There’s a bit of a contradiction in saying that OF is very complex and wanting more options for alternate behaviours. OF is very flexible, but the design wisely makes some choices based on the fact that it’s a task manager (for a few hundreds of tasks that each belong in a project) and not an all-purpose database. Sort order (eg. most recent dates come first) is a good example.
Duration can be a useful piece of data to capture for some specific tasks. If comparing them it’s best to look at them in isolation, and the ‘Has an estimated duration’ rule in custom perspectives conveniently allows this!
If you want to have a workflow based on prioritisation I’d suggest two approaches:
- there is already an implicit prioritisation in the distinction between tasks which are ‘remaining’, available’, or have the ‘Forecast tag’. The flag can provide another level.
- Create tags if you need additional prioritisation levels. They are quicker to apply than durations. On the Mac you can easily switch the priority in any perspective which groups by Tag: press the
Cmdkey and drag the task between tag groups.
