One continual source of frustration with OF is that it often does not show the context I need for each item. For example, in the Flagged and Tags perspective, I would like to see the parent item of children. As it is, children are essentially disembodied. You can see the top level and the tags, but not the parents. Thus, for a project like this:
Plan Vacation
Book air travel
Luxembourg
Home
Book hotel
Delft, Netherlands
Arrange for pet sitter
Ask Molly
call to confirm
You end up with things like:
Luxembourg (Plan Vacation)
Home (Plan Vacation)
call to confirm (Plan Vacation)
Whereâs the context? Why are parents treated like second-class citizens, with only children shown? I understand the GTD emphasis on Next Available Actions, but itâs the parents (and parents of parents) that are the goals of the children (tasks).
Compare this to Things, which goes the opposite direction, showing the parents (goals) and only when you drill into it do you see the children (tasks). This also has some limitations, at least in their implementation, where you canât have deeply nested projects, but honestly, Iâve been contemplating switching based on this difference alone, as OFâs parent-hiding is just not compatible with how I think of my projects.
This falls in place with the general state of the iOS app sadly. Iâve said it in another thread:
Too often there is redundant text in the wrong places (e.g. inspector) while it is missing in others as in your example. I definitely share your gripes. The workaround (to add more details to the action) is just not always feasible and it should not be necessary with good app design.
For me these glaring UI/UX issues should be more important than expanding to a web version, etc.
I have tried to make it a habit to name my task so that it can be understood without drilling into it for more info.
Use this:
Pick up cake for Motherâs Day party
Instead of this:
Pick up cake
I title the task so that my 3rd grade daughter can figure it out. If she canât figure out by looking at the task title then I known I didnât write it as well as I need to.
I get what you are saying but if your action group was named âPrepare Motherâs Day partyâ and you had several sub-actions, why should it be necessary to append all this redundant bloat text to every action in the action group?
âŚbut you havenât told us what project that action group would be part of.
Something which is a clear independent goal/outcome should usually be made a project in OF. âPrepare Motherâs Day partyâ sounds like it should be a project, or simply âMotherâs Day partyâ.
I agree with @wilsonng that an action should be sufficiently descriptive to stand on its own, in combination with its project name and tags. This way, itâs clear what it is in whatever perspective it appears (especially those that slice by tags). Action groups are great for representing sequential and parallel execution of complex tasks, but I donât recommend relying on them for providing meaning for the actions to perform.
In your example, this with a [tag] would be clear:
Order flowers [online] â Motherâs Day party
In @jdm âs original example, âPlan Vacationâ is a good project so, yes, some action names will need to be longer eg:
Book plane ticket to Luxembourg â Plan Vacation
Call Molly to confirm pet sitting â Plan Vacation.
If tags are used to better structure tasks, that last action could become:
Confirm pet sitting [Phone] [Molly] â Plan Vacation
which is concise to input, clear in all perspectives, and nothing associated with Molly will fall through the cracks.
Using the same âPlan vacationâ example, the action âbook plane ticket to Luxembourgâ could require more steps e.g.
compare airline prices
check for frequent flyer deals
ask significant other about seat preferences
How would you suggest handling these?
It makes sense to indent these as an action group because they are part of an action which is more extensive, yet not extensive enough to justify an own project. The action group also presents a helpful visual and contextual cue (provided it can be seen by the user).
And creating a project to book the plane ticket to Luxembourg next to the project to plan the vacation is much of an overkill IMHO and again looses the context (of the trip planning).
While using more tags may shorten the action name, bloating every action with multiple tags such as âPhoneâ does not make sense for me personally, because I want to keep my workflow lean.
I would like the tools (software) to adapt to me and my workflow and not the other way around with me having to fiddle in 5+ action properties when it could be easily fixed otherwise. This is just not productive if it has to be done for every sub-level action.
Omnifocusâ customisability is praised in many ways regarding many aspects, yet seems to miss essential options and lacks general consistency (e.g. filters across custom vs. built-in perspectives) as well as IMHO conceptual consistency e.g. missing context as seen here.
The action title needs to be just enough for you to recall what it is when seen in isolation. So I might use âCompare Luxembourg ticket pricesâ and âCheck for frequent flyer deals to Luxembourgâ. This is enough as a mental trigger, especially when the project name âPlan vacationâ is displayed alongside (an option in both Mac and iOS views). I already have in mind that Iâm planning on taking the plane to Luxembourg as part of my vacation. The action âAsk significant other about plane seat preferencesâ is probably enough on its own. For tasks that are less âtop of mindâ, you might need to describe them more at length.
When you do in-depth review and planning of your system, you look at the Project view, or perspectives that return âEntire Projectsâ, and you see the full structure of your projects and action groups. When you see an isolated action in the Tags/Flagged/Forecast views, or perspectives that return âIndividual Actionsâ, you always have the option of switching to that action in the context of its project (âShow in Projectsâ command on Mac, âGo Toâ icon in the Inspector on iOS), in those rare cases where you donât remember what an action is referring to.
