Non actionable items

OmniFocus
#1

For me Omnifocus would become the killer app if it would allow non-actionable items in projects - similar to tasks, but lets say dummy tasks for storing info.

Those are not really for keeping project reference, but to keep things that are not actionable yet or you need to be reminded on when planning actionable items. If that’s not within the philosophy, then severely improve the note editor.

That and on the mac I would like to see really easy navigation and editing of the whole omnifocus file as a big outline (lets say in project view), right now it still feels clunky and often have resort to using a pointing device.

For a bit of context, I’ve fell off the Omnifocus bandwagon for 6 months and have been using emacs’ org-mode, and I can see how those two very basic features would make Omnifocus a bit more useful (I could also add the “scheduled date” functionality to the list but I won’t). I still appreciate of Omnifocus the integration, scriptability, mail drop, and easy email triage eg. with Airmail - but on the basic tasks I always feel I’m slowed down by the interface.

#2

Just curious: Is anything stopping you from using regular tasks as dummy tasks for storing info right now? If they are meant to be actionable later on, you could use defer dates for that. Or is there a different functionality you are looking for?

Also: Isn’t the whole Omnifocus file a big outline already if you select all projects in the Projects perspective (with or without ”Show folders in outline” chosen in the view options)? Or am I missing something?

2 Likes
#3

That would be my suggestion too. If they will be actionable at a later date, defer them to that date. If not, defer them to 1/1/29 (or 1/1/2099, but for that, you have to type the full year; otherwise OF assumes 1/1/99 is 1999).

#4

I do this already. I have a tag “info” that is On Hold, so anything tagged with it appears in the project, but not in any perspective of active things.

1 Like
#5

I’ll try that - I had in the past - I will have to play with visibility/show to make it work, which is the same issue that using deferred dates has (first available/available/remaining etc…) - that visibility/show incidentally has no keyboard shortcut for switching and the eye icon is confusing because it has two states for four options.

One good keyboard shortcut for outline like editing would be one to create new items which are the same of the currently selected item, if you’re on a folder it will create a folder, if you are on a project it will create a new project and if you are on a task… well you guess - it creates a new task. That would make working with Omnifocus more like working in an outline - because Omnifocus looks like an outline but not all nodes are created equal - so it behaves really like an outliner only below the project level.

Anyway I’ll stop complaining :)

#6

ok stopped complaining, here’s my tiny contribution of a script to insert an “info” task.

var win = document.windows[0]
var tasks = win.selection.tasks
var tagName = “info”
var tag = flattenedTags.byName(tagName) || new Tag(tagName)
if (tasks.length === 1){
var task = new Task("INFO: ", tasks[0].after)
task.addTag(tag)
}

#7

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