As Omni Twitter invited suggestions on how organizing actions on iPad can be made easier, I decided to post here so we can generate something more mature than my random thoughts.
That said, here are the key points to address, based on my experience–and please share yours.
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Insert new action as a sibling and as a child at a specific place in a current project.
Dreaming of one step for what currently my takes 3 steps: (1) New Action; (2) scroll to the bottom (sometimes several screens); (3) enable Move mode and drag-n-drop – or Cut-n-Paste -
Insert new action to a non-current project right to a specific place among its existing actions (ideally again, as a child or sibling).
Currently it takes these steps: (1) New Inbox Item; (2) switch to Inbox; (3) scroll down to bottom of Inbox; (4) edit Inbox Item only to choose project and Go To into it; (5) scroll to bottom, Move or cut-n-paste it into where it should belong among project actions -
Same applies to moving from Inbox (or whatsoever project) to another project: allow to specify a specific place among other actions.
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Find some way to easily open to the action you just added via 2., when you placed it in a wrong project or otherwise forgot to set an important attribute.
Maybe via some back-n-forward across the recent projects/perspectives and tasks. Or maybe with a more built-in and always-near AddedRecently perspective. -
Allow to switch between recent projects/perspectives easily. To be able to seriously multi-task between two or three of them when situation demands.
Maybe with windows, tabs or, again, recent projects history–it’s not clear for me yet. -
Much easier than 1. and 2., allow to Paste an action for project perspectives which are merely a subsets of projects (I.e. no other action filters set than what can be set for a single project)
Currently I have an active-projects perspective which is fine in everything except every time I need to add an item to the current section of a project, I: (1) scroll up to the project title, (2) long-tap to Go To Project, (3) scroll down back to the place I wanted to add something (typically via Copy-Pasting a nearest empty action. In half cases I forget what I was going to add by the time I complete the exercise. -
When converting an action into a project, don’t automatically switch to that new project–even if it was not in Inbox. Make OF ask as it does for items originating from Inbox, and most of the time I need to stay in the original project to organize it further. And even when I need to switch for a while to a new project, I need to get back to the original one, as in 5.
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Allow to drag-n-drop projects between folders
Essential for weekly re-organization of priorities like what’s described in this blog post (I use Weekly and Monthly horizons instead of only Weekly).
Currently it’s many levels dive-down to a project in eg Monthly, then Move Inside Another Folder, then Move the project in Project sidebar to its right place according to its priority on this week, than many levels go-up to root, and then again many levels go-down for a next monthly project to possibly move to a weekly focus. Overall, tremendous effort which stops me every time from iPad-side re-organizing for a new week–and forces me to go to Mac.
ADDED LATER:
9. When I complete or delete an item deep in the middle of a long project, the scroll bar “resets” to the top of the project. Minor bug, but annoys a lot.
10. Not actually directly on organization, but quite relevant:
10.1. Ability to zoom into an action group, so I can focus on organizing a specific piece of a project without being distracted by its other parts.
10.2. Ability to collapse an action group–really essential when I have large part of a project which is not immediately relevant at a current moment, but not actually on hold in any sense. Primary purpose of such collapse is to have an easier overview of a project–but also to easier move items around it.
11. Allow text-searching for a project name from any action list which works as efficiently as the project selector in action editing. Unlike current global search box, allow searching only for projects. Essential to quickly select a project you need to work on for a while, either organizing, adding new or ticking off complete items.
Disclaimers:
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I don’t review projects too often–the system works for me without it (at least, on Mac. For iPad, the above issues is too much for me)
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in many projects I pre-plan many steps forward, just in order to not forget something–and to frequently review which of the following is best as the next step. Projects are complex for the blank-paper definition of the every next steps, but who has simple projects? Hence new items never should be placed to the bottom of their projects.
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I often put on hold groups of earlier actions–which keeps them as Remaining, but results in the new items should be added right after them (or, often, in the middle of pre-planned earlier).
