One reason why I want to share this with you is the key point you can break down complex rules into simpler ones and develop them step by step.
When I started with OmniFocus (OF) 3 some months ago I was missing a single someday/maybe list.
The issue with OF was that custom perspectives did either focus on projects or on actions, but not both. I was able to set up a custom perspective for someday projects (projects with status = on hold). I was also able to set up a custom perspective for actions tagged with a tag with status = on hold.
With the release of OF4 this changed with the introduction of the Flexible structure.
Let me try as best as I can how I developed the custom perspective. If you find a mistake, I‘d be happy to hear from you and learn.
Because structure Organized in custom perspectives either focuses on projects or individual actions I started with structure = Flexible.
Initial order = Projects Order was OK as well. Certain items (work) appear at the top of my projects some at the bottom (personal). Why should that change on a someday/maybe list?
Then I set some base rules under an All of the following: root.
All of the following: (general)
Availability: Remaining (-> generally no dropped or completed items)
None of the following:
Contained within project or folder: Reference (-> the Reference folder contains my GTD Higher Horizons and some lists which I want to generally exclude from Someday/Maybe)
Then I focused purely on all single actions which are someday/maybe:
All of the following: (single actions)
Is not a project or group (-> just take actions)
Tagged with any of: list of my someday/maybe tags (-> List of each of the someday/maybe tags. I use a root tag with tags for work, tickets at work and personal.)
So the structure up to now looks like this:
All of the following:
All of the following: (general)
All of the following: (single action)
The result is a list of all someday actions which are located within active projects (single action or other projects)
In order to develop the rules for the someday/maybe projects I disable the „All of the following: (single action)“ node.
For the projects I created a new „All of the following: (projects)“ node on the same level as the single action one of step 7.
Here I just want to see projects and action groups. That‘s why I start with:
None of the following:
Is not a project or group
Then I need the rules to pick the right projects. There are two conditions. Projects on hold and projects with a future defer date.
Any of the following: (-> I want either one. Therefore: Any which equals a logical OR)
Has a project that is on hold (-> on hold: remove the project and of its actions from my active and available topics)
Has an active project that has a future defer date (-> defer date: I don‘t want to or can’t work on the project right now, but after a certain date)
Now, I have a set of base rules with are generally relevant for all items of the custom perspective. I have a set of rules to find the someday/maybe actions and I have another set of rules to find the someday/maybe projects, but I want both to be displayed. This leads to the following structure:
All of the following: (AND)
All of the following: (general)
Any of the following: (single actions AND projects)
All of the following: (single action) (now enabled)
All of the following: (projects)
That‘s it. Now you see on hold projects, deferred projects and someday actions all in a single list.
I use a custom row layout In the view options with Project and Due Date enabled for display.
I hope you were able to follow without extra screenshots.
Well Logan, I had a look into it and tried to follow the structure which you set out, and I think I got it quite right, but if you see something weird, please tell me!
By the way, I have a someday perspective, and also a someday tag, which maybe counter intuitive?!
For me it took too much time to switch a next action to a someday/maybe status and back. Using no someday/maybe tag requires me just to remove the tag instead of removing one and setting another.
I’m really sorry Logan, after reading those two sentences about five or six times, I don’t get what you’re saying: first of all, do you use a ‘someday’ tag or not?
I used to use a someday tag (actually 3). But making a next action (an action I‘ve originally committed myself to act on) a someday item by tagging it took too much time. So I got rid of the someday tags and just assign one of my next action list tags to put a someday on one of my next action lists.
I have a plugin to remove all tags on selected actions and multiple plugins to assign a tag to selected actions. For all the plugins I have keyboard shortcuts on the iPad.
I’ve resorted to separating my “maybe’s” from my “somedays”.
Maybe’s are ideas that were captured and placed into an incubator/inbox. Somedays are Maybe’s/ideas that have been developed and converted into a project that I want to work on someday.
I have several Single Actions Lists (SALs) that act as inboxes or incubators for my “maybe” ideas.
IDEAS (Maybe’s) Folder
Personal Hobby Ideas
Office Ideas
Family Ideas
Vacation Ideas
House Renovation Ideas
I put ideas into one of these SALs. It’s just a single item. These are my “Maybe” items. I’m not committing to it. I just want to consider them. There’s nothing more to it than a one sentence idea for the title. I’ll put further thoughts into the notes section. If I want to flesh it out, I’ll add sub-tasks into the idea. If I have at least the first 3-4 next actions and I’m committed to it, I’ll drag an idea (maybe) out into a folder in the Project side panel. Then I’ll set the project status to “On Hold” and change the review cycle to 1 month. I can review this once a month to see if I am considering activating it. If it’s a seasonal project, I’ll just keep the project status to active and put a defer date to it (this is an idea that has to wait for summer time or a particular holiday).
I already have enough active projects in different folders. I don’t want to set a new project to “active” just yet or if it’s not the right season or situation for it. Christmas projects are deferred to the Holiday season. Another project might be planning for an anniversary of some kind.
Any projects that are set to “On Hold” or deferred to a future are my Someday projects. I’m definitely going to work on them someday.
Many ideas don’t make it out of the Ideas folder. An idea or maybe project may sound interesting at first but will probably decay and is no longer an interesting project or the cost-benefit analysis isn’t what I want it to be. I have found some projects will offer very little in return because it doesn’t align with my goals or the cost may outweigh the benefits of completing a project.
I have a Due app reminder set to remind me to do a monthly review. In the monthly review, I’ll visit the Ideas folder to see if there’s anything I can flesh out. I have a “Someday” perspective that shows all on hold projects or deferred projects. I’ll visit this perspective to see if any of these projects are no longer needed and can be dropped. I can also determine if the time is right for me to activate the project.
For me, Someday projects are separated from my Maybe project ideas.
Your separation is interesting. My focus was mainly on simplicity. Also within a project I can easily recognise which someday/maybe is an option. There are only very few single action lists (like next purchase, places to visit, …). Good enough for me.
Since version two, I’m on OmniFocus, although when it became too overwhelming (too few reviews!), I dropped out and even went to pen and notebook mode for a while.
As for now (with vs.4 it’s a new start) and I try to make sense out of my ‘someday’ perspective, which is different from the ‘soon’ tag, where ‘soon’ has a higher priority:
Due
Flagged
next
soon
someday
I probably do have too many perspectives (16) and tags right now.
At first, I work from the Inbox, then Forecast, then Due & Flagged perspectives…
This works pretty well, however too many redundancies (for ex. next and soon).
