In my previous role, I was a strong advocate for Multiple tags per Action. The irony is that in my new role I need them far less.
The waiting tag is the most obvious example. Actions can be assigned to a person, but also to a waiting tag, this means that if you’re looking at either, you’ll see the action.
Another way I would use it would be to tag an Action with the person’s name I need to speak to about it, but also the sites they are based at, and any meetings I’m likely to be in with them. then it’s a single lookup to see if there are any actions I can talk to people about whilst on site or at that meeting.
If people don’t want multiple Tags, I’m sure that they can use them as they do now, but for those with complicated relationships or organisations this gives them more flexibility to stretch GTD for the 21st century rather than how it was conceived in the 20th.
Quite. Back on the old forum days, pre OF 2 (blinks away a small nostalgic tear) there was much debate (some of it rather hostile) about the moral failure implied in wanting multiple tags (because, you know, GTD). The fact is that you can stick with one take per item if you want but there are people whose working needs include the ability to attach several tags
Tags only - (I’m for multiple tags, if someone wants ‘pure’ GTD, they’re welcome to only use one tag).
Tags and contexts (internally in the omnifocus engine ‘contexts’ can be special type tags).
otherwise I will have to classify tags as context tags and other tags, just a hassle, and a bother.
You might be right, but I think we should wait and see what Omni have in mind. I doubt they’re in a place where they can change their design, if it’s due in 1Q18.
That’s setting aside any disagreement about the suggestion - that would be a separate discussion
I LOVED Things 3. I cannot tell you how much I loved the crips design. I even made a love video about it on YouTube where I gushed over how I could check tasks, change defer dates, due dates, and more, with ONE HAND while drinking coffee!!! So smooth and beautiful and elegant.
BUT!
I am a Platoon Sergeant, a Training Coordinator, and do a variety of other things. When I opened my Things to see emails I needed to do, I had 54 emails. When I opened up OmniFocus, I had 5. The difference was that I have a LOT of emails that go out AFTER an event (linear projects). Such as, receive payment then email X, or, so on.
If Things 3 had linear projects I would stay with it. The friction in changing dates in OF on OS and iOS kills me. After having the joy of Things, it hurts to use OF. And did I mention search in Things? You can’t get more simpler and easier than it is on iOS.
I can’t wait to see what OF does with OF3. I hope they’re going down to the marrow of the program and keep what has made OF the best (ability to focus my chaos into pinpoint needs) but learns from the vision of other programs.
At work, my team has started using Wrike which, as part of its architecture, treats Folders and Projects as tags. At first, this was really weird, but then I got used to it, and now I really like it, and might try this with OmniFocus.
In other words, as opposed to a hierarchical relationship from Folder -> Project -> Task, there is really just Task, and then organized by tags. In this way, a task can easily belong to multiple things for cross-referencing and organization through search and filtered views.
Key use case is that we work agile, so we plan backlogs of tasks in project tags, then make a new tag on a per-sprint basis, adding tasks to that sprint tag in sprint planning (while leaving them still tagged to the projects they “belong to”), enabling us to see our sprint tasks collectively.
Could be interesting! I definitely agree, though, on the judicious use of such tags to avoid tag-o-mania.
I’m totally surprised to see that there are people who are against the multiple contexts. I follow GTD philosophies for the most part. So, maybe I have some learning to do and you can help (please). Or, maybe, like me a few months back, it’s going to take you a little while to get used to the idea of this less linear (but very helpful) way of organizing.
In OF, I use contexts for knowing when/where/etc to focus on certain tasks. For example, I have the “home” context. I know that I can open that list when I’m at home and see things I need to get done while there when I’m home. However, there are very different contexts within home. Right now, I’ll start lining those up as home:computer, home:garage, home:cleaning, home:Jessica, etc… Sometimes, to complicate things further, this is home:computer and home:Jessica. To give this a base, let’s say I do computer work together with Jessica at home and this is a focus area. Anyways, you get the idea, I’m having to do all this organization by creating “perspectives”, which is not horrible. However, you must be able to see how having multiple contexts would make this easier. Or, I’m happy to listen and get schooled on what I’m missing.
What you’re missing is that tags may be new to OF, but they’re not new to software in general. Many people have experience trying to set up some elaborate tagging scheme in other software and have found it leads to an unmaintainable useless mess that doesn’t justify the effort one has to put into it. Of course, other people also have more positive experiences of tagging, and good luck to them, but the point is that this subject has a long history, and those in the anti-tagging camp are usually not merely guessing about the merits of tags.
More generally, with this:
you aren’t considering the alternative, which is simply, “you don’t have to do all this organization”. A lot of posts seem to make an implicit assumption that if only there was this option, or that tweak, or some feature, that would enable them to more easily maintain a more complex organizational structure then staying on top of their tasks would become a lot easier. But it’s possible to maintain a serious and substantial position that it wouldn’t, and that this constant search for features is actually just a symptom arising from a failure to actually engage in one’s world, and to endlessly fiddle with one’s software as a more attractive option.
People can, of course, organize their lists however they like, but whether you agree with the position or not, there is a strong and not unreasonable position out there that this is a bad thing, not a good thing, and that starting to go down this road may not be a positive development. Some people are fond of saying that such things are just options, and that you don’t have to use it, but if you look at the history on these forums of similar “options” such as inbox in the projects list, and deferred tasks in the forecast view, then you can see that once an option appears, it rarely stops there, and there often starts to be clamoring around redesigning the whole app around what started as a simple optional workaround that those opposed to it were told they had no reason to be concerned about.
