overdue, but later than just Due Soon. Due Soon could be yellow, and Due Today amber. A tickler file is basic GTD stuff, this feature needs to be incorporated in Omnifocus.
Why not have 10 styles? One for overdue, one for today, one for tomorrow, one for 2 days out, one for 3 days out, …

That's what I want. I'm putting in a feature request!
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by emiron View Post
We are not asking for a separate menu item.
Well, you're not, but the person I was responding to in the post you quoted was. :-)

More styles mean more utility for the folks that use them, but also added complexity in the app for the folks that wouldn't. I'm not disagreeing with your need - just pointing out that there is a tradeoff involved.

As always, folks that need this should email the support ninjas and let us know.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by elektroglide View Post
whatever the pros and cons - and i have yet to see any cons to having a today feature, i want a today list, i use it in things, and i want it in OF! ninjas have been alerted. it's only a matter of time!
i agree completely. a "Today" or "Now" feature is an important tool, currently missing from OmniFocus.

it should be a date field - in other words, for any given action item, i should be able to specify a date it will appear on the "Today" list (which is a very different thing from being "Available").

OmniFocus does a great job of providing lists of possible Action Items based on the current Context, the date (what has become available, nearly Due, past Due), and what has become do-able (now that pre-requisites are complete).

Where OF disappoints is as a planning tool, and a means for seeing what Contexts are necessary now (it is all well and good to say "Oh, I have some time in {pick a Context} - what should I do?", but also important to be able to ask "of all that I must do in the coming {pick a period of time} what Contexts will be necessary, so I can plan to be there (or at computer, near phone, etc.).

A "Today" view is part of the solution and would be a natural out-growth from a planning module that permitted the user to assign "Do" dates to Action Items and get an overview of what Contexts will be required (and when) by that plan. Currently, OF only does the reverse - you get to see Action Items for the current Context, but you don't get a useful tool for seeing the Context(s) necessary for the Action Items deemed most important (as opposed to Due status, etc.).

It is a reactionary workflow. "I'm in _____ context, what should/could I do?" when what is needed is pro-active "What contexts are implied by my assessment of what is most important this week?"
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by JorBru View Post
A "Today" view is part of the solution and would be a natural out-growth from a planning module that permitted the user to assign "Do" dates to Action Items and get an overview of what Contexts will be required (and when) by that plan.
[…]
It is a reactionary workflow. "I'm in _____ context, what should/could I do?" when what is needed is pro-active "What contexts are implied by my assessment of what is most important this week?"
You might try setting the Next Action filter in context mode and grouping by context, which will give you the list of contexts you selected for your top-rated tasks in all of your projects.

If you have a lot of due dates, you might take the approach of setting your due soon horizon to a week and then use the due soon filter and group by context to get the list of the contexts you'll need to be in in the next week.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by JorBru View Post
It is a reactionary workflow. "I'm in _____ context, what should/could I do?" when what is needed is pro-active "What contexts are implied by my assessment of what is most important this week?"
JorBru, with all due respect for your specific workflow needs, I'm part of the bunch that is very much pro-this "reactionary workflow". And I'm amused -in a good way- by this description of David Allen's system; which I do not think by any means is the only one available; however, it is nominatively the one OF is attached to; there's other apps that might be more appropriate to the type of workflow you seem to be applying.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by hypotyposis View Post
JorBru, with all due respect for your specific workflow needs, I'm part of the bunch that is very much pro-this "reactionary workflow". And I'm amused -in a good way- by this description of David Allen's system; which I do not think by any means is the only one available; however, it is nominatively the one OF is attached to; there's other apps that might be more appropriate to the type of workflow you seem to be applying.
I wouldn't want to take the "reactionary workflow" away from you :-)
Just want to have the option to be pro-active.

I'm an adherent to David Allen's system, so I definitely understand the value of being able to answer the question "What can be done at this moment {in this context, etc.}".

It's just that the ability to plan ahead is also important.

OF already can capture time required to perform a task, context, start and due dates, etc. In my mind, there is little that is missing.

One "missing" feature is a way to plan for the future (as part of, say, a weekly review). I think David Allen would agree that some thought about when a task is to be completed is part of the process. To the extent that I have captured Context and Estimated Time data for action items, the system could tell me when I have an impossible plan (either because it requires more than 24 hours in a day, or incompatible Contexts, such as being in Boston and Chicago on the same afternoon).

Not recognizing those impossible plans means not realizing that Action due dates might not be met. As the work day/week wear on, there are inevitable disruptions to the plan - the sooner that the implications of such disruptions are understood the better. Often, the most important tasks to be completed are important not because their due date is approaching but because their Context is available now and will not be available again in sufficient time for a downstream task to be completed.

I appreciate that it is difficult to add capabilities without cluttering the tool - but there is opportunity here also.

Ultimately, I would like weekly and daily reviews to keep OF sufficiently up-to-date that it can provide me with a one page (iPad screen) summary of my day - displaying Calendar info from iCal in one column, and Action Items in another column. (before anyone tells me that Action Items do not belong on a calendar, please know that I understand that - however, on any given day, the objective is to manage time between hard landscape and things that need getting done. thus, two columns: one with time slots, and one that is a list).

This "Hot list and Appointments" page could be refreshed whenever new info is available (and thus would not require clerical management of lists beyond what happens in the course of daily and weekly reviews and the checking-off of completed items).

I don't see a conflict with GTD here. Rather, I see this as a more complete implementation of Allen's vision. The ability to find tasks that can be done in the current Context is very important (as a reaction to unexpected change in plans), but we also need to know when we have "scheduled" mutually exclusive Contexts - or even just to know what Contexts must be achieved to keep moving forward.
 
 


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