I have tagged my projects 1-5 in order of importance. I have switched to a quarterly review in which I have hundreds of projects to review. I’d like to sort and/or filter these. Any suggestions?
The review view is a built in one with little opportunity to sort (there is a sort option, but it’s limited) or filter. Either something is due a review or it isn’t. The one thing you can do though is that if you use folders, you can focus on one or more folders at a time to only show Projects in that/those folders which are due a review.
I will say (from experience) that if you have that many projects, it’s not practical to review quarterly, you also need to review monthly, weekly, and in my experience, daily for those project which are due a review on that day.
This allows you to spread the load instead of being hit with a massive number of projects all due at the same time, and there’s much less likelihood of something being missed.
Also be realistic for each project on how often you need to review it. Not every project needs to be reviewed weekly (per GTD) My annual closedown project needs a single review annually in September before I start it in November. My Work Misc Single Action List project needs a weekly review.
If you really wish to break this down, you can review projects manually by opening each project, visually reviewing it and changing the next review date to the next date you want to review it, but this will take longer to review each individual project…
Thank you. I appreciate you sharing your experience. Fellow GTD’r here for ~20 years.
Yes, I also do daily, weekly, monthly and annual reviews.
I currently have about 300 projects and 1300 actions. Having an easily used capture system lends itself to more items that you’ll likely never have time to address…Currently using Apple Watch as capture device…actionable items go to OF, others go to drafts which I then move to calendar, obsidian, mail or messages primarily.
Had gotten into the habit of adding projects/next actions that would have by default a weekly (1 week) review. I was kicking the can down the road weekly for so many items, never having time actually to do anything.
David Sparks convinced me to shift more to a quarterly review cycle. This is my first go at that, allotting time for it… I have let’s say 10 hours this week allotted to confronting these projects. I’ll review them all, hopefully attack a few of them also. So far, my weekly review has been more palatable. Now the rubber meets the road to set the tone for the next quarter of individual weeks.
Things that I want to do during a given week, I’ll put on into Fantastical with a link back to the OF project/action. This forces time constraint, which I like. If I placed an item on my calendar and I don’t get it done, I circle back to that daily/weekly and drag it forward to another day/time.
Also, I try to keep a very short list of 1-6 things I’ll try to get done in any free time that pops up in a given day. I have been using paper for this; in the past have dabbled using “now” or “today” tag in OF for this. Might go back to that…
I use flags sparingly…as a means of getting it soon into my calendar or paper/now. I do like flags for having a streamlined list of what should be burning in my mind the next time I run into someone…I use tags for being with another person…eg @spouse, @child, @coworker …having specific tag for most frequent people…
Was hoping to be able to use my already ingrained tags of 1-5 (order of importance) so I could look at things in order of most to least important, in case during the quarterly review, I don’t have a chance to get to everything.
1 Like
I also divide OF projects into the following project folders
- personal
- work
- mom (am her POA)
- single tasks personal
- single tasks work
- templates
the 4 kids reside in personal, using tags…
The Review feature doesn’t allow you to sort by a tag unfortunately.
If you want to submit a feature request, you need to send it via email to the support team at Omni. They won’t necessarily pick it up here. This may be something they see virtue in.
I don’t know how you structure your quarterly review, but if you want to review 300 projects, even at a minute each that’s going to take you 5 hours, and a minute each doesn’t sound long enough for many of the projects I run.
I’m not judging you on the number of projects you have, but I only create a project when I plan it and start booking in time to complete it. Until then it stays as an action in my backlog project (think of it as someday/maybe list), if I have actions in mind for that backlogged project, they go in the notes field of the backlog project item until I start planning it as a project.
This means that when I review my Backlog project weekly I’m only deciding if anything needs to either:
- move from backlog into planning, or
- if that great idea I had in the last week should be dropped
When I move something from the backlog into planning, that action is changed into a project which then (as it has no actions) becomes a stalled project which I pick up as part of my weekly review and start to flesh out.
Currently my Work Backlog Project has 35 actions waiting to be activated, that’s 35 potential projects I only have to glance over once a week.
Sounds like you have a well designed flow.
At my last quarterly review I dropped and deleted many projects…That was a start.Thinking this quarterly review I’ll prune some more :)
Need to decide if/when to archive. Performance seems fine across devices…There is a difference among archiving, dropping and deleting. Dropping and archiving are not mutually exclusive.
Someday/maybe can go into OF or Obsidian. Knowing the difference is difficult in the moment. Being more selective with adding OF items.
Getting better about recognizing what are thoughts/ideas rather than actionable items…These go to journals in obsidian. If something is important, it will somehow resurface.
1 Like
As David Sparks has said a few times on various podcasts, sometimes you gotta put your big boy pants on and recognise the things you’re never going to get to and remove them from your database. By doing so, it reduces your stress and simplifies your life.
But it’s always a journey, we all fall off the horse sometimes or need some inspiration. 😀
Could you review by tag? So first by tag A, then when they are all reviewed by the next one?
Are all projects to be reviewed at the same time?
I have an idea, but need to understand your options.
Good thought. This is more possible with more projects being reviewed less frequently…eg quarterly instead of weekly. But I had organized my review sessions based on review date. In the past, review frequency for each task had been individualized based on that task…anywhere from q 1 wk to q 52 wks…This time I tried to focus on spending less review time between quarterly reviews…Felt good until now :)
1 Like
I‘ve created a bunch of plugins to set projects based on certain criteria to review. Like all projects of some folder, single action lists, on hol projects, active projects, etc. Instead of OmniFocus triggering me, I defined what to review when.
For you I thought maybe setting all projects with a certain tag on review could be an option.
If you see certain conditions, then there could be a plugin to set those project‘s review date to today, you review them and then if you‘ve enough energy left, you set the next batch for review.
What do you think?