Don’t be. People work in different ways, so some people just don’t see a need.
Where you might be a little frustrated (but not surprised, human nature being what it is) is people saying “I don’t need multiple contexts therefore nobody does and therefore they shouldn’t be available”. But that’s another story
Thank you for taking the time to write back a very thoughtful and helpful answer. I see your (and alike thinkers) point a lot better now. I certainly do sympathize with being careful not to overload a product with features. I do love simple design. I also will further question myself about the ups and downs of this feature. Having said that, there are some examples out there where they had beautiful simple software or other technology products where people practically begged for an additional feature. And, when the designers finally included it in design, it did make the product better for most people. Being a product manager myself I totally understand (especially with you reminding) that simplicity is to be defended fiercely at times. Having said that, while I’ll keep an open mind, I guess for right now I’m still thinking that I would like a life tasks focusing system (hopefully OF) that can handle more then one context parameter to help me focus. Your answer did make me feel a little better about not to have this feature though, I’ll just use my mind as a filter for what items in certain contexts are in my focus, thinking, in return, I have a simpler to use software. I’ll trust the guys at Omni, as they’ve been doing a good job for years, that they’ll really weigh this well and see if it’s important enough to have it included in the product.
Indeed. I’ve always wanted tags in Omnifocus, but in addition to, not instead of contexts…
I like the GTD way of doing things for the most part, but in all other apps i use tags to assign, for example, certain resources to a task, or topics to an article I’m writing.
They are not the same as contexts in many cases and often used in parallel.
I’m definitely in the camp of having multiple contexts will make life harder to manage not easier. I am not a tagger by nature either. I’ve tried tags and unless you use a carefully controlled vocabulary tags quickly become totally unwieldy. I cannot even fathom trying to keep multiple context clean and current with my volume of projects and actions that have several very different roles or AOFs.
The only place for complex tagging schemes I can see is something that has a predefined and carefully controlled vocabulary for all tags and where the software enforces use of exactly the proper tag. Simple things like singular or plural in how you enter the tags can cause headaches later when you try to actually use them. That’s why for major projects like tagging historical photos there is a defined hierarchy of tags and children tags and everyone uses the same vocabulary.
Trying to adapt that sort of structure to projects and task, especially when they are generally so fluid, seem counterproductive. How much time do you want to spend entering in any given action item vs actually getting stuff done?
The problem is how do you enter in that level of data for every item?
I’ve got over 200 active projects and over 300 available actions. There is no way to keep all that stuff straight and current and updated with such a complex system of tags & contexts. Entering in a new project or action would be come totally unwieldy. I see absolutely no benefits only downsides. To me your system looks like you are setting yourself up for disaster when things get busy and you can’t keep up with the maintenance such a complex system requires.
Have you tried to manage a similar system when you are dealing with a death in the family, or when you are handling a life threatening illness or when some other really huge significant area of focus shows up that requires you to change your entire array of projects at a moments notice while still making sure you get the critical ones done?
That happens frequently enough in my world that I know I have to keep my system clean and lean because the volume of stuff is huge.
Also I use OF for my entire life, not just work and I strictly follow the rule of a project is anything that takes 2 or more actions to complete. In a typical week I’ll complete something like 60 projects. In a really productive week I can close out over 100 in a bad week maybe only 20.
I was trying to think of how other apps do multiple tags. In my personal setup, I can’t do energy contexts. Or high brain, medium brain, or low brain contexts. I’m still thinking of single context for myself. But there is the other argument by tag supporters is that they want multiple tags. In the Omni blog post, it was stated that tags would be replacing contexts. I’m still trying to figure out how this would work in OmniFocus 3.
In MacOS Finder, I can select multiple files and change the labels on all of them. I can remove a label or add multiple labels. I can go to the Apple Pnotos app, select multiple photos and add/remove multiple keywords. The trick is to use as few keywords or tags as needed and not to overbloat it which is too easy to do when using a tag system.
I’m a supporter of the fewer tags model but there will be others who want multiple tags.
I agree that it becomes cumbersome under the weight of multiple tags. That’s why I was curious enough to theorize how this would happen. I wanted to answer the question about how to differentiate a context (location or tool) vs some other type tag.
Those who don’t want tags, don’t use them. Use a single context (or tag) as you always have. Those who are in favor of the new tags feature, use them and use as little or as many as you like. No one loses out by the OmniGroup adding this feature. It just expands the capabilities of OmniFocus for those requesting it. They aren’t taking away features here, just building upon them.
Getting into philosophic debates about GTD is pointless because not everyone uses GTD. Some people might only practice certain aspects of GTD while others practice none at all. The Omnigroup has the challenging task of trying to cater to many different workflows and task management styles. Adding tags is one of the ways they are overcoming this challenge. So if you’re not a fan of tags, don’t use tags…
I agree, and if I’m reading Ken’s posts correctly, nothing will really change for us single-context users. We will just assign the single context/tag like we always did.
Other users will attach several tags and that’s just fine.
In my opinion, there are a select few cases where I would assign a double context or tag. But I will be sticking to one context per task as much as I can. I really think OF’s context “limitation” is one of its greatest strengths. Forcing you to assign a single context and make that decision up front is actually much more efficient.
Agree. Some of us want them. GTD is good but it is not the only system out there. Multiple contexts / tags would help. Don’t want them? Don’t use them.
