[flyingdesigner]

Here is the situation:

I have a repeating project called 'Daily Review' which has in it review & maintenance tasks that I like to repeat every day.

I have a repeating project called 'Weekly Review' with much the same as above but that happen every week - a more in-depth review.

I have a repeating project called 'Family Review' that seems self explanatory. Also weekly.

Each is set to start at a particular time, be due a particular time, and repeat the next interval when completed. These are separate projects and its the tasks that are set to repeat.

(FYI, this is one of the only situations in which I use due dates. I mostly organize by start date.)

I make theatre for a living which means that when I am in technical rehearsals, I work 14 hour days and am 100% focused on the task at hand. My life schedule is organized around that so I know I don't have any extra time, so I try not to schedule things in those periods, but stuff comes up...

So, when I'm not in technical rehearsals, the system above is really great for making sure I get the reviews I want to have done done every day.

But, they just back up when I'm in tech. So I realize the need to implement two different sets of reviews for when I'm in the two different situations.

My thought is to have a folder called "active reviews" and one called "inactive reviews" and just drag projects back and forth and pause/unpause them. But the question is how do I manage the start / due dates without having to re-enter them every time I swap between normal reviews and tech reviews. There has got to be an elegant solution out there, but I can't seem to find it.

Would love some thoughts from the forum.

Thx.
FD

[robwbartel]

I have start, repeat and due times on the Project. In addition, I have a couple of compound actions that have start times (which I wish were "offset from Project start time"). The project starts every day at 7:00PM, and is designed to remind me to process my "home" inbox - all the items that might generate actions in Omnifocus - e.g. postal mail, personal email, etc. Then the compound action "process work inbox" is set to start at 9:00AM the next morning.

When I know I have to skip a day or two (e.g., sometimes on the weekends and during vacations) I'll set the project start and due dates ahead that amount. Unfortunately, I also have to set a couple of compound actions ahead as well, because as far as I know there's no way to say "start 5 hours after the project starts".

[Brian]

Flyingdesigner, just to make sure I understand what you're after, let me repeat what I think you're asking for back to you. If I got it wrong, let me know. Want to make sure I'm capturing the scope of your question accurately.

You've got three repeating projects which help you keep your various reviews on track. Some of them only get used when you're in a particularly intense work phase; they get skipped the rest of the time. You'd like to find a way to automatically set the start date on those projects whenever you go into those intense phases, yes?

If so, let me know and I can write up a feature request for you on that - as it is, I think editing the start date manually on those projects is probably the easiest way to accomplish this. How often do these intense periods occur? Which devices are you using OmniFocus on?

(If you're on the Mac, you could just select all three projects, then type "today" into the start date field of the inspector in order to set all three projects' start dates at once...)

[flyingdesigner]

Hi Brian,
Not quite. Perhaps a better way to explain it is that I've got review projects for when I'm in non-intense work phases and I've got review projects for when I'm in intense work phases. Each is composed of tasks that are set to repeat (but have different contexts).

I'd like to find a way to turn one set on and the other off, depending on what phase I'm in, in an easy way.

They occur pretty regularly - but randomly, if that makes sense. IE, two weeks intense, then 4 days non intense, then intense for a few more days, etc.

I use OF on my mac, iPhone, and iPad.

FYI, I have the intervals set at the task level, not at the project level because I can't seem to get the project level start and due dates to automatically populate the tasks within. Maybe I'm doing something wrong...

[whpalmer4]

Sounds like you might be able to make good use of either Dan Byler's Defer and Snooze scripts or Rob Trew's SetDates script. When you switch between work phases, just put the other projects on hold, and use the script to bring the active project current.

[Brian]

Okay, have a better handle on the situation now; I agree with Bill. :-)