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OF, People & Contexts Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
Hi Guys,

I've used all the GTD software available over the last 5 years. None really fits the bill.

My problem is that I extensively use tags and OF doesn't have tags.

Here's the question. I deal with a lot of people in my workflow. This means calling them meeting with them, emailing them etc. My difficulty is that when I meet with an individual how can I get OF to show me everything about that person that I've put in OF? If I use the context then I may miss the person when I'm making calls or emails as only one context is allowed?
 
If you have contact of any sort with Joe Smith, whether email, phone, face-to-face, whatever, you go look at your Agenda : Joe Smith context where you've put all the items requiring some sort of contact with Joe Smith.
 
Problem is that I also have to call Joe Smith and want that to appear with my calls context or I might forget.

Using the context for agenda is problematic as it creates individual contexts that need to be checked making the whole GTD less efficient.
 
Call Joe Smith about XYZ @Agenda:Joe Smith Start:today Due:today
found either by looking at actions starting today, or actions due today

or,

Call Joe Smith about XYZ @Calls
found by looking at your @Calls context which you somehow magically know to check, and then check the Agenda:Joe Smith context while you are on the phone to make sure you've covered all matters concerning Joe.

Many of us find this scheme works fine, so long as you don't throw up too many theoretical roadblocks to convince yourself that it cannot :-)
 
I'm with svsmailus... I have the same issue. I wish there were a way to have multiple tags on one project action. Perhaps the action I want to follow up on is John's, but it is also I want to remember to follow-up with my boss to give him a specific update about John's progress. I wish there were a simple way to flag both.
 
@whpalmer4

I'm responsible for some 120 people. I do not check each individual on a daily basis, but contexts such as calls are checked everyday. I don't want anything slipping through the net.

This seems a real flaw with OF. There appears to be no way of assigning a task to a context as well as an individual without creating your own @tags in the subject line.

OF appears adequate for an individual completing tasks relating only to himself. This just isn't feasible for people who work as part of a team or those in leadership. Perhaps I'll have to go back to Taskpaper if I cannot come up with good solution.

I'm surprised with all the bell's and whistles on OF that such fundamental functionality does not exist.

I don't want to get into the multiple contexts per task argument, but am beginning to think that the lack of this ability or the lack of tags severely restricts OF for those of us that manage people as well as tasks.
 
If you're closing out your calls context every day, why not just group your people contexts under a context group and close it out at the same time?
 
I agree with svsmailus on this. I also have about 120 people I'm responsible for, not to mention a whole bunch of other stuff. Not being able to have multiple contexts or tags is the reason I keep looking @ Things. Things lack of a sync solution keeps me from straying to far from OF.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by svsmailus View Post
This seems a real flaw with OF.
It's not a flaw in OF, it's a 'flaw' in GTD.

OF just sticks to the tennents of GTD

I've put a feature request in for tags in OF, email the Ninjas and add your vote.
 
This has been nagging me since the first day I started using OmniFocus and I think I have understood the principle of the GTD-workflow.

I disagree with whpalmer4 in this case. And I don't see, why it shouldn't be possible to have multiple contexts. It's rather simple coding to allow multiple contexts and have that as an on/off option for power-users. The users that want to stick to single context can have that by default. The power-users can switch on multiple contexts and then have the assigned task show up in several contexts.

Is there any good reason to not implement this functionality?

During the couple of years I've been using OF I keep running into this issue over and over.

Here's an example:
What if I want to help someone with something that can only be done at his place? In this case I'd like to assign a person as context because the item is related to this specific person and I need that person to proceed.

Next, I'd want to attach the town this person lives in. Maybe the task isn't a major task but a little task for which I still need to be at that persons house, then I'd need the city. So whenever I'm in that specific town, I could drop by and get the task done on my way out of that town.

Whenever I travel I'd love to have a look at my contexts and see if there's anything open to do in a certain town.

I am aware of the fact, that I can assign places to a person. But that is not usable for me, since I might have to meet the same person at various occasions and places, thus having one single place assigned to a person would cause great confusion.

Also I am aware of what whpalmer4 suggests: simply add one component of the multiple contexts into the task description, but the issue with that is, that as (already the OP pointed out) then things might fall through the grid when using contexts.

How do others deal with this? And again, why not make it possible as an option? No one would get hurt, imo.

Last edited by FatalError; 2011-05-31 at 09:00 AM..
 
 


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