Multiple Contexts per Task [now in TestFlight]

Given the number of features already removed from the tool, and given that people have been asking for this for years, I’m not sure that argument is valid. Yes, all development is a trade off. But it seems like this particular one would have been easy to solve with the 2.0 upgrade, and would make the Pro upgrade fee more palatable. Instead we’re paying more to keep features we already had, and clearly lost features that were valuable to many of us.

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but they added features that weren’t found on the Mac version of OF. They added a more refined Review UI. OF1’s review did not distinguish itself from any other perspective. Now, we have a clear sign that we are in Review mode. We finally also have the Forecast mode that was only available in the iPad version. And we’ve also gotten a more accessible way to add/remove perspectives.

I think the number one feature that everyone seemed to complain about OF1 was the interface was outdated and confusing. That’s what was worked on first. After that, we’ll probably see the other features that were asked for. Everything comes in stages.

No particular problem can be solved “easily.” You can always get the Standard edition first and upgrade to the Pro version later. Isn’t that “palatable” enough?

Given how many posts are on this, the poor interface flexibility, data density, color scheme, etc. obviously it’s not. I personally don’t find the forecast all that useful compared to even the iPad model, I don’t see any difference in operation of perspectives. These are nice to have, but I’d trade every feature you listed for a multi-context setup in value of my day to day operation.

Some of us are trying to help make this tool better, because there are a lot of things that don’t seem to have been considered. If you want to apologize for the products shortfalls go ahead, I’m not sure what value that adds…

Just a quick factual point that it’s not that multiple contexts or tagging “haven’t been considered.” There’s ample evidence from a thread on their considerations on the topic that they have given and continue to give a lot of thought to the issue.

Also, I don’t think that anyone on the forum is trying to “apologize.” The only thing I see is people volunteering their time to give ideas that have been helpful to them and may be helpful to others.

I get the reasons why people feel frustrated. But it is also really frustrating to take the time to respond to what seem to be requests for help or ideas to have those ideas be dismissed very brusquely.

That cuts both ways in this thread. I do think when you’re telling someone “oh you have all this so you don’t need that other thing”, that’s being an apologist. Telling me I should be happy I have things I don’t really care about while losing things I do care about, and not getting things we’ve been asking for in the product for years, doesn’t move anything forward. If that’s all there is to add it’s not really useful.

Well, I guess that’s a matter of opinion. For folks who never had the iPad version, having the forecast was a great addition.

I don’t think I was “apologising.” We are all working through the growing pains of a new product release. Again, if there is no value to upgrading to OF2, you don’t have to buy it. When Omnigroup finally starts changing the data structure by adding new features, you can always upgrade later. As @lucasburke said, we’re all in this forum trying to help each other out.

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I think you’ve completely missed the point of my post, so I’ll let it go at this stage as it’s only detracting from what was a conversation about a feature that’s been missing for years.

I’ve come to accept the single context as the thing “required” to do the task, but I still struggle with wanting additional information to call up in very specific situations. My solution: I created a TextExpander snippet, with a bunch of checkboxes by my “tags”, to easily add tags (using “@") into my notes field in OmniFocus. For things like “Energy Level” and alternate (but not required) situations I could do a certain task. I’ve created perspectives for those tasks, with the "@” in the search field. This is even easier to create in OF2 (Thanks!). That way, when I’m watching reruns and bonding with my grandfather, I can pop up my “Mac @tv” perspective and get some things done. The “@tv” isn’t a context, and shouldn’t be required for any of these tasks, but it’s nice to know what things I recognized during my planning did not require my full focus and whip out a nice perspective. It’s working for me so far.

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This one’s a little old, nearly 2 months old - but I agree, for what that’s worth.

While I appreciate multiple contexts, how would you ever clear tasks? It would have to be cleared in 2 workflows or projects. That’s a complication: A chance to never actually progress to completion.

It potentially detracts from completion & right now that is OF’s strength - driving toward a goal in your tasks.

Options are great.
But when you have too many options before you - it distracts & makes it possible to noodle about, never actually finishing the task.

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Awlogan: That’s an interesting scenario you present.
I don’t understand the organization in the example, however. I’ll try to explain:

I started out wanting multiple contexts too, but now I am not so sure it keeps things moving. Amityweb described how to apply NESTED multiple contexts & it makes sense.

Multiple contexts at the topmost level may dilute completion of a task.
A multiple, flat context as you seem to be asking for gives me multiple excuses to fail & only one path to success. Hierarchical contexts help me understand task organization better.

You posited "there is more than one Fred in my far flung company.”
Wouldn’t that always be a problem in any company with like-named employees, if that context was imprecise? A second context [in the example] does guarantee me THE Fred X.

You address tags well enough, not context & I fail to see where it works to make the case that multiple contexts are needed. The downfall in searching “Fred” is the impreciseness of the entry; Phone & some Fred are not equivalences.

“all people named “Fred”
Tags & contexts are not interchangeable: Tags might be nice to see in the future. I see your point about tags as incidental information, but how would you use them?: for searches.

"@ phone” is NOT a strong context choice, imo. Unless the phone is the primary agent or resource to get thing a task done. Reaching outside your normal environment & making a call to a faceless entity - @ phone becomes essentially the same as whomever you reach at a call center.

“DIFFERENT SORT OF COGS”
Your primary agent of change is the specific Fred in your microcosm/environment/organizational bubble & @ phone is subordinate to the class Fred X in normal operation. (I can talk to my phone all I want, but its useless unless Fred is on the line).

Thus it makes more sense to nest @ phone under Fred X as Amityweb mentioned.
I don’t see that as being inflexible software, rather its assigning contexts well.

We do this all the time, in contact cards - nest the subordinate method under the actual agent.
I hope that makes sense after all my edits!

