[pjb]

With the release of OF 1.1 near, and OF for the iPhone, combined with the likelihood that I'll get either an iPod Touch or an iPhone, I'm wondering if I should start using OF for my shopping lists (grocery, mostly). In general, I do keep Context = Errands:Hardware type items in OF, but do not use Shopping:Grocery, Shopping:Pharmacy, etc contexts. Hardware type purposes just seem so much more project oriented than, say, food shopping and who knows in advance how to predict when you'll run out of TP? I tend to keep those lists on my Palm PDA in HandyShopper. Any, OF for the iPhone centric ideas for keeping shopping lists in OF?

[Lucas]

Not exactly an iPhone tip, but you might want to try setting up a Jott recipient for OF so when you are close to running out of something you can put it into your OF shopping list.

[MJK]

I have been using OmniFocus for quite a while now and the way I have it set up works nicely.

The best way to set up contexts in my opinion is to make as many as you need, but as few as possible. Too many contexts make things cluttered, too few don't provide enough functionality.

But simply enough, I have a few contexts where I might shop, one for the big city which takes some getting to but also has a lot more shops, one for the nearest big mall and one for the local small shop.

So I set up a main context called Errands, so I can drop errands that don't fit into any sub-context, then under that I have those three sub-contexts.

Errands
Errands: Big City
Errands: Mall
Errands: Grocery Store

Like that. These contexts are necessary since these are places I go to for the specific purpose of buying what I can only find there.

It is a very obvious way to do it and I'm sure you would do it the same way, but you said that the grocery store doesn't seem like a project oriented thing.

I would argue that it is, since when you go to the grocery store, it is your project. You are at the grocery store, which is a context, and you are shopping for several things there, like milk, bread and pie. That would be a project since it takes several steps to get the groceries and anything that takes more than one action to complete is a project.

Now, the way I add stuff there is when I run low on something. As you said, you might not know exactly when you'll run out of TP, but you DO know when you run LOW on it. You have 2 rolls left? Add it to the list. Under half a bag of sugar left? Add it. Also when you decide you wanna make a special dinner for example, you need special stuff and so you add those to the list.

The idea is that some things you buy every time you go to the store, like milk and bread and so you don't need to have a list for them, but some things like TP or dishwashing fluid or a bag of sugar you only buy when you start to run low on it and you shouldn't wait until you run out of it to buy more, but buy it when you run low on it. You can of course add even the obvious things you buy every time if you want to, but it's not necessary.

[pjb]

MLK, what does this look like on the Project side?

[Lizard]

My grocery context is populated with actions from a few different projects. "Buy birthday card for mom" comes from my People project. "3-ring binder" comes from my "Make new recipe book" project. "Root beer" is from my "July poker party" project. But a lot of it (toilet paper, milk, hot fudge sauce) is from my catch-all "Household Maintenance" project, which is a single-action list.

For me, a grocery store trip is not a project. Projects for me answer the "why" question. (Why am I buying mom a card? Because I care about staying connected with people.) Contexts answer the "where" question.

[MJK]

Originally Posted by Lizard

For me, a grocery store trip is not a project. Projects for me answer the "why" question. (Why am I buying mom a card? Because I care about staying connected with people.) Contexts answer the "where" question.

The same thing for me, the project I use is just a general "Buy" project. And I also have projects for different actual projects, like if I wanna make pie, I might make a project named "Make Pie" and list stuff to buy under it.

But the "Grocery Store" -list I use is a context and so doesn't exist as a full list in the "Planning Mode". As you said, stuff to buy at the grocery store might come from several projects, but you buy them only at one place (and a grocery store is a place and places are contexts).

[MJK]

Originally Posted by pjb

MLK, what does this look like on the Project side?

If you meant me and means the Planning Mode, you can put groceries and such in any project, several projects in fact.

But personally I have one list named just simply "Buy". It includes everything to buy in any of the aforementioned places.

Since I do the weekly review, I can check for anything that doesn't belong there when I do the review. I do have a separate "Buy Someday/Maybe" list since I have a LOT of stuff to buy eventually or maybe, which is On Hold. Then I can move anything from that "Someday/Maybe" list to the actual "Buy" list if I want to buy them soon. Or if OmniFocus gets the ability to pause individual actions, then I'll probably combine those two lists and just pause the items I might maybe get at some point but not yet.

But again, shopping can be included in several projects since all I want to see when I'm actually heading to the store, or with an iPhone once that comes out, when I'm actually AT the store, what I want to see is the Grocery Store list on the contexts side. Contexts after all are among others things, places where you are.

Planning is for exactly that, planning. The context side is for actually doing things listed by what you have access to, like where you are, and there by getting things off the list. That's how I see it and how I work anyway.

[rsailer@mac.com]

Originally Posted by pjb

\ Any, OF for the iPhone centric ideas for keeping shopping lists in OF?

I use splash shopper on my treo and it is coming to the iphone. Grocery shopping is a very regular thing for me (5 kids) so I don't really need a reminder to do it. I do need a list of what I need so I use splash shopper for groceries. When I run out of something, I usually put it directly into treo:splash shopper or (infrequently) I write a note that goes through my in-basket into splash shopper (usually the first takes only seconds).

This isn't part of OF, but seems to work fine with it....

When I get my iphone, I will get splash shopper...

Randy