Hi, I am South Korean student. OF2 for Mac makes my life more
efficiently.
Would you give me some tips in case of dealing actions which have
period.
my situation :
I have a project which have 2 actions, such as a1, a2.
Each action has period and repeats daily within that period.
a1 : July 1 ~ July 3
a2 : July 4 ~ July 6
I want to check and complete these actions daily in the period (July 1
~ July 6) through Forecast Perspective.
For example:
On July 1, a1 must be shown in Forecast Perspective. and I complete a1
(by clicking the circle icon).
On July 2, a1 must be shown in Forecast Perspective. and I complete a1.
On July 3, a1 must be shown in Forecast Perspective. and I complete a1.
On July 4, a1 disappears and a2 must be shown in Forecast Perspective.
and I complete a2.
On July 5, a2 must be shown in Forecast Perspective. and I complete a2.
On July 6, a2 must be shown in Forecast Perspective. and I complete a2.
How can I set this project and actions with OF2 for Mac? Help me!
etark, it’s a bit difficult to understand from your description exactly what you’re going for. Any action is completed exactly once. So by completing action a1 onl July 1, it cannot appear in your forecast on July 2 for completion, because it is completed already.
Also, repeats in OmniFocus are always forever, you can’t limit an action’s or project’s repeats to, say, just two.
So solving this (if I understand correctly) requires a bit of manual work. What you need to do is create a sequential project or group for a1anda2 together, and repeat the actions, as so:
actions ‘a’ (sequential project or group set with “Complete when completing last action” set)
a1, due July 1
a1, due July 2
a1, due July 3
a2, due July 4
a2, due July 5
a2, due July 6
To reduce keystrokes you can use Duplicate (⌘D) after entering a1 and click +1 day in the Due: field and repeat, then enter a2, duplicate and add a day and repeat.
Does that work or do I misunderstand your question?
Incidentally, another choice would be to do the following: once again create a sequential parent as above, but this time create it as:
actions ‘a’ (sequential project or group set with “Complete when completing last action” set)¹
a1, due July 1 with Repeat Every set to 1 day.
a2, due July 4 with Repeat Every set to 1 day
Now you don’t have to duplicate the iasks. But you do have to remember, after completing a1 on July 3, to delete the newly-created a1 with a due date of July 4, thus making a2 available as the next action. Then on July 6, when you mark a2 completed, you must delete the newly-created a2 with due date July 7, which will have the effect of completing the parent group.
The first option, with six explicit actions from the start, is a little harder to key in, but doesn’t leave anything to chance if you forget to do the deletes (or mistakenly choose Complete instead of delete).
The second option is less keying but you do have to remember at the appropriate time to delete (or add items to your calendar or to another project with July 3 and July 6 to remind you to delete the new actions.)
¹ Note that because of a wrinkle in how OmniFocus handles parent completion, when you delete a2 on July 6, you will have to manually mark the parent project/group completed; even though it is set to “Complete when completing last action”, deleting the last action isn’t “completing” it, so you’ll have a stalled project once a2 is deleted.
I like the 2nd option @treyharris suggested better, but I’d go a bit further and name the tasks slightly different:
a1 — delete on July 4th, due July 1 with Repeat Every set to 1 day.
a2 — delete on July 6th, due July 4 with Repeat Every set to 1 day
Basically, what I’m suggesting is adding some sort of reminder so you don’t forget to delete the tasks when needed.
Observation: I’m using the character “—” as a separation/prefix for all meta-information (instructions to self), but you could use anything you choose (I’ve seen people using “::”, for instance). The idea is using something unique, that you could easily search when you are in maintenance mode (trying to fix something).
Hope this helps.
Side note… on this:
As for the need of manually marking the project as complete, yes you have that side effect. I’d like to make an additional suggestion to counter that: add a recurrent task to your routine, so you always verify next actions exist — say thanks to @curt for that ;)
Do I have to think different radically in using “ ‘Today’ section of Forecast” ??
Let me show you another example. (My English is not fluent, so I cannot help showing EXAMPLEs to understand my problem. I am sorry.)
For example, My project is “to be good looking boy”.
To accomplish this project, I will swim for 5 days (Action “swimming”). and after
5 days I will jog for 7 days. (Action “jogging”)
And I have other project too.
In this project I have to do some action(a1) for 30days. And after a1, I had to do other action(a2)…
I think we are surrounded by many projects like that.
And I want to know what actions should I execute today
by Just checking “Today” section of Forecast Perspective.
On day1 “Today” section of Forecast Perspective show me that there is
two actions to do today: “swimming”, “a1”
On day2 : “swimming”, “a1”
…
On day5 : “swimming”, “a1”
On day6 : “Today” section of Forecast Perspective show me that there is
two actions to do today: “jogging”, “a1”
…
On day12 : jogging, a1
On day13 : a1
…
On day30 : a1 On day31 : a2
On day32 : a2
…
I want to know How should I set OF2 facing this situation.
Or I had to think different radically in using “ ‘Today’ section of Forecast” ?