I think awlogan might reconsider if he gives it a few moments more.

There is an argument for TAGS. Those aid searches.
Multiple top level contexts - not so much.

I won’t wind on as long as I did in my other muddle of a post (tried to show my work).
Let me boil it down to a few guidelines.

  1. A lone top level context is a gating item. It gives a primary direction.

  2. Nested contexts refine the direction. Essentially, you HAVE multiple contexts downstream.

  3. @ phone is a bad choice for a primary context. It nearly always is a refinement of another dominant context.

  4. In the example FRED is essential, not the phone.

  5. The issue is not limiting anyone’s choices, its trying to stay with BEST choices vs turning the software into a mouse drawn by committee. I think a single main gate is best, after hacking through it in the previous post.

  6. There are many ways to organize & sort things. A spreadsheet or OmniOutliner, for instance. The beauty of OmniFocus it that it nudges you into creating actionable item & results.

  7. If you disagree, I’d love to hear the reasoning.

(Darn autocorrect is causing most of these edits)

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I think perhaps we’re getting a bit too hung up on the terms “tags” and “contexts”. They mean certain things to the GTD community, and seem to have a weighted significance in OF discussions. So I’d like to try tackling this without referring to “tags” or “multiple contexts”.

Here it is in a nutshell: what many of us seek is simply another way to search for information, beyond the one Project and one Context that an action is assigned to.

In awlogan’s long-ago example, he needs to talk with Fred, so he sets an action “Call Fred” and assigns it to the “Phone” context. But then he runs into Fred in the hallway, so he wants to be able to pull up the action that related to Fred. Simply searching for “Fred” will pull up all the items relating to all the many Freds in his admittedly Fred-heavy company. So he wants another way to search for Fred beyond Project, Context, and a simple search.

I too want this capability. So my way of dealing with this is that whenever I enter a name in an action, I precede it with a slash (because it doesn’t require the shift key as a hashtag does, and I’m lazy), and if there’s more than one Fred, I use the last name too. So my action item would be “Call /Fred Jones”.

It is assigned to the “Phone” context. But if I run into Fred, I do a search for “/Fred Jones” and the item shows up.

I suspect that folks looking for multiple contexts or tags could adapt this approach and achieve the same functionality that they’re looking for. It may not be as elegant as Evernote’s use of tags, but it’s more specific than a simple search for “Fred”, and until OG gives us more, this works just fine for me.

I have been working with the OmniFocus products since the initial beta. At that time we engaged in a lengthy discussion on multiple contexts or tags.

Regardless of the theoretical purity of various discussions on the topic, the reality is that for any action, I can have multiple contexts that are important to me.

My scenario is perhaps different. I’m a CIO and need to manage teams, projects and customers. A recurring theme is:

Chuck (a Director) needs to solve problem X for Project 123, based on the request made to me by VP Bob (operations). Bob becomes the problem. Not only do I need to see the actions assigned to Chuck, I also need to see all of the commitments I made to Bob.

Using simple search does not work. I need to be able to prepare for a meeting with Bob, pull up all the promises to Bob and prepare to discuss the status on each of those actions or projects. I honestly don’t care if the application uses tags or multiple contexts (I would be happy to engage in a conversation around the ± for each of those approaches)

My issue is the blatant - no one needs multiple contexts or tags. Bull Dung. It’s needed. Also, implementation is not difficult either so I am not buying that argument either. Yes, it takes some thought and if the UI becomes more complex, set tags or multiple contexts as an option for advanced users.

I will run a few scenario tests to determine if the new version will meet my simple needs and if not, put version 2 on ice until it does. At least I will have made a contribution to the development process.

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Have you tried one of the other products built around tags? Have they worked better for this problem?

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@Hatter, That’s a nice try, but I’ve been waiting YEARS for this with sad hacks and work arounds that don’t match. You’re environment might be simple and not require complex interactions. That’s great for you. But don’t attempt to tell the rest of us what works or what we need. If you don’t want the feature or chose not to use it great, don’t use it. I’m also not buying yet another tool to try to do things that are easily solved by an interface and DB change.

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@rogbar tried that, with hash tags too. Autocomplete is the missing link, especially in a multi-national where some folks have hyphenated first and last names. I even tried saving searches as perspectives.

If you’ll note:
I implied that my needs may not be as robust as some other users. I am trying to discover if the need really is as pressing as you said & I’m trying to point out that tags & multiple top level contexts are not the same animal.

You are really taking this way too personally - taking offense at anyone who doesn’t hop on board to agree with you. Don’t couch that as other people telling what you need, because that’s a blatant mischaracterization!
All anyone can do, is address the example you offered to describe your need.

No one said you had to buy something else - I sure didn’t.

The point is that your example was supposed to illustrate something & didn’t accomplish what you tried to say: the conclusion did not fit the scenario & there was a better way to organize that case.

Perhaps you picked a bad example. The example was flawed as presented:
So make another case a better illustration that bolsters your need.

That’s a very good question.
Although separate from feature requests for this one.

I still think we have to understand tagging & contexts as 2 different things.

@Hatter I’m still trying to figure out why you and some others feel the need to tell us we don’t need what we feel we clearly do. You might think your example fixes my issue, it doesn’t. That’s not the workflow I’m looking for. If you don’t want to use it don’t, like I said, it won’t make it any more of a “mousetrap” than having to have the inspector open to do very basic tasks.

It isn’t like this is a new request:
http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=4534
http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=5730
http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=8246
http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=15078
http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=17016
http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=30171
http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=31511

Omni’s apology approach
http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=28176

awlogan - where do I tell you what you MUST have?
As I said: I don’t see your example as being insurmountable - that’s all I addressed.

Sorry if its not sinking in, but you misunderstand.