I keep work and private tasks strictly separated. So far I have simply kept them i two different top level project folders. In the morning and after work i focus the respective folders. This lets me wander between projects, review, forecast and a custom “today” perspective.
There are a few drawbacks however:
– A few private projects with actions that has to be done during work hours (like “call dentist”) will not appear without duplicating the action in a work project.
– Work and private inbox items will both show in both spheres. Adding a work or private context (now tags) was somewhat helpful, but did not fit the “work or private focus” model.
– I switch between the different spheres twice a day. I feel this could be done quicker or even automatically. A toggle hotkey would be nice!
I feel like this is not exactly “best practice”. Tags seem like a more appropriate way to seperate the spheres? Any way to apply tags in certain folders automatically? However, It seems like I cannot focus on a tag (bug?). Any good advice on how to organize this?
I tag all my actions and I make heavy use of tag hierarchies which (mostly) lead up to “Work” or “Home”. So an action related to a sales opportunity will be tagged “Sales” which is a sub-tag of “Work”. A job around the house is tagged “Job” which is a sub-tag of “Home”.
I then create perspectives simply on the tags “Work” or “Home” which automatically includes all the tags below them.
If I have a project which tags up to “Work” but I want an action within it to show in my “Home” perspective I can simply add the “Home” tag to that action and it shows up in both places.
I have similar Work and Personal folders for my projects. But I use the projects view for macro-level structuring, less so for my actual workflow.
I do better using tags and perspectives that filter automatically. The focus feature seems so useful but I have trouble with it. I end up switching views and forgetting it’s focused, leading to a view that’s filtered in a way I didn’t expect.
My “call dentist” action would have an office tag if I intended to do that at work. But it would be in a single action list in my Personal projects folder.
I would actually probably flag the item so it appears in a perspective I have that shows Due and Flagged items, if calling the dentist is something that should be done today.
Switching the perspective quickly seems useful. You could have a Home view custom perspective which can be assigned a keyboard shortcut or put in the sidebar.
I don’t believe folders inherit tags, but if projects are given tags actions within that project should inherit them.
@dangerousdaze: So far, it seems like there is no perfect solution. Substituting focus for different perspectives may be a good tradeoff, but I will miss being able to cycle through other perspectives with a filter applied.
– Same here.
– I agree that it can have unexpected effects, but as a work/private separator you will never be in doubt.
– For single actions I agree. Sometimes I have complex projects where a home action relies on a worktime action. This dentist project is about finding out if I have to pull a wisdom tooth or not and then optionally doing so. While not a big problem in itself, it breaks the project structure that works so good for me.
I wonder why it not possible to focus tags. I can see a lot of uses in addition to this case.
