In OmniFocus 1, a deferred project would be greyed out and distinguished with a little clock (ie: distinct from ‘active’ (sequential/parallel/single-action icon) and ‘on hold’ (pause icon) projects). In OmniFocus 2, (r207818), there is no distinction between ‘active’ and ‘deferred’.
This distinction is useful for projects like quarterly reports. They start every quarter, but I can’t start them until the end of this quarter, so I defer them.
Has this distinction gone away on purpose?
I’m not sure, but I work around it by selecting “available” in the view instead of “remaining” on projects, and then deferred projects go away. But so do deferred tasks :-/
The disappearance of the little clock symbol (from OF 1) for deferred projects is extremely frustrating. In OF 2, it is impossible to scan the list of projects in the sidebar to see which ones have been deferred. I’m not sure whether this is a bug report or a feature request, but I will send an email to ofpreview@omnigroup.com.
CatOne’s suggested work-around might be useful for some users, but I would not want deferred tasks to go away.
Without a symbol for deferred projects, I will have less trust in my system and I will waste time on two kinds of problems. First, if I have a one-time project that I defer until August 1, that project will appear in the sidebar in the same way as projects that I currently am working on. When I make a decision to defer a project, I want to “set it and forget it” until the later date. If I opt to put that project “on hold” to visibly distinguish it on the list, then I will need to remember (when) to reactivate it. Second, if I have a repeating project that I set to “mark as complete when completing last action,” then I will never be able to tell from the sidebar that the project has been completed and therefore is deferred until the next time it repeats.
The little clock for deferred projects is reassuring and it helps promote clarity when I scan my project list. The absence of that symbol dampens my enthusiasm for OF2.
This single issue is keeping me using OF1. It is absurd that I can’t differentiate active and deferred projects by scanning through the list, both in the sidebar list and in the main window. PLEASE consider this a feature request plea! This functionality needs to be restored to OF2. It’s quite frustrating.
